Martin Johnson asked me: ‘Have you been sleeping with prostitutes?’
In the second set of extracts from his new book, James Haskell reveals the perils of touring Down Under are not just on the pitch
It is June 2010 and England are preparing for the second Test against Australia in Sydney, a game they would go on to win 21-20. Because I thought I would not be involved in the second Test, when an Old Wellingtonian asked if a few of the lads wanted to meet up for lunch, I said yes. This guy was an investment banker and renting Hugh Jackman’s apartment in the heart of Sydney, so I knew it would be a case of no expenses spared.
The following day, which was a day off, eight of the lads met up with this guy and some of his investmentbanker mates on Sydney Harbour. The plan was to have some lunch, jump on a boat and have a few drinks, while they took us on a tour of Sydney before we hooked up with the rest of the lads to go out for the team meal later in the evening.
So, I was sitting in this restaurant, drinking ludicrously expensive white wine in the sun, life was good and the stories were flowing. It was about halfway through the meal when I noticed a woman sitting on the adjacent table. It is not like I could have missed her, because her breasts (and when I say breasts, think of two Swiss balls bolted to her chest) were desperately trying to escape a red military jacket, like the guards at Buckingham Palace wear. She was flanked by a couple of shady-looking blokes, who kept staring at us, but we just ignored them, hoping they would go away.
After a couple of hours, the Old Wellingtonian said: “Right, the boat’s ready to depart. And we’ve got a couple of surprises.” We got up to leave and the woman in the red jacket sidled up to us and said: “Can we have a photo with you?” (Normally, I was wary about that sort of stuff, and with good reason: I had heard a story about Phil Greening being stitched up when a couple of girls asked to have a photo taken with him and lifted their T-shirts to reveal all. It appeared in The Sun and Clive Woodward went mad.)
But because I had already had a bottle of Cloudy Bay, I readily agreed. I made sure that I was standing right on the edge of the photo, in case she unleashed her fun bags, at which point I could dive out of the way of the shot. I did not alert the other lads to my concerns as I did not want them all getting the same idea. However, when one of her companions started unpacking his professional camera and attaching lenses, I started thinking: “S---, something is not right about this.”
He took his snaps, with the woman in the middle of all the players. She kept her jacket on so we thought nothing more about it.
When we got on the boat, we were greeted by four or five women serving champagne in their lingerie. So I said to the Old Wellingtonian: “Listen, who are these girls?” “They’re PR girls,” he replied. “They’re not hookers?” “God, no …”
The rest of the lads did not seem that bothered, so I relaxed a little. I got myself settled down in the back of the boat with a bottle of Corona, a few of the lads went up top to talk to these girls, and everything seemed to be going swimmingly. Admittedly, it was all a bit odd, what with the waitresses wandering around with almost nothing on, but I was not complaining. However, just as the boat was embarking, I looked over my right shoulder and saw the photographer from earlier swivel around in his chair with the most professional-looking telephoto lens I had ever seen. It looked like he was wielding a telescope, so I shouted to the lads up top, “Get the f--- down!”
It was like we were about to be torpedoed, and it is quite possible our careers would have been, had I not seen the photographer first, hit the deck and squeezed myself under the gunwale. Some lads saw what I was looking at and ducked down, others were too busy talking to women to be bothered about anything else. The boat left harbour with me lying down the side and my feet the only things on show.
Thankfully, that is as dramatic as the trip got. We had a few drinks, sailed under the Sydney Harbour Bridge and everyone was on their best behaviour. The waitresses were not prostitutes, they really were PR girls. And if they wanted to serve drinks in their lingerie, that was their prerogative.
As it turned out, I was on the bench for the second Test, but I was the only player who did not get on. That was the only time it had happened to me, and I was livid. And things went downhill from there. While the lads were celebrating their win, the first time we had beaten the Aussies Down Under since the 2003 World Cup final,
Dozzer [Paul Doran-jones, Haskell’s England team-mate and long-time friend] came up to me and said: “Hask, something’s gone wrong, we are in the s---.” Just as I was trying to work out what he was on about, England head coach Martin Johnson appeared over Dozzer’s shoulder and said: “Can I have a word?” This was the story of my life, constantly getting called into corners for a chat. It was never a good thing, no one has ever pulled me aside to give me good news, and it is always the start of some drama that finds its way into the papers.
Johnno pulled me and Dozzer into a room and said: “Right, have you lads been sleeping with prostitutes?” Now, it’s not great being accused of sleeping with prostitutes by anyone, but being accused of sleeping with prostitutes by Martin Johnson is on a whole different level. Me and Dozzer were going red, pulling on our collars and stuttering. It was like that scene from Star Wars where Darth Vader chokes one of his Death Star officers just by raising a finger. When we denied we had been sleeping with prostitutes, Johnno replied: “Are you sure? We’ve been told you filled a boat with prostitutes and had sex with them all over Sydney Harbour.”
We denied it again and again, but Johnno just refused to believe us (I should have told him I found his lack of faith disturbing, but he probably would have killed me). And then he hit us with: “Well, the News of the World have got hold of the story and they’re running with it.”
They printed the story with the picture that had been taken as we were leaving port. I was nowhere to be seen, thank God, but if you looked closely you could see my feet sticking out as I had dived for cover. As always, though, the b------- still mentioned me in copy. “The organiser of the trip James Haskell, etc.”
Fortunately, because we’d beaten Australia for the first time in ages, the story barely made a splash and we all lived to fight another day.