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Jason Leonard: The Autobiography
Jason Leonard
Alison Kervin
Leonard’s story starts as rugby started – in the amateur days, when the Cockney Carpenter began playing for Barking and Saracens in the days before multi-million pound business owners and sponsorship deals. His big break came when he was invited to join the England squad for their tour to Argentina in 1990 and has been capped 100 times.It was a tour that precipitated one of the greatest periods in the history of the British game, and Leonard provides a compelling insight into life behind the international scenes with England and the Lions, as well as the domestic game through his time at Saracens and Harlequins.Once told that he would never walk again after undergoing life-saving surgery on his neck, Leonard describes the torment he went through during this period – both physical and financial – and how he fought against all the odds to re-establish himself on the international stage. With 100 Test caps won to date, and a career in rugby union spanning two decades, there is no more experienced player in the modern game.Leonard has plenty to tell about the people he has met during his career – Rob Andrew, Will Carling, Lawrence Dallaglio, Brian Moore, Dick Best and Clive Woodward all feature – and with nicknames like 'The Fun Bus' and 'The Scourge of the Barking Barmaids' the stories are as colourful and controversial as the man himself.All is revealed in this fascinating portrait of an English rugby legend.
JASON LEONARD
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
With Alison Kervin
Dedication (#ulink_50b2cbb9-b432-503d-81cb-ce7bbe90fff0)
To Sandra, Francesca, Harry and jack, with love.
Contents
Cover (#u743b6597-3990-59b9-86aa-1e1f10f38e1d)
Title Page (#ud8032267-6954-532e-9422-4048fac25c3f)
Introduction – What a Year! (#ulink_d0168e5b-af0a-5feb-a4ac-dce644d60a0e)
1 Barking Beckons (#ulink_752b536f-3995-5904-8306-88cfaebc6f1f)
2 A Step Up (#ulink_9d2f532e-011c-5b61-b5be-c735db210d1f)
3 Brothels, Bath Taps and Bottles (#ulink_6ba4aa2f-993f-56a0-a9c6-e73c91459501)
4 Moving West and Meeting Best (#ulink_9739903f-d5c2-590e-b3fe-ad2f9e9a62f7)
5 All Aboard the Fun Bus (#ulink_e186e067-de9b-58d9-869e-68ae72bb3d90)
6 The Greatest Year (#ulink_0701dc13-53c2-5a7e-a0a9-0e2404f4e0fa)
7 The Immoveable Game Plan (#ulink_95b624b0-019d-5ff6-a86f-1e0553361b97)
8 A Pain in the Neck (#ulink_0751406f-c198-55ee-bf80-7e9479e47901)
9 The End of a Golden Era (#ulink_c8b380dc-e310-5696-a897-23cb52217d30)
10 A Pride of Lions (#ulink_b0b82a2d-fb9b-5376-9376-729d6cd9ca76)
11 Hello, Mr Lomu (#ulink_8fce2049-baae-5f48-a73b-f3022dd3afe7)
12 Professionalism? It’ll Never Last (#ulink_60818877-e527-5603-acae-991a27fb433b)
13 Captain Leonard (#ulink_c1677ceb-1e5c-5e76-94de-efa7453cc25f)
14 Lions Roar (#ulink_73839dbb-c464-5244-9e37-f7f7d0be752e)
15 England Move Forward (#ulink_939b3758-8bb7-5e22-9637-93a876fe2779)
16 Gifts from God (#ulink_306639b4-38cf-5e0a-9ce3-2301482c5f49)
17 Lions in Australia (#ulink_3a4621cd-2ee0-5aa7-855f-177e7c676369)
18 The Triple Grand Slam … Not! (#ulink_0787bad2-965f-5e03-a6da-ded92ecf17f2)
19 Jason Leonard MBE (More Beer ‘Ere) (#ulink_6d93772e-0986-5cdf-a922-66d416bf3736)
20 The World Cup (#ulink_8434fa0c-87fc-5248-aa26-239a214442bc)
Jason Leonard: Career Statistics (#ulink_76928434-7a19-5164-8bad-0c279dbb0780)
Index (#ulink_fd60c7ba-44df-548f-8d69-ebfb4498e6e9)
Acknowledgements (#ulink_17f7bec5-f99f-54f6-9d71-7f0f64fa304c)
Copyright (#ulink_712537d6-b60e-58c3-887e-4c7ed6a45ee9)
About the Publisher
INTRODUCTION What a Year! (#ulink_2dcd7e5f-732e-5c8f-b66a-b4f35e143036)
I’ll never forget standing on the Sydney pitch in the pouring rain. We’d played our hearts out in the World Cup final for 80 minutes. Now we faced extra time. Johnno got us into a huddle and said, ‘don’t panic’. He told everyone to be calm and collected and just carry on doing what we were doing and we would win. He had such confidence. We all had confidence in each other and in our ability to do it.
