Micky Steele-bodger
Veteran rugby administrator liked and admired for his generous spirit and knowledge of the game
MICKY STEELE-BODGER, who has died aged 93, was one of the most powerful figures in rugby for more than 60 years and the last in a line of larger-than-life characters who dominated the amateur era.
A flanker whose England career was cut short by a knee injury after winning nine caps soon after the Second World War, he went on to become a national selector for 15 years, the long-serving chairman of the Home Rugby Unions Tours Committee (which looks after the Lions), a member of the Sports Council, a trustee and President of the Rugby Football Union and chairman of the International Rugby Board.
He will, however, be chiefly remembered for two other reasons: Steele-bodger’s XV and the Barbarians. His XV is an invitational team that plays Cambridge in a traditional fixture ahead of every Varsity match.
In 1948, two years after he captained the Light Blues, he was asked by the university rugby club to re-establish the star-studded invitation team, then called JV Greenwood’s XV, that had existed before the war, Greenwood himself having died. Steele-bodger stipulated two conditions for having his name attached: that he would be sole selector and that there should be a formal dinner after the match, so that the players would regard it as a special event in the rugby calendar.
It might seem unusual for a man of his age to be setting ground rules for established international stars, but Steele-bodger, as a friend put it, was “always 23 going on 40, and stayed that way”.
Above all, he will be remembered for his long association with the Barbarians, a nomadic club of no fixed abode, dedicated to expansive rugby (“keep it simple and move the ball around”), with whom he began as a player in 1948 and served as vicepresident, then president, for four decades until he died.
In many ways Steele-bodger was himself the embodiment of the Barbarian ideal, set out in the club’s original motto in 1890: “Rugby football is a game for gentlemen in all classes, but for no bad sportsmen in any class.”
Although he was the ultimate “blazer,” the archetypal rugby committee man, he was never regarded by players as one of the “old farts”, in Will Carling’s phrase. This was partly because people enjoyed his engaging personality and convivial company and
partly out of respect for his encyclopedic knowledge of the game.
Young players regarded a summons to play for the Barbarians as an honour, though it should be added that anyone who turned S-B down would receive a black mark from which his reputation might not swiftly recover. Tony O’reilly, the most capped Barbarian, once jested about him: “Steely perhaps, Bodger certainly.”
Steele-bodger managed the transition from the amateur game better than most of his contemporaries when rugby union went professional in 1995, and he became an important symbolic link between the two. It had been generally assumed that the Barbarian ethos would disappear in the professional age, but he and his colleagues not only preserved it but commercialised it successfully and converted it into an international brand as well as a generous charity.
Baa-baa matches against overseas touring teams, such as the All Blacks and the Springboks, are now a star attraction of the rugby season. Steele-bodger played in the very first of these games, against Australia in 1948, scoring the opening try. Haydn Tanner, the great Welsh scrum-half, recalled that Steele-bodger was so short for a wing-forward that they seriously considered putting him at the front of the line-out rather than the back. He is described in the official history of the Harlequins club, for whom he also played, as “a wingforward of the light skirmishing type, making up for his lack of size by the amazing way in which he seemed to be everywhere at once.” This was a characteristic he displayed in all aspects of his life.
Michael Roland Steele-bodger was born in Tamworth on September 4 1925, the younger son of Harold Steele-bodger and Kathrine (née Macdonald). His father was a leading veterinary surgeon and his elder brother Alasdair, who won three sporting blues at Cambridge, became Professor of Veterinary Clinical Studies at the university.
Micky went to Rugby School before going up to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, also to study for a veterinary degree; he was later to join and then run the family’s vet practice in Tamworth. After playing in the Varsity matches of 1945 and 1946, he retained a long connection, mainly through Steele-bodger’s XV, with the university rugby club, where a room in the Grange Road clubhouse is named after him.
After Cambridge he continued his studies at Edinburgh University while also turning out for England. In 1947, during one of the harshest British winters on record, he was selected to play at Twickenham in the Calcutta Cup match against Scotland. Because of the heavy snow, he set off by train on the Thursday.
By Friday he had only reached Carlisle and sent a telegram to the England camp to warn them about his travel problems. Since rationing was in force, all he had for food was a tin of Ovaltine tablets and an orange. After several stops to shovel snow from the line, in which he took an energetic part, the journey eventually took 30 hours and he arrived at the England hotel at 4am on the morning of the match.
He awoke to find that his teammates had left him sleeping and set off after them. He went to the restaurant where they usually had lunch, only to find it closed. So he returned to Twickenham and waited for the rest of the squad.
When they appeared, they said they assumed that he could not possibly play after his ordeal and had already named a substitute, Vic Roberts. There was then what has been euphemistically described as “a slight altercation” that was to start a feud between the two men that was finally settled, some years later, when Roberts was invited to join the Barbarians committee. