of my Mum and Dad, while Mark is more like Dad. I think I’m most like my Grandfather Vickery - a gentle giant. I’m a traditional middle child. Perhaps it’s something to do with that, or perhaps I had more to prove because I’d been more deeply affected by Mum and Dad’s divorce. Who knows? There’s a thin line between those who make it and those who don’t and I think it’s very hard to say why some players make it and some very good, talented players don’t.
Once I started to get into rugby at Bude, I paid much more attention to the sport generally, and began watching it on television. I remember the excitement at hearing the BBC’s Grandstand music and seeing the images of Will Carling, Wade Dooley, Mike Teague and Jon Webb - these hero figures who were just brilliant at their sport. It never crossed my mind that I would get there and be playing with them one day; it never occurred to me that I should be trying to get there, or would want to get there. These were just alien beings I loved to watch on television whose rugby skills were so much better than mine. I never counted myself as being like them in any way. I just played my best at Bude, then went home and worked on the farm. The guys on the television were something else - they were truly gifted.
In 1991 I went to Twickenham to watch Cornwall play against Yorkshire in the county final. It was a big occasion for us and we had a coach-load going up from Bude Rugby Club for the day, all of us dressed in the black and yellow colours of Cornwall. The county game is still extremely strong in the West Country and we made a real day of it, stopping to play Cobham Rugby Club en route. I loved being at Twickenham that day and chatting away to the Yorkshire supporters, as kids from opposite ends of the country stood together supporting the best in county rugby.
There was a whole crowd of us there from Bude, mostly from the club, but other non-rugby supporters had come from the town just to support the county and enjoy a bloody good day out. I had lots of friends in the local village; it was such a small place that everyone knew everyone else. Some of the guys in the village were farmers like me, some were in the building trade, most had physical jobs of some sort and loved their rugby. We all ran onto the pitch afterwards to pull up the turf. Everyone wanted a memory of Cornwall’s victory. I remember going back home and me and Mark arriving back in Bude, and sitting down by the river after the coach had dropped us off. A police car came along and asked us whether we were OK. ‘We’re fine, we’ve just been to Twickenham for the match,’ we explained. The policeman told us to get in, and he gave us a lift home. Bude was that kind of place. There was little trouble and little to worry about.
While things were going extremely well at the rugby club, I continued playing at school too. I played U15 Cornwall trials as well as working my way through the age group levels for England Schools. One of the clearest memories I have is of playing for the England U16s at Pontypridd. Christ, it was amazing. It was the first time I’d sung the national anthem on the pitch, and that was the biggest thrill for me. I thought I’d burst with pride. There we were in the valleys, in the heart of Wales where they love their rugby and passionately support their team, belting out the national anthem while dressed in England colours. It made me feel great. That to me is what playing for your country is all about - the pride you feel and the commitment to the players alongside you. Bloody awesome. There’s nothing like it. I loved that first match because there were no expectations. It was just me in this great team, trying to play the best I could. When you become more successful, people’s expectations of you rise. People expect you to do well, and pressure comes from trying to live up to those expectations. But that day in Pontypridd, everything was new, fresh and exciting.
When I came back from the game, I found I had a new nickname, after the local newspaper called me ‘The Dude from Bude’. Like all these things, it stuck for a while, which was a bit embarrassing, but because I didn’t rise to it when people called me it, they soon stopped bothering!
Being 15 and being spotted by senior coaches in the England set-up was extremely exciting, but for me it was all about enjoyment of the game rather than ambition or achievement. Rugby was fun. Sure, playing in an England shirt was fantastic but one of my philosophies in life is not to take things too seriously - you have to have fun or you don’t do it. People started asking me where I saw my future and what my career progression in rugby was likely to be, and I just looked at them like they were nuts. I played rugby because I enjoyed it and I never wanted to lose sight of that.
I started rugby because I enjoyed the friendships and the fun, and that’s why I stuck with it. When I became a professional rugby player, and I had to take it more seriously than I did when I was a teenager in Cornwall, I put the necessary hours in to training and fitness work, but it didn’t change the fact that the most important thing was to have fun.
Having said that, while I was focused on having fun, the whole thing can’t have been that enjoyable for Mum! When I look back, she must have driven me miles and miles and miles as I travelled to selection days, training sessions and matches. How did she do it? I don’t know how she managed to combine working with bringing up my brother and sister, and driving me around the country. The trial system involves a lot of travelling wherever you are, but if you’re based in Cornwall it seems to involve more than most. I can remember going to all sorts of trials, first within the county, with East Cornwall playing against West Cornwall, then I got into the Cornwall side as a result. We then ended up playing county games against sides like Devon and Avon & Somerset. I think there was one against Gloucestershire as well, so there was a bit of travelling involved.
The better I got, and the more advanced, the further away from Cornwall I had to travel. Once I’d excelled in the county games, I was asked to attend trials for the southwest. Now the south-west is a bloody big place so the journeys were further and taking longer. Mum enlisted the help of Mrs Risden, our next-door neighbour, and she was amazing. She had two sons, Peter and David, who went on to play rugby for the county, and she was incredibly generous with her time, driving me about when Mum couldn’t. All my relatives were drafted in to help, as Mum tried to make sure I got wherever I needed to go, while still allowing her to do all the work she needed to do on the farm.
Once I was in the south-west side, we’d compete against the south-east which meant travelling to London and Middlesex a great deal. Then there was to be a south team to compete against a north team, so there were trials between possibles and probables to see who would play in that. I think Mum must have been praying I didn’t get selected, because the higher I rose, the harder the work she’d have to put in to get me there. I’m very grateful to her, though. There’s no question in my mind that she is a huge part of my success.
All these trials and country-related matches were on top of the games I was playing for the school against other local schools, and for Bude. It meant that I was playing two or three times a week. Hard for Mum, but great for me! That was the way you got on when I was younger; it’s all changed now with the introduction of academies.
When I was a teenager I was playing three games a week and meeting loads of new players from all over the country all the time. I was meeting a host of selectors and coaches and getting my name known around the country. I was shoulder-deep in rugby and loving it. But it’s not like that any more. An academy player, once he’s signed by a club, might go through the season playing just a couple of matches in total and his whole time is spent training. If he’s signed as a prop by a club, and the first-team prop goes through the whole season without injury or problem, he doesn’t get to play. Then, because he hasn’t played for ages, he ends up out of the academy and no use to anyone. I think the old way was better - let guys prove themselves first, and sign them when you’re ready to play them, rather than have them in your academy so no one else can have them, and hope they’ll be ready to play for you someday soon.
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