I learnt my sidestep running to avoid gangs. But rugby’s image means it’s missing out on so many like me
Jason Robinson, one of the heroes of 2003, on the battle to escape his childhood, the relief of winning and lessons for England’s class of 2023
TWENTY years on, eating breakfast in the restaurant of a five-star hotel, Jason Robinson is still pinching himself. ‘It still hasn’t sunk in,’ he says. ‘Going to Buckingham Palace, having tea with the Queen asking about my white boots — meeting the Prime Minister. Sitting here surrounded by palm trees… it wasn’t supposed to happen to kids like me. I left school at 15, my first job was cleaning metal. No GCSEs but suddenly I’ve got an OBE and an MBE. It’s surreal.’
Now 49, Robinson is looking as lean as ever. These days he takes his 2003 World Cup winner’s medal around schools in Yorkshire, trying to inspire kids who grew up on a similar side of the tracks. It has picked up a couple of scratches on the way and the box is worn out after passing through the hands of countless school children. Robinson never tires from telling his story.
‘Dear me, it’s a long time ago now. No disrespect but I didn’t know who Clive Woodward was when he rang up in 2000. The way he spoke about the World Cup just made me want to be a part of it. Everyone wants to feel wanted.
‘I grew up in an area where nobody spoke about rugby union. Nobody played it, nobody talked about it. Some gritty, tough areas in Leeds. I wasn’t brought up with it, I didn’t know it like everyone else so I didn’t play it like everyone else. People used to say, “He can’t kick” but I didn’t need to kick. My instincts were to beat the man. The easiest thing is to just kick the ball.’
Having cut his teeth in rugby league, that phone call from Woodward changed his life. Billy Whizz was born. He turned defenders into stone with the kind of footwork that only Henry Arundell comes close to in the class of 2023.
‘I didn’t go out and just practise side-stepping. I came from tough streets. Quite often you’d be getting chased by people who wanted to beat you up. My natural defence was my feet. The amount of times we would get chased by a gang of lads on the way to school. My mate couldn’t run, a big lad, so he got chinned all the time. It was just the street life.
‘It was quite a tough childhood, to be fair. My mum was a cleaner who worked three jobs. Two older brothers. I never knew my father… met him when I was 36. My stepfather was quite abusive. Domestic abuse against my mother. My childhood, at times, wasn’t good, but it was rugby that got me through a lot of the challenges. It was my outlet.
‘If there was one thing people from my neighbourhood could do it was fight. It wasn’t unusual for somebody to walk down the street with a machete calling someone out of the house. My room looked out on to the street I remember a little woman walking down the street with a knife that was bigger than she was.
‘Everybody’s got their challenges and they can either make you or break you. It gave me resilience and hunger that most don’t have, because I’ve had to fight for it. I didn’t have a father taking me to this and that. I met mine when I was 36, when all my rugby was done. I had the cheapest of everything as a kid but you get by.
Once I got there I had something that most don’t have. Rugby’s perceived as a big man’s game. If you’re
13.5 stone, trying to take on 18 stone, catching high balls when you’re 5ft 8in, it’s a challenge. Each time I stood in front of somebody my mindset was, “You don’t want this as much as me”. I didn’t care how big they were, they weren’t going to get the better of me.’ These days Robinson is living back in Yorkshire. He has seven children. One of them plays rugby league for Scotland and the other is a part of the Manchester City academy. Life has moved on but he can still give a frame-by-frame recollection of England’s iconic victory in Sydney. To this day, he is still the only Englishman to score a try in a World Cup final.
‘Clive said meet pressure with pressure. Even if there was a strong chase, I would run it back. We went into that World Cup as favourites. Everybody knew what the team was. We had the best pack in the world, we had the best kicker in the world and we had a backline with a really good of mix. Sometimes it wasn’t always pretty but if we had to strangle people we would choke them out. For me scoring, thinking about where I came from, that’s huge. I’ve never taken drugs but I can only assume the high of scoring that try is similar. Punching that ball, I could have punched my way through a brick wall.
‘It was the biggest game I’d played in by a country mile. The pressure, the spotlight, the media attention, the fans. Looking around before the final and seeing those guys, you knew no one was going to let you down. I’d never worked so hard in my life. We had so many great players, all doing different jobs. Martin Johnson didn’t need to rant his mouth off. Even when the game went into extra time there was no panic. There was no big Winston Churchill speech.’
TUCKING into an omelette, he recalls his view on the pitch of Jonny Wilkinson’s drop goal. ‘I was at a ruck. When Matt Dawson dummied and went through I was trying to get with him. He got caught and I went into the ruck so I was loitering for the next couple of phases, not quite sure what I was doing. I knew what was coming because we’d practised it for four years but I was in between thinking about protecting the ruck and staying out the way so the ball could work its way to Jonny. I was in a bit of a no man’s land.
‘It’s one thing getting into those positions but it’s another thing executing it. We worked on those scenarios in every training session. Everyone shouted when he got it but then there was another 90 seconds to play. It was the longest 90 seconds I’ve ever had on the pitch. They took a short kick-off and for the first time in the game we were out of position. All of a sudden [prop] Trevor Woodman’s catching a restart. Thankfully he caught it, secured it, Mike Catt kicked it off and we made history.’
He returned to the hotel that night to take it all in, a sea of supporters outside the lobby, his name written into the tapestry of English sporting history. This team remains the only home nation to get their hands on the Webb Ellis Cup. The wait goes on for another English winner.
‘For most people it was just relief. It was only in the days and months after that we realised it was huge. We won a lot of people’s hearts. Our lives changed after that. It put us on the map. 1966 was the last time England had won something. Even now there isn’t a day where
somebody doesn’t come up to me and say where they were. That’s such a privileged position.’
Robinson believes more can be done to tap into a generation of talent. ‘I’ve done very little with the RFU since I retired but I set up my own foundation. If I managed to do it then how many more kids from those areas could there be? A lot of them aren’t going to be drawn to the game because of their perception of it. They can’t afford a pair of boots or don’t have parents taking them to training. I waited 36 years to hear my dad say “I’m proud of you”. My mum didn’t go to Twickenham because she said it was too posh and my father was never in sight. I went to games and all I ever saw was other people’s parents. It’s about breaking down those barriers. We’re missing out so much on a talent pool because a lot of those kids have got something you can’t put into people, that fight. It’s just not being nurtured.’
England’s 2007 team were unpopular and unfancied, with Robinson seeing parallels with Steve Borthwick’s team in France.
‘England are not at the top of the list but on their day I believe they can beat one of the favourites. I always look at the contrast between 2003 and 2007. In 2007 we were garbage, getting beat 36-0 by South Africa. It was one of the worst days I’ve ever had on a rugby field. Everybody had written us of and all of a sudden we get into the quarterfinal and beat Australia. It wasn’t a big score but we beat Australia, France beat New Zealand and the World Cup changed in one day.
‘In 2003 we knew what we were and we knew how we would play. It was a special place to be. I still look back on it and think, “How on earth did that happen”?’