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, you get more press then more people know you. Then you play for England you get a bit more attention, then the Lions, and get a bit more attention, then you start winning for England and people want to start writing about you, then you win the World Cup and get even more attention.
Fame happens gradually so you get used to it; you slowly become accustomed to the fact that more and more people know who you are. You grow with it and it becomes normal.
Having said that, I think you get local fame much quicker in a place like Gloucester where they’re rugby crazy than you would in other places. If you’re a rugby player, you can’t do anything in Gloucester without people knowing all about it. The place is a rumour mill. Even if you didn’t do it, you probably did! Everyone knows everyone’s business. It’s nice in many ways but it does mean that you can’t ever escape from rugby. That’s what comes of being in a rugby town. That’s what I learnt. You have to take it on the chin.
As well as the on-the-field rugby changing as a result of professionalism, things were changing in the organization of the club as well, and in April 1997 Tom Walkinshaw came on board as Gloucester’s new owner. He was immensely rich and had a proven pedigree in sport through his work with Formula One, so was considered to be the ideal person to lead us through the change to becoming a fully professional club. You tend to forget that rugby becoming a professional sport made a huge impact on the administration of the clubs as well as the players.
The clubs had been ticking over previously, taking in sponsorship money at a fairly low level and using it to make minor alterations to the grounds and pay a skeleton staff. Now, suddenly, the clubs needed to make a lot of money to pay the players properly. If they couldn’t pay the players decent salaries, other clubs who’d found millionaire backers would step in and sign them up. Every club needed a rich individual, and preferably one with good business sense, to keep them afloat while the sport went through its transition to professionalism.
The year that Tom Walkinshaw came in was the same year that I went on a Canadian tour with the Colts which raised my profile down at the club and through the rugby world generally. This was heightened when I played my first England A game.
England A was a huge step up for me. I hadn’t been at Gloucester long, so was still adjusting to the step up that involved. Now I was in the England A team. Back then, England A was a bigger stepping stone than it is now; it was the definite link level between the clubs and the England team and few people would find themselves playing for England without first playing for England A.
The first game was an ERC (England Rugby Clubs) XV v New Zealand game at Ashton Gate, Bristol’s ground. They had Sean Fitzpatrick and Olo Brown in the side. I couldn’t believe it; I’d be playing against my childhood heroes. There’s something so amazing about taking the field against people you’ve admired from when you were a young boy. Olo Brown was immense - he had this huge presence on the field. Scrummaging against him was an awesome experience because he just doesn’t go anywhere. He’s solid.
The other great experience was seeing the haka up close. I’m a big fan of these rugby traditions and it was great to see it being done right in front of me. I stood on the pitch with my great heroes in front of me, watching the haka with 20,000 people in the crowd - unbelievable. A real privilege.