Clive ran down the steps to talk to us. He darted onto the field and Johnno stopped him. ‘We’re OK,’ he said. ‘Everything is OK. You can go back.’ Clive looked shocked but he just backed off and let us get on with it. We’d been through a lot together as a group – we knew each other inside out. We’d been through defeats and victories, criticism and praise. We knew we were the fittest team and we knew we could rely on each other. We knew we could win.
The moment when Jonny kicked the ball that would win us the World Cup, all I remember was the sound of leather on leather. I knew it was going over. He belted it with his wrong foot, under all that pressure, yet I was certain that it was good. I looked up and saw it sail over. The crowd roared. We were the 2003 world champions.
It had been a long time in coming. By the time they hung that medal round my neck I was the most capped player in the history of the game and had competed in four World Cups and three Lions tours. I’d won four grand slams and had three kids! Winning the World Cup was the highlight of a career that has been an absolute joy. I started in 1990 and ended in 2004. Who would have guessed, when I stood on the field in Argentina for my first international cap, that it would develop the way it has. I still remember that first cap so clearly.
Even now I can picture the smoke, billowing out from the far stand as applause rippled around the stadium. I stood in the middle of the pitch and tried to stare ahead without focusing on the hatred written on the faces of those who jeered and shouted in the crowd. The strength of their emotions was palpable – as real as the smoke that drifted on the warm afternoon air. Every one of those people standing out there seemed to hate the England team with a depth that I could barely comprehend. It seemed that the players on the pitch wanted to take us apart, and those watching in the crowd, from behind huge barbed-wire fences, wanted to pick over the bones.
The year was 1990 and the place was Argentina. I was about to play in my first game for England and I had never been more scared on a rugby field. The pressures of playing in my first international game paled into insignificance beside the physical threat which appeared to be confronting me. I had never felt such intensity before, had never known such an exhibition of raw human emotion – nor have I since.
As I stood, as tall as I could, all those years ago, heaving my shoulders back and facing the angry mob, I belted out the national anthem at the top of my voice. I thought about the shirt that I was playing in, the country I was playing for and the players I was standing alongside. This was it. A most glorious moment. My first England cap. Their anger and bitterness would not prevent me from cherishing it.
All the time, the smoke continued to snake through the air, getting thicker as it billowed across the pitch. I turned towards it and, just as I thought the atmosphere couldn’t get any more hostile, a group of young Argentinians revealed the source of the fire as they held a burning flag in the air. I could hardly believe it – they had set fire to the Union Jack during the national anthem. This was now, officially, a baptism of fire.
It was a terrifying start to my career. The burning of the Union Jack signalled the commencement of the toughest, most vicious game that I have ever played in. The England rugby team was the first sports side to travel to Argentina after the Falklands War and, with the shadow of that costly encounter colouring all Argentine opinion, we were considered the enemy. Their feelings towards us ran deeper than those one would expect to experience as a sportsman. We were seen as the enemy, in every sense. We were the living embodiment of the political and military clashes that had taken place between Argentina and Britain, and the Argentinians were looking for sweet revenge.
