My life has been dominated by rugby ever since I first went to St Edwards College in Liverpool 55 years ago, when my scouse passion for football took a back seat and I found myself playing against the likes of
Gareth Edwards, JPR Williams and Keith Jarrett. At Hull University, I played first XV rugby as a fresher and then captained the side in its most successful season in my third year.
After playing club rugby in Hull and the East Riding I moved to Wakefield with work at the age of 32, where, initially in tandem with Mich Dearman, my coaching career began. There followed 10 years of sheer fun when we played fast open rugby capable of beating anyone - and produced several international players - England captain Mike Harrison, the sublimely talented Bryan Barley, Jon Sleighthome, Tim Stimpson, the Liley Bros, Dave Scully etc. I will never forget having to drop Mike Harrison to give Jon Sleightholme his chance. Disappointed though he was he accepted in the manner that only great people can.
The highlight of my time at College Grove was we came within a whisker of toppling the seemingly invincible Bath in the latter stages of the John Player Cup only for Ashley Rowden, the referee on the day, to make a bad – and game-changing – decision. To be fair to Ashley he admitted he was wrong afterwards. Ironically I was stood next to him when Wakefield played their last-ever game against Coventry in 2004. The club had ran into money problems but, in my opinion, they were not insurmountable and the debt was nothing like on the same scale that Rotherham faced a year earlier. Sadly the committee was full of old men and no one had the drive and the wherewithal to save the club. It was a very say day when the club was wound up, I don’t think I was alone in shedding a tear.
What a fantastic experience my time at Rotherham was: great people, great players and a tremendous spirit – but always at war! In my time at the club we became Yorkshire’s first-ever representatives in the Premiership, not once but twice. It should have been four times but the entry criteria rules counted against us. On the evening of the day we won our first promotion there were thousands of fans waiting at Clifton Lane to greet us, and it took the players, myself and Mike Schmid a good half an hour to walk the 20 yards from where the bus was parked to the clubhouse.
The worst day of my rugby life was when I took the phone call from the administrator saying that the club needed to find hundreds of thousands of pounds within the space of five days to be saved. With the help of the wider Rotherham community and the local council the money was somehow raised. I remember one little old lady putting in a fiver from her pension because her late husband had his funeral at the club. I’ll always be grateful to Peter Jorgensen and Jacob Raulini who led the players through these difficult times.
I was exhausted by the time the team ran out for its first game after rising from the ashes – a 40-point win over Sedgley Park – but I lasted two more seasons before ‘retiring’. Local club Sandal then badgered me to come back into coaching as they’d slipped to Level 8, and in my first two seasons I banned the players from kicking – from anywhere. This helped to regenerate the playing side and also got people excited about coming down to watch again. And here we are now, newly promoted to National 2 North, the highest level we’ve been at, with new pitches and a women’s section. The club is expanding all the time and is now used all-year round with Wakefield Wildcats training here and another local Rugby League team ground-sharing.
We’re not far from being able to produce consummately skilled players as my other clubs have in the past - the best being two men who touched upon genius - David Strettle from the age of 18 could do things no other could - and the all-round genius of Geraint Lewis who provoked letters of abuse from Wales when I brought him to Rotherham.
What a game, what a life. That is rugby for you!
-as told to Jon Newcombe
Article courtesy of The Rugby Paper – get your copy every Sunday
