be in the team, and who they feel, very strongly, should not be in the team.
I remember walking into a pub in Gloucester and everyone turning round to look at me. Their eyes followed me as I walked through to the bar. When I got there, the barman stuck his hand out and shook my hand and welcomed me, and the locals wouldn’t let me buy a drink. They really enjoyed being able to talk about rugby to someone in the team, and chat about how I thought Gloucester would get on that season.
I loved the people of Gloucester because I realised they were my people. Like those who I’d grown up with back in Bude, they were decent, hard-working guys who enjoyed their rugby and a few pints on a Saturday night. Most of them watched Gloucester play at the weekend but were also involved in the small clubs in the area -clubs that were exactly like Bude. I realised I was among good people who I could relate to and wanted to do well for. They were builders, carpenters, butchers, farmers -the sort of people for whom tickets weren’t cheap, and who were making a big sacrifice to support the team. I felt I wanted to do well for them.
The supporters react with passion whenever Gloucester play, especially if the opponents are rivals and neighbours, like Bath or Bristol. If you do well, they adore you; if you don’t play well for their beloved Gloucester side, heaven help you. In the week leading up to a match the excitement in the town rises to fever pitch. It’s a challenge, a mighty challenge, and I felt suddenly very up for that challenge.
My first game for Gloucester was against Bath. In the Bath team at the time were players like Dave Hilton, John Mallett and Steve Ojomoh. These were guys I had seen on television who were now going to be playing against me. It was a second-team game, but we still had 6,000 people there to watch, which was roughly six times as many people as I’d played in front of before.
I found that I loved the banter and the fierce support of the guys in the infamous Shed. I enjoyed meeting the supporters afterwards and feeling part of something that mattered to people. The more my attitude changed, and I started enjoying rugby and working hard at it, the more I enjoyed being in Gloucester. Suddenly the dark days were behind me and I was starting to really enjoy my rugby… and my life.
The other great memory that stands out for me about Gloucester is of the number of children involved in the club. There were always children around, involved in the youth section, supporting the players, hunting for autographs. It gave the club a really nice feel.
I wanted to play well and to get into the first team. There was still a lot of home-grown talent playing at Gloucester, so if I was going to work my way into the team, and into the affections of the supporters, I needed to be good. I realised that I’d been drifting and not getting really stuck into training. I needed to work very hard to get myself noticed by Richard Hill and be given a chance in the main side. Once I started putting the hours in, training hard, and embracing the lifestyle, I started to love the place, the people and the rugby club even more.
While I was working hard at Gloucester, the rugby world was continuing to change all around me. Professionalism was getting its teeth into the sport and the game was being shaken to its core. It took a while to get to grips with what was needed in a professional game. To start with we assumed that you just needed more of what we were doing in the amateur days. It transpired that we needed to do things differently and become professional in our outlook as well as our training. I can remember thinking that I didn’t want to be someone who was stuck in the gym all day building the body beautiful; I wanted to create the best chances for myself as a rugby player. I didn’t want to be mindlessly exercising all day every day just because it was a professional sport and that’s what we thought we should do. Soon fitness, diet and exercise professionals came in to the club who understood this, and worked on specific regimes for each of us with exercises that would make us better players.
As the club continued to mould itself into a professional club and get rid of a lot of players, I was one of the ones that they kept. It must have been tough for some of the older guys who’d been there for a long time. They now found themselves being put out to pasture because the game started to change all around them and a level of commitment was expected from them that they were unwilling or unable to give.
Being a 19-year-old who’d played England Colts and had his whole career ahead of him, I was kept on by the club and told that I had a great future if I trained hard and worked hard. I signed a contract with Gloucester and my career as a professional rugby player began. It wasn’t for a life-changing amount of money: my first professional contract was worth £6,000-£8,000 at the time, so I wasn’t out buying penthouse flats or sports cars, but it did mean that the club had a commitment to me and I had a commitment to them.
I was willing to buckle down and put the hours in at training in an effort to be the best player I could, but I definitely wasn’t obsessed with making it right to the top. I always had a balance in my life that meant seeing my family and spending time with my friends were just as important to me as rugby. That part of me hasn’t changed, despite the fact that I made it to the top echelons of rugby. I’m a strong believer that sport is more than just about playing well on the pitch. I don’t think that training twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, makes you a better player. It might make you fitter, arguably, but it won’t necessarily make you a better or more refined player on the pitch. If you’re happy in yourself and having fun, that will carry over into your rugby life.
Once I had my professional contract under my belt, I could leave my job and become a full-time rugby player. It was quite a big moment for me because I’d always thought that I would make my money in life as a farmer. I never, in a million years, envisaged the changes in the sport that would allow me to make money from rugby instead of farming.
But it wasn’t all easy-going. My first league game was against Harlequins, away, in late 1996, and we lost by about 50 points. It was awful. This was in the days when Richard Hill had one team for home games and another team for away games. We got absolutely battered. Keith Wood, Jason Leonard and Will Carling were playing for Quins back then, so they had a good side, but it was still awful to lose to them by so many points.
I remember vividly the disappointment I felt at losing so badly, knowing what it meant to the people of Gloucester. I couldn’t imagine what the reaction would be when they found out how badly we’d lost the match. We travelled back to Gloucester in the coach and arrived back at the clubhouse. I can remember walking up the road in Gloucester and saying to the guys I was with that I didn’t want to go out that evening.
‘I’m just going to head straight home,’ I said, but Tony Windo, Gloucester’s captain, spun round, looked me right in the eye and said, ‘You will not go home. You will come out. You f-ing will go out. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. You will hold your head up and go out. You’ve played your best today.’
I’ll never forget that. Tony Windo was a real good guy and he taught me that day that you have to do your best, and that’s all you can do. Of course it was important to win and of course the people of Gloucester were much happier with the team if we won, but that didn’t mean that we were never allowed to lose, and if we did we should hide ourselves away.
I knew that it wasn’t my fault that we lost by so many points, but the thing with playing for a team like Gloucester is that you do take everything personally and the thought of going out drinking in the town was a bit frightening. In the end, though, after Tony had words with me, I went out that night after all and I got a bit of stick but nothing much. I suppose, back then, many people didn’t really know who I was, so didn’t realise I’d been playing for Gloucester that day.
By the time people do know who you are, and recognise you in the street and give you grief for the way you played, at least you’re experienced enough to deal with it. This has been one of the interesting things about fame, for me. People think you become famous overnight, but it’s not like that. As you play more and get more recognised,