I knew that, in that game, if I got through and emerged with credit despite the bitterness of the hostile crowd then I would earn the respect of my fellow players. I knew that if I could succeed despite the adverse conditions, then my peers would know that I deserved my place alongside them – and that is what happened. Buoyed by the fact that I was flanked by some of the toughest, bravest and most talented men ever to grace a rugby pitch, I threw myself into the match, and threw myself into the tour. I acted like a sponge – soaking up information and learning from the best in the game.
I passed the physical test in Argentina and returned from the tour very much ‘one of the boys’. From then on, I was a key member of the England squad and would stay in and around the team for over a decade, taking in three World Cups and three Lions tours.
But even now, after all the games I have played, I still think that the first game I played, in those extraordinary conditions, taught me a valuable lesson – that you have to protect your teammates and you have to trust them to be there for you. If any one of us had faltered in that match, someone would have been seriously hurt. The fact that all the players stuck together and refused to bow to the intimidation allowed us to succeed.
Over a decade later, I am playing a sport that few people would recognize from those heady days in Argentina. In 1990, we never imagined that players would one day be on lucrative playing contracts, that millionaires would sweep into the sport and embellish it with cheerleaders, loud music and big promotions. Nor did we imagine that TV contracts would be massive news stories, nor that Twickenham would become such a sleek, professionally-run organization. The magnitude and speed of the changes have been quite staggering. There have been changes too for players at the top level. When I first started playing for England it was practically obligatory to drink as much as you could the night before a game, especially for a forward – I can’t imagine how I’d have been treated if I’d sipped isotonic drinks and headed for the gym like we all do now. Back then, nutrition meant eating the biggest steak and the hottest curry you could find, and dehydration was caused by a queue at the bar, not intensive training.
Paul Rendall (known as ‘The Judge’) and Mickey Skinner (‘The Munch’) were my two guiding lights when I first started. Under Judge’s expert tutelage, I honed my drinking skills to a fine art, and I really was amongst the very best in the team. As you will read, Judge is one of the first people to make my all-time drinking XV. I hope he is flattered by this great honour – he should be very proud of himself. Under Mickey The Munch I learnt much about knocking over Frenchmen and putting in hard-hitting tackles, but I also remember him fondly as an expert at getting out of training runs.
In my time as a player, I think I’ve seen rugby union change more than it did in the previous hundred years, or will in the next hundred. But some things remain the same. Camaraderie, team spirit and thrill still exist in the sport at all levels. Nowadays we are paid to play, and this influences much about our preparation off the field,; but on the pitch the game is the same as the one I started playing as a boisterous Barking schoolboy. The fundamentals of the game remain intact, the people remain as they always were and the joy and pain that it can cause remain as acute as ever.
There have been low times, of course. I had an operation in 1992 which could have taken me out of the game forever. A surgeon had to cut a chunk of bone from my hip and insert it into my spine by going through the front of my neck. For that surgeon’s skills, I am eternally grateful. I had recovered by the time England next played and I ran out in white without missing a game.
There have been fun times, too – always. For all my achievements in the sport, I know that even now one daft comment and the team will take the piss out of me as readily as they did when I was a fresh-faced youngster, eager to impress. Martin Bayfield has a lovely Jason Leonard joke which is one of my favourites. It goes: why does Jason Leonard have a see-through lunch box? Answer: so he knows whether he’s going to work, or coming home. He also insists that line-outs would be a lot more efficient if I didn’t stand there looking at all the girls in the crowd! I couldn’t possibly comment on that, of course.
There have been frustrations along the way, too, like losing three Grand Slams in a row in the final games in 1999, 2000 and 2001, and the ultimate frustration – losing the World Cup final to Australia in 1991. But I’ve had my share of great triumphs too, such as the back-to-back Grand Slams in 1991 and 1992 and the tremendous Lions tour of 1997. When Jerry Guscott kicked that dropped goal I thought every prayer had been answered. He makes the drinking team, too. But even if he was teetotal I think I’d take him – just to thank him for that wonderful kick!
