For a year and a half at Gloucester I was under the radar. I think when I first moved to the club I was fifth-choice prop because there were so many props around. Because I wasn’t one of the leading players, I was expected to act as gopher to the rest of the players during that first year. As the young lad in the set-up I was expected to be the carrier … making cups of tea, carrying bags, rushing around after the other players. Anything that needed doing, I did it. It was a rung culture. You had to work your way up and earn people’s respect before inching your way up the ladder.
I was working on the farm as well as playing at the club, because the sport was amateur in the early summer of 1995 (or ‘shamateur’, as it became known… they couldn’t pay you to play because the sport was, officially, amateur, so they would fix you up with a job, a flat and provide you with a car that was usually given to the club from a friendly local garage eager to support them). But it wasn’t to stay amateur for much longer, and in August that year, when I had just arrived at Gloucester and was struggling to cope in my new environment, the sport was thrown into chaos by the decision in Paris to turn rugby from an amateur into a professional game. There had been a great deal of debate about whether the sport should remain amateur or turn professional, and many players had expressed strong feelings that the sport needed to become professional in order to develop, but despite the fact that the debates had been going on for years it still took us all by surprise when the announcement came through that rugby was to become a professional game.
The response at Gloucester was swift, as they appointed Mike Coley as the Club’s first chief executive. The appointment of Richard Hill as director of rugby followed a month later as everyone involved in rugby set about trying to work out what being a professional sport really involved. Did it mean that we should train all day every day? Or just carry on doing the same training we had been doing? It was all very unclear. The confusion about what professionalism meant to the players was compounded by the fact that a moratorium year was imposed, meaning that we couldn’t be paid by clubs for the first year of professionalism. None of us had a clue what was going on.
I must admit that the whole idea of rugby being professional confused me. I didn’t associate playing rugby with work. I was in it for a love of the sport. When I’d stood there in Pontypridd, listening to the national anthem belting out while wearing an England U16 rugby shirt for the first time, proud beyond measure, it didn’t occur to me that someone should be paying me. I’d been moved beyond words by the experience, and judged it to be bigger and more precious to me than any money that anyone could ever pay me. Rugby was about commitment, fearlessness and playing alongside men who you trusted and admired. It wasn’t about salaries.
What I didn’t realise at the time, and could never have realised, was that rugby turning professional would have the most astonishing impact upon my career. It couldn’t have been better timed. There are lots of things that determine how your life will develop, lots of little things that happen along life’s path that turn out to have huge consequences. This was one of them. I was extremely lucky to have joined a club like Gloucester at just the moment when the sport became professional, because what happened was that the whole focus of rugby changed and it became a time for sweeping out the old and bringing in the new. The players at Gloucester who’d hung onto their places and would keep their spots in the team regardless of how hard they trained or how often they turned up for fitness sessions, were cast aside.
It was a pivotal moment for rugby as it looked forward to a bright, shiny, commercial future. And for a 19-year-old who was feeling frustrated and fed up and in need of a big break, it was definitely a case of being in the right place at the right time.
The turning point for me and Gloucester, and the moment when I started to enjoy playing rugby rather than disliking everything about my new life, was when I realised, truly realised, what a big deal rugby was for the locals, and what a huge passion people had for the sport in the area. I think when I first got there I had my head down and was training and working hard, trying to cope in an alien environment which I didn’t think suited me, but when I lifted my head, looked around and saw that the town was full of rugby nuts who really wanted the team to win, I started to come round a bit and to think that this might actually be a good place to play rugby.
Gloucester is a relatively small town, despite my initial view that it was a big city, and it comes alive on match days. Rugby is a big part of people’s lives and supporters know the names of the players, and understand the sport inside out and back to front. They can debate all the finer points of tactics and team play with you, and they know exactly who they think should 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