One minute he's watching from the sideline in New Ross as a young Bobby Rackard hurls Christy Ring . . . interesting how no prolonged conversation about the Wexford team of the 1950s can take place without reference to Ring . . .out of it in a National League game. Next minute it's a few years later and he's listening to Bobby talking about the trickiness of Roscrea's Mick Ryan, a centre-forward who instead of standing shoulder to shoulder with his man prefers to peel off and thereby set up all sorts of damage. Now it's Billy himself playing the 1960 Leinster final, his most shining hour, all over again. Now he's the Sports Star of the Year, feted not at a glittering function but toasted by Micheal O Hehir, who drives down from Dublin, brings Billy into a pub in Wexford and buys him a bottle of stout.

In the week that a book on the life of his brother Nicky was finally published, it shouldn't be forgotten that much of the story had already been written by Billy, whose memoir No Hurling at the Dairy Door is as much a marvellous slice of social history as it is a hurling book. It is no reflection on Tom Williams, the author of Cuchulainn's Son, to assert that the very notion of a biography of Nicky evoked mixed feelings among the Rackard family. If Williams has pulled the occasional punch here and there, they won't be unhappy.

The Rackards were, according to Billy, quietly hoping that Williams wouldn't tell everything. What family wouldn't be?

"Nicky was living a very high life, causing a lot of pain to his family. But when he was dying . . . and he knew he was dying . . . he did some heroic things, especially when it came to helping people. He was instrumental in bringing a lot of success to Alcoholics Anonymous. He had turned his life around. I always felt that life to Nicky was symbolic of his hurling methods.

Given the opportunity of a point, he'd scorn it for the bigger fish, for the goal. His life was very much like that. He scored a lot of human goals."

Most of the non-human goals he scored, those bolts of Thor from close-range frees, arrived in the autumn of his playing days after he moved from his career position of midfield. Simultaneously, Wexford hurling spun on its axis. Nicky, says Billy, went to full-forward "and he brought authority with him, he brought scores with him and eventually he found himself surrounded by better players than he had been in the early part of his career. And the whole thing changed."

Not before the 1954 All Ireland final slipped through Wexford's fingers, though.

Ever since, Billy has argued the toss on the pros and cons of his brother Bobby's move to full-back after Nick O'Donnell went off with a broken collarbone. Forget all that and concentrate instead on the bottom line, he urges. Cork 19 Wexford 1-6.

"Imagine you're told beforehand that you're only going to concede 1-9. You'd imagine you'd trot up, wouldn't you?

The blame was left with the backs, particularly myself. But really, the blame should have been left with the forwards, including Nicky. I mean, 1-6 isn't a winning score. And the management on the day were incredible. They never thought of making a change in the forward line when nothing was happening there."

Billy endured his own Gethsemane, beaten to the pull by Johnny Clifford five minutes from time for the game's decisive goal. "I can see it all the rest of my days. The ball came out of nowhere. He was in the right position and he first-timed it. That was it.

That was the winning and losing of the match." When the Wexford players arrived home, beaten but unbowed, Billy Rackard refused to go up on the platform. He'd only stand on the platform, he vowed, when Wexford won the All Ireland.

Twelve months later he was on the platform.