All the times – good and bad – have provided me with fantastic memories, and I do not regret a single second of my time as a rugby player.
I have also managed to combine having a family with international rugby, something which has been a great joy to me. Harry, Jack and Francesca, are a fantastic antidote to the pressures of rugby. When things are going well on the pitch, it’s always amusing to return to the boys who happily ignore every demand I make, kick me out of the way and generally disrespect me. It’s probably very healthy and it’s certainly great fun. Sandra, my partner, has sacrificed a great deal to enable me to keep the caps mounting up. She has played a significant part in my career and I’m grateful to her – luckily she understands what it means to me to play this game. She’s aware of the value I place on the friendships I’ve made and the happiness I derive from this tough, confrontational sport that absorbs us all so much.
In the last ten minutes of an international match, when your lungs are bursting, your legs are aching and you think you’re not going to make it through the game, you tap into a part of yourself that you’re never sure you have! You challenge yourself and force yourself to perform – for the team. People say that I have given the sport a lot, but I don’t believe I’ve given half as much as it has given me. It’s taken me round the world, introduced me to some fabulous people and created a lifestyle for me that I could never have enjoyed without it – not bad for a barrel-shaped Barking boy who only wanted to play rugby to make friends, meet girls and drink beer, is it? I hope you enjoy the book.
CHAPTER ONE Barking Beckons (#ulink_e70752f0-d95c-516b-9071-f3e9027f6552)
When I first appeared, screaming and kicking in the August sunshine on a bright and warm morning in 1968, the midwives at Upney Hospital remarked on what a quiet, sweet placid child I was. I smiled gently and cooed at the passing nurses, giving no indication whatsoever that just a few months later I would be tearing the family home apart, emptying the contents of the fridge onto the floor and smashing eggs around the kitchen.
I was the perfect baby for the first few weeks. The only sign of the size I was destined to become lay in the amount of food I was eating. Mum says that I was only 71b 8oz when I was born, but I very quickly put on weight because there was no food that I wouldn’t try. I was always hungry, always wanting to eat and never fussy about what it was. Some things haven’t changed!
I was the first of three boys for Mum and Dad, and I don’t think either of them had any idea how much work it was going to be, or how noisy family life would become with us all tearing around, wrecking their nice neat home. Suddenly, handles were being yanked off drawers, food was being pulled out of cupboards and tipped onto the floor, and everything moveable was either broken or eaten. Wanton destruction was my favourite game and, in the name of it, I used to smash everything I owned to pieces. In fact, there is just one toy in existence that I didn’t totally wreck – a Tonka truck with one side totally caved in and the other side full of dents and scrapes. It’s in an awful mess and Mum has this embarrassing habit of producing it from time to time as proof of how bad I was. In recent years I have come to dread journalists talking to Mum, in case she shows them the Tonka toy!
Mum and Dad were living in Hornchurch at the time of my birth, but we moved to Chadwell Heath soon afterwards and lived in a small, cosy, terraced house in a big family community, with my Gran and Grandad and my uncles Roy and Darren living in the house next door. Mum produced two brothers for me to pick on relentlessly – Scott who is three years younger than me and my baby brother, Russell. Having so many family members living nearby meant there were lots of big get-togethers, usually over food and drinks – we were all big eaters in the Leonard family, unsurprisingly. I think Mum must have spent most of my childhood either cooking and baking or shopping; meanwhile Dad seems to have spent all his time apologizing. On one occasion, when I was three or four, I’d been playing around with the oven in the kitchen twiddling all the knobs around. Without realizing it, I had turned the gas on. The next thing I knew was that my grandma went into the kitchen to make my tea. When she approached the oven with a match the whole thing exploded into flames and singed her eyebrows off. She says that one of them still hasn’t properly grown back to this day! My other favourite trick was kicking the heads off crocuses. Grandad had a row of prized flowers in his garden and I went up to them one day, lined my foot up and kicked the top off every one of them.
