Mike Sayers

Herbert James Michael Sayers (1 May 1911 — 6 December 1943) was an Irish international rugby union player.^[1]

Mike Sayers

Full name	Herbert James Michael Sayers
Date of birth	(1911-05-01)1 May 1911
Place of birth	Madras, India
Date of death	6 December 1943(1943-12-06) (aged 32)
Place of death	Ampthill, England
School	Stonyhurst College
Rugby union career
Position(s) Wing-forward International career Years Team Apps (Points) 1935–39 Ireland 10 (3)

Born in Madras, Sayers was the only child of India-based civil servant Sir Frederick Sayers. He picked up rugby union as a schoolboy at Stonyhurst College in England and went on to attend Sandhurst.^[2]

Sayers married the daughter of Woolworth chairman W. L. Stephenson, owner of the yacht Velsheda.^[3]

A loose forward, Sayers played for Aldershot Services, the Army, Lansdowne, Richmond and Rosslyn Park. He represented Ireland during the late 1930s, debuting in their championship-winning 1935 Home Nations campaign as a wing-forward, a position he played exclusively aside from one match as a stand in wing three-quarter.^[4]

Sayers was an army major, attached to the Canadian Artillery regiment during World War II, and died on active service as the passenger in a plane that crashed in Buckinghamshire on 6 December 1943, at the age of 32.^[5]

See also

• List of Ireland national rugby union players