on that Saturday night in London<\/a>, the Dubai-based 24-year-old told the Herald he wasn\u2019t supposed to be going to the game, but after his father \u2013 who is a pilot \u2013 was called to work, he took his place and went with his uncle.<\/p>\n\u201cWe were very lucky. We had quite good tickets and walked down to the front at the end of the game when the players were walking around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Line said he had been to a few games throughout the tournament and told his family he wanted to storm the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs they were walking around, because of how many press officers there were, we thought, \u2018Okay, now I\u2019ve got a gap\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Line said he was caught almost instantly, but because of how small he was at the time, the security guard escorting him back to the stands didn\u2019t keep hold of him \u2013 so he tried again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI turn around, run back on and then yeah, get tackled by security. I was only two-months post ACL reconstruction, so that was my first worry.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy luck, I land at Sonny\u2019s feet after the tackle and he picks me up … and gives me his medal, incredibly generously.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Charlie]()
Charlie Line, now 24, with Sonny Bill Williams’ 2015 Rugby World Cup winner’s medal a decade after the All Blacks’ 34-17 win over Australia.<\/p>\n
He said the security went from saying they would arrest him to giving him protection when walking out of Twickenham Stadium over fears other fans would snatch the much-desired bit of gold.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re walking out and people are just throwing five-figure numbers at us \u2013 \u00a320,000, \u00a330,000 for the medal \u2013 and I obviously had no intention of selling it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The following morning, Line made contact with Williams through a friend of a friend to thank him and offer the medal back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know he already had one in 2011, but Sonny\u2019s worked his whole life for this medal. We thought, \u2018Okay, we\u2019ve got to give it back. He might regret that he doesn\u2019t have it; he\u2019s got young kids\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, Williams doubled down on the offer, saying it meant more to the young fan and that he had the memories of winning the final \u2013 and proceeded to invite him to the team\u2019s hotel to meet again.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a 14-year-old diehard sports fan, it was just crazy, and those were the couple days I wasn\u2019t allowed back to school because there were too many press … It was a whirlwind couple of weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
A decade on, Line says he\u2019s not only remained in close contact with Williams, but the pair have stayed together on various trips around the world \u2013 including the 24-year-old\u2019s family home in Dubai and Williams\u2019 home during the 2017 British & Irish Lions tour of New Zealand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe stay really close. Whatever people say, he\u2019s the nicest man in the world … He cares about his family, about his religion and helping other people.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says Williams\u2019 children even refer to him as \u201cuncle\u201d now.<\/p>\n
![\"A]()
A decade on, two-time World Cup winner Sonny Bill Williams (left) and Charlie Line have remained in close contact and stayed together on various trips around the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy parents, when I was a bit younger, loved me being around him because he\u2019s such a good influence.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s reminded of that night weekly for a couple of reasons. First, he said, because a video of the moment resurfaces every few days on social media, and again every time he looks at the medal in his home \u2013 which he had framed for protection.<\/p>\n
But Line says he and Williams plan to put the medal up for auction and donate the proceeds to charity \u2013 revealing his dream would be to do it at the 2027 Rugby World Cup.<\/p>\n
The charity the pair are closest with is called Bhubesi Pride Foundation (BPF), based in Malawi, which empowers disadvantaged children in Africa through sport, education and leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey built a community centre with a big rugby pitch that brings kids aged 6 to 18 in. They play a couple of hours of rugby a day where they learn obviously all the values of rugby and sport, but then afterwards, girls and boys get a class on how to make reusable sanitary pads, how to start a business, sexual-health reproductive rights and then they\u2019ll get a meal,\u201d Line said.<\/p>\n
About 200 children visit the centre a day, with some walking up to 15km to go and play rugby and learn.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs amazing as the medal is, as much as people love seeing it, if I can get some money for it that goes to helping a thousand kids in Malawai or wherever it is … that would be the perfect next step, we feel.<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The historic medal is set to be auctioned off in future, with all proceeds going to charity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s come from it [the medal] is much more. It\u2019s the friendship, the relationship I have with him, with his family, with everyone he\u2019s close to. I\u2019ll always have the memories of the medal and every time Sonny and I see each other, we\u2019ll laugh about the medal.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for that night a decade ago, Line says he\u2019ll always remember it as \u201cone of the best nights of my life\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt completely changed my life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll always be able to tell the story of the night to my grandkids, but to say how much he\u2019s changed my life since then and being able to go to his kids\u2019 sports days and go watch him in a boxing fight and travel around to places I didn\u2019t think I\u2019d ever see with him is an incredible thing that no one would have foreseen on the 31st of October, 2015.\u201d<\/p>\n
Benjamin Plummer<\/a> is an Auckland-based reporter for the New Zealand Herald who covers sport and breaking news. He has worked for the Herald since 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now, the historic medal is set to be auctioned off. All Blacks midfielder Sonny Bill Williams gave his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[146677,9490,3265,64,2728,63,13884,9658,146678,23698,146680,3933,9031,5587,146679,8117,28544,16496,760,28331,107257,85,8824,119585,17711,146676,22810,1928,319,112937,8281,3853,819,8935,1720],"class_list":["post-246974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-146677","tag-after","tag-all","tag-au","tag-auction","tag-australia","tag-bill","tag-blacks","tag-boldly","tag-charlie","tag-consecutive","tag-cup","tag-field","tag-from","tag-jumped","tag-just","tag-line","tag-medal","tag-rugby","tag-second","tag-sonny","tag-sports","tag-stadium","tag-stands","tag-storm","tag-stormed","tag-teen","tag-their","tag-to","tag-twickenham","tag-when","tag-who","tag-williams","tag-win","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}