My partner in crime in those early days was my Uncle Darren who, despite being an uncle, was born in the same week as me. The two of us would play together and refuse to involve my younger brothers who seemed incredibly young and childish compared to us. Three or four years doesn’t seem much now, but then it seemed a lifetime.
I had a very happy childhood – idyllic in many ways. I was forever laughing and giggling, tearing about and causing mayhem. Home was a manic place and I was always in trouble over something or other – either because I was doing something wrong or one of my brothers was, although it was usually me! On one occasion, Darren and I disappeared up to my bedroom with an airgun and fired it at some guy who was working on his car in the street outside. It must have given him the fright of his life. Darren and I belted down the stairs and ran out of the house because we knew the guy would come looking for us. Sure enough, Dad says that a man came to the door soon after we’d gone, complaining that he’d been shot in the bottom and he was sure the culprit had been in this house. Dad had to assure the man that he would sort us out when he got hold of us.
On another occasion, I decided that it would be a really good idea to put a small firework in the keyhole of the woodwork door at school. Don’t ask me why! I suppose I had this firework, saw the keyhole and thought it seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately the woodwork teacher didn’t agree! In fact he thought it was a particularly bad idea and called my Mum to the school to tell her so. Mum says she got more of a telling-off than I did!
Luckily I discovered sport before I could cause too much further damage and in it I saw a release for all my pent-up energy. The first sports that appealed to me were those that my dad was interested in – boxing and darts. Rugby came later when I got to senior school. I also had a passing interest in the Cub Scouts and karate but Mum says that as soon as she bought me the Cub uniform, I gave it up.
Dad was working as a sheet-metal worker when I was born and trained as a carpenter shortly afterwards. He thinks he’s the real sportsman in the family because he plays darts and can hit the bull’s eye after 20 pints. I suppose I’d have to agree with him really. I might have played for England and the Lions, but can’t get anywhere near the bull’s eye – with or without alcohol.
Mum competed as a swimmer when she was younger and taught my brothers and I how to swim. I went a lot at school and completed the bronze, silver and gold awards, but swimming never appealed to me as there was nowhere near enough violence in it. What I loved was boxing – going to fights with Dad in the East End, when he would surprise me by talking through every punch and explaining all the moves in detail. No one believes that their parents know anything when they’re young and I was no exception, so Dad’s boxing talk used to amaze me no end.
It was my interest in boxing that saw me involved in a bizarre activity which forms my earliest memory of school. I was in the hall, holding a challenge match to see if anyone could punch me in the stomach and hurt me. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m sure it must have seemed like a good idea at the time. There were boys at the school queuing up to hit me and see if they could inflict any pain. No one ever did, although a few hurt themselves trying. I think money was changing hands somewhere along the line and some smart kid was probably making a fortune out of it, but I just remember standing there, clenching my stomach muscles and watching the looks on their faces as they hit me and held their hands in agony.
I went to Warren Comprehensive from the age of 11 onwards – a good, decent school, but by no means out of the ordinary. It was a real football school in the East End tradition, with links to West Ham football club based just up the road. There was little interest in rugby there, because it was seen as a sport for posh kids and those with a public school education. Things have changed a lot since then and professionalism means that it’s hard work and talent that are rewarded now, not whether you wear the right school tie; but back then we felt that it was ‘them and us’ as far as rugby was concerned, and our school tie was definitely not the right colour (even if you bothered to wear one).
I played some football as a youngster, but not football as most people would know it. I was actually recruited to perform a role which is not strictly in the rules or the spirit of the game – I was there just to chop people down. Put simply, I played rugby in a football team. There would be ten footballers and me, but I liked to think that I was the crucial player. I was given a job in defence which involved kicking anyone who got past the other players into the air and it worked a treat – there are probably still some guys wandering around today with scars to prove it.
However, I was always destined to find myself in a rugby team, and because of my bulky physique, I started playing for the school side at prop. I don’t have any particular memories of playing rugby for the first time, but Mickey Eyres, a teacher at Chadwell Heath who also played prop at Barking Rugby Club, remembers seeing me and realizing that I was a naturally talented player who would just go to waste in the school system.
