He might be only nine years old, but news of his talent has spread far and wide. We hear parents whispering to each other on the touchline. Did you see him play at that tournament in Newport? There were some pro scouts there, you know. Southampton have signed him to their academy.
Look on the bright side, Ben and I tell each other. When we go to Whitchurch in a couple of years, he’ll be on our side rather than against us.
We ask what his name is.
He’s called Gareth Bale.
There’s a special needs section at school, for kids with learning difficulties and the like. One of these kids latches onto me a bit and follows me into my lessons even though it makes him late for his own. Some of my mates laugh at him and tell him to get lost, but I always try and make time for him.
We’re playing cricket in the yard, and this same kid is there. He’s batting and he’s not very good. He swipes at the ball, missing it by a mile. The lad playing wicketkeeper catches it and throws the ball in the air. ‘You’re out,’ he says.
‘No,’ I say. ‘He’s not.’
‘He is.’
‘He was nowhere near it, and you know it.’
‘He hit it.’
‘You only want him out so someone else can have a go.’
‘Well, he’s rubbish, isn’t he?’
‘If you want him out, then you get him out.’
‘He is out.’
The argument turns into a scrap, and it only ends when the headmistress comes to break us up. In her office, she asks me what happened, and I tell her the truth. This kid was being bullied, and I hate bullies. I don’t even know where that comes from, just that I do. I can’t stand bullying, and I won’t stand by when it happens and can do something about it.
1998. Ten years old, Llanishen Fach. We’re playing touch rugby: Bluebirds v Blackbirds. The Bluebirds are the rugby boys, even though they’ve named their team after Cardiff City football club; the Blackbirds are the footballers (or, as the rugby boys like to call them, the losers). I’m playing for the Blackbirds. I’ve never played rugby, no one in our family’s ever played, I don’t like the look of it, and a game of touch doesn’t make me change my mind. It’s a rubbish game. You can’t pass it forwards, you can’t tackle people, you can’t kick it.
I must have changed at least one of the teacher’s minds, though, as I’m picked to play in the next rugby match. Full contact, not touch. They want me to play on the wing, as I’m quick: when it comes to sports-day sprints, I’m either winning them or pretty close.
I don’t want to play. I really don’t want to.
Match day comes. I’m terrified. I go from lesson to lesson, wondering how I can pretend to be injured, or hoping that the match will be called off. The clock ticks round. We’re due to play after the school day’s ended, so when the bell goes and all the kids who aren’t playing go home as usual, that’s just what I do. Sneak out, follow them through the gates and leg it home.
‘I thought you had a match,’ Dad says over tea.
‘Got cancelled,’ I reply, quite a lot more coolly than I feel.
Next day at school, no one says anything. All morning I’m waiting for one of the teachers to ask where I was, but they don’t. By lunchtime I’m beginning to think I’ve got away with it. I’m in the yard with my mates, playing around, when I sense more than see the other kids stop what they’re doing.
I turn around. The headmaster, Frank Rees, is coming towards me. The whole place is still; there’s not a kid born who’d want to miss one of their fellow pupils being reamed out in front of the whole school. It’s the kind of thing they’ll be talking about for weeks afterwards. They all back away a little, as if the trouble I’m clearly in is going to be somehow contagious, but they make sure to stay well within earshot.
‘Where were you yesterday afternoon?’ Mr Rees asks.
It doesn’t really matter what excuse I give, as he knows it’s going to be a lie. He gives me a bollocking: not a shouting or screaming one, as he’s not that kind of man, but stern and strict, nonetheless. If you’re picked, he says, you play. It’s not up to you to decide whether or not you want to.
He’s right, of course, and I deserve it. By the time I get home that afternoon, he’s already spoken to my parents. They tell me the same thing: don’t ever bunk off again.
By the end of the year I’m playing for East Wales.
‘That’s why I picked you,’ Mr Rees says. ‘I knew how good you could be.’
1999. Being good at rugby isn’t yet enough for me. I don’t love it, not in the way I love football.
Cardiff Schools trial. I’m so nervous that I’m crying in the car. Just relax, Dad says, you’ll be fine. But I’m not. I don’t want this pressure. School matches are one thing, but this is a step up. I play badly, and not by accident. I do it on purpose, so I won’t get picked for Cardiff Schools.
It works. I don’t get picked. I’m glad.
Two weeks later, I’m playing for the school against Willowsbrook. No one’s watching, so I don’t have to throttle back or sabotage myself. I score four tries.
One of the Willowsbrook fathers comes over to Dad afterwards.
‘I’m a selector for Cardiff Schools,’ he says. ‘Why couldn’t your boy have played like that at the trial?’
2000. I’m at secondary school in Whitchurch, a school so massive (more than 2,000 kids) that they basically have to split it in two. With the move comes a jump in rugby too, from ten-a-side to the full 15.
Cardiff Schools, away to Bridgend. My first time on a bus with a bunch of strangers. I don’t say much. I’m quiet, shy, watchful; not one of the inner circle who colonise the back row of the bus as though by right.
The coach tells me to stand on the sidelines. I’m not sure if I’m playing or if I’m a sub. Bridgend ship it out to their winger. He comes haring down the touchline towards me. What am I supposed to do?
Best take no chances, I reckon. I fly onto the pitch and smash him into next week. I’m still on the ground when I hear their players’ disbelieving protests, and a fair bit of verbals too.
‘Bloody hell,’ says our coach. ‘You’re on the bench, you muppet.’
I come on in the second half. The Bridgend winger gives me a wide berth when I do.
We reach the semi-finals of the Welsh Cup. Playing against Pontypool, I put one of their boys into touch, and as I’m getting up I hear one of the coaches whistle softly and say, ‘I’ve never seen an Under-12 hit so hard.’
They put me at openside, number 7, and instantly I fall in love with the position. A lot of the good kids play 7, so that’s a compliment in itself, but it’s more what the position demands. Sevens aren’t as quick as the wingers, as strong as the props or as skilful as the fly-half, but they do have to be reasonably quick and strong and skilful: good all-rounders, the decathletes of a rugby team.
And they’re always involved, which I absolutely love. I don’t play rugby either to stand shivering near the touchline or to have my head up a prop’s arse for 80 minutes. I want to be where the action is. When you’re a 7 and doing your job properly, the ball’s never far away, whether you’re running support lines for your team-mates or tackling the oppo.
And tackling, as the coach on the sidelines saw, is very much my thing.
The one constant through