I played some local matches for the school side and was invited to go to area trials, which resulted in me playing Barking and Essex representative matches, but Mickey was right – I didn’t go far in the school system because I wasn’t at a rugby school. There were a couple of good rugby schools in the area, such as Campion, and they supplied the majority of players for the representative sides. I don’t think a kid – coming from Warren Comprehensive, at that time, stood much of a chance. But being overlooked never entered my mind – I played rugby for fun and had no real desire to make it to the top. I don’t think I even thought about it at that time.
Mickey Eyres invited me to go down to Barking Rugby Club one Sunday morning. He said that it would be a chance for me to play at a higher level, alongside players with more experience, and I decided to take his advice because it sounded like fun. It’s clear now that everyone around me thought that I might have a real talent for the game, whereas I liked rugby because of the friends you could make and because it was a rough sport. I also loved the fact that everyone socialized afterwards and there were usually a few girls hanging around.
I can clearly remember when I first went down to Barking Rugby Club and how I was made to feel welcome straight away. I walked into that old clubhouse for the first time, aged just 14, and thought it was fantastic – an excellent place full of down-to-earth people. The sport itself allowed you to throw your weight around, plough into other players and fling them around the park. I almost believed that I’d died and gone to heaven.
When Barking had a look at me, they said I should be in the U16 side even though I was only 14. From that moment on, I would go on playing a long way above my age group. By the time I was 15, I was in the U19 side, and by the time I was 16, I was the U19s’ captain. I started to concentrate all my time and enthusiasm into Barking Rugby Club and although I played a few representative games for the school, I focused on club rugby, so it was there that I really developed my game.
Once I was at Barking Rugby Club, I started to take rugby seriously, realizing that this was a sport I was good at and loved. Everything else paled into insignificance besides rugby, the one activity to which I was totally devoted. I became determined to be fitter and stronger than everyone else, so I started weight training, and used to run to Barking from Chadwell Heath for every session. It was about 4 miles to the rugby club and once I could do the run easily, I bought myself a weightlifting belt and planned to fill it with weights to give me more of a challenge. Mum spotted what I was up to and stopped me before I injured myself. Dad says he remembers coming up to my room after I got back from Barking one night to find me totally out of breath.
‘Are you OK, son?’ he asked anxiously.
‘I’m just a bit tired from the run back,’ I said, not letting him past me into my room.
The next day he found a bus stop sign with a solid concrete base tucked away in the corner of my bedroom. I had decided that I needed more of a challenge that night so had decided to run back clutching a big lump of concrete. Dad put it outside and I think we confused bus drivers in the area for weeks!
As I was spending so much time at Barking, education, school work and exams that had never meant much to me anyway, mattered less and less. I had never worked very hard or concentrated particularly when I was at school so I never troubled the masters in the top group. This meant the school lost interest in me academically and I was encouraged more in my sport than with my books, to the extent that I abandoned all interest in school work and devoted all my time to the sports field. Not that I was alone in this, for I can remember when they gave us the option of playing sport on Wednesday afternoon, which meant you had time off lessons. You’ve never seen such a rush for the door – there were all these kids who’d never touched a ball before suddenly rushing out of classes like they’d been selected to play for England.
As I was working through the age groups at Barking, I was continuing to be less than impressive at school. My rugby got better while my school work got worse and I left just before my sixteenth birthday, which was as early as I could. My parents tried to persuade me to stay at school and get qualifications that would help me later on, but at 15 I didn’t worry too much about ‘later on’ – I was only interested in the ‘here and now’. What really turned me on was rugby. By that stage I had decided that I wanted to play for England and never tired of telling people that one day I would.
My parents eventually gave up trying to persuade me to stay at school and I began training as a carpenter alongside my dad for the first six months of my working life. I remember on my first day in the job, the guy running the site said, ‘Look, son. I’ll give you fifty pence for each sheet of plaster-board you can carry up the stairs,’ because they needed materials to be taken to the top floor. They thought they were being very clever and that it would take me all day to shift them, so they’d only owe me a few quid at the end of it. Unfortunately for them, I was stronger than they’d given me credit for. I lifted a couple of the boards onto my shoulder and ran up the stairs, stuck at it all day and was quids in. In addition, I’d spent the whole day weight training, so I was happy.
I used to turn every occasion into a training session so that even walking the dog became serious exercise. On one occasion I took Sadie, our Staffordshire bull terrier, out with me. She loved going for walks but I don’t think she was quite prepared to be put through a training session. By the time I’d been jogging and sprinting round the track for hours, she was absolutely exhausted. I turned round to stretch off and she ran home as fast as she could. Dad says he was working in the garage when the dog came running in, whimpering, and hid under the work bench, cowering and hoping that I wouldn’t see her. She wouldn’t go out with me again!
I remember the kids that I’d been at school with saying, ‘Aren’t you worried about having no exam qualifications?’ and I’d say: ‘Why would I be? I’m working now – what do I need exams for?’ With hindsight, I realize that I should have worked harder at school, done the exams and kept my options open. However, I got a trade, so that was good, but I would rather have had the chance to go to college or university. Of course, if I’d done that I might not have broken into the England set-up quite so quickly because I just know that the appeal of the social system would have been too great for me, and they’d have probably taken me out of the students’ union in a body bag!
My first year in the U19s was fantastic because we won the Essex Cup for the first time ever. It was amazing – you’d have thought we’d won the World Cup from the reaction we got locally. We were playing Harlow, a strong side that had won for the previous five years – the equivalent of Manchester United maybe playing Charlton. We beat them against all the odds and the clubhouse was turned into a party venue for the night – I don’t think I made it home for the best part of a week.
The clubhouse at Barking Rugby Club was a fairly basic place in those days. It was a real old shack, with men’s and women’s toilets – but no one distinguished between them, and men would walk out of both. The walls inside were painted light green, so it didn’t matter a bit if anyone was sick or threw beer all over them. There was no carpet – just plastic lino on the floor – so that every morning they would simply sweep out through the front door everything that had been deposited the night before. I always pitied the poor guy who had that job.
In addition to the main bar, there was also a little snug which was tiny and was members only – I don’t think anyone under the age of 80 ever went in there, but those guys were some of the funniest I’ve ever met. There were two old fellows down there who reminded me of Statler & Waldorf – the grumpy puppets on The Muppets who start the programme off every week on a balcony. I always laugh when I go in there now, and even though Barking has acquired a new clubhouse, they’re still sitting there in the snug. I’m not sure that they ever move. They look about 80, but then they looked about 80 when I was a kid. I always go in and say, ‘Ain’t you dead yet? I’m sure I sent flowers to your funeral. Are you sure you’re not dead? They’re not digging you up and propping you up against the bar are they?’
Just after I’d played in the Colts’ memorable and much-celebrated victory over Harlow, I got my break in the senior team because they were a prop short and they thought I might want to play. I was warned that I was under age and uninsured, but that the captain and coaches all believed that I could handle the step up in intensity. I jumped at the chance and when they warned me about how tough adult props could be, I told them not to worry, I’d be OK.
We played Braintree in that match – my first adult game – and coaches from Barking stood at the touchline, worried to death about what might happen to me. They knew that they’d be shot if I got into trouble or if the RFU found out that I was being played under age. When the first scrum went down they must have been hoping and praying that I’d come out in one piece. They were all staring, waiting to see how I’d cope when the front rows first came into contact, but five seconds later all their fears were allayed as the prop opposite me shot up into the air – I’d lifted him right off the ground. They all relaxed then and enjoyed the rest of the game and a few pints. I loved playing at that level and went back to play senior rugby as soon as I could, but first I had to finish the season with the Colts because I was their captain.
We had a new boy in the Colts side, a lad called Glyn Llewellyn, whom our coach, Lawrence Consiglio, had spotted. Glyn had been watching us play East London because he was at East London Poly at the time and fancied watching a match. When Lawrence saw this 6′6″ bloke with a Welsh accent standing there he rushed over and asked him if he fancied playing. Glyn said that he did and we began the process of signing him up to the club. The problem was that before you could play for Barking in those days, you had to go for a formal interview with members of the committee, so Glyn went along and sat before a few committee men who asked him about his rugby. ‘I’ve played for Neath and Welsh Schools,’ he said. One of the committee men couldn’t believe it and kept nudging the one next to him and saying, ‘Sign him up, sign him up.’ But the others continued with their routine. ‘And do you have any social references?’ Social references? Can you believe it – social references? This was Barking Rugby Club, for God’s sake. Give him a shirt before he gets away.
Glyn eventually managed to provide them with the references they required and took his place in the team. He was a No.8 at the time and was absolutely brilliant. He took the place apart and used to scare the life out of the opposition because Welsh rugby was a lot tougher than anything played in England at the time. We didn’t have any touch judges in Colts games so you couldn’t get sent off unless you were seen by the referee. Glyn would make maximum use of this and, knowing the referee couldn’t see everything, would blatantly punch his opposite number in the first line-out and say, ‘That’s how we play in Wales.’ Glyn and I have stayed good mates over the years and his first cap for Wales coincided with my first Five Nations game in 1991.
Both Glyn and I were recognized by selectors in the regional and area set-up, and began moving slowly through the system that would result in me running out for England and Glyn for Wales. The first stage was Essex trials, which didn’t seem particularly difficult to me since I’d been playing a tough level of rugby since I was 17. After that it was to Eastern Counties, where I started to feel challenged and realized that I was now at a higher level. But I still felt as though I had the upper hand in the scrums and knew my way around the park. I was fit, streetwise and willing to try anything.
Those characteristics eventually came to the attention of the England U19 selectors and I was called up for the U19 game against Italy at New Brighton in 1986. I played with guys like Paddy Dunston, Paul Manley, Howard Lamb, Rupert Moon and Paul Hull. It was a great honour and we were a good side. The only match we lost that season was against France and even that game was close. When we played Wales, the young tight head was John Davies – a few years later he told me that he remembered me from that match as he only weighed about 14 stone in those days, so wasn’t too hard to toss around.
The England Colts experience taught me discipline, but I relied on the Barking first team for my lessons in ‘street rugby’ and how to stay strong. After finishing my year in the Colts, I slipped back into the first team at Barking and immediately took up my position in the front row. Along with playing in the first team came various rituals, including the tradition of throwing new boys out of the bus on the way back when they made their first away trip – you then had to walk back to the clubhouse naked. I was thrown off the bus with this other guy who was also making his debut. We were a mile from the clubhouse, completely naked and in about four inches of snow. The two of us tumbled out of the bus and ran to hide behind a tree. I shouted to the guys on the bus to at least let me have my shoes – I wasn’t bothered about the fact that I was stark naked, but was just worried about having to run through the snow barefoot. Our teammates on the bus were naturally having none of it and they turned and drove off, waving to us as we cowered behind the tree, covering ourselves with our hands.
I asked the guy who was with me what he was going to do. He said that he only lived a mile to the south of the point where we’d been dropped off, so he would run back home, get changed and meet me at the club. I lived miles away and decided I’d better head for the clubhouse which was about a mile to the north of us, so off we both went in opposite directions. I was running between parked cars, hiding behind them until it was clear, then running to the next car, hoping that no one would see me. I thought I was doing quite well until a police car pulled up alongside me, an officer got out, covered me with his jacket and told me to get into the back of the car. Once I was inside, he told me that a little old lady had rung 999 when she saw a naked man running past her window. The copper then radioed back to the station and told them that I’d been picked up, whereupon he looked at me and said, ‘You’re fit, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m quite fit. I play a lot of rugby.’
‘What position?’ asked the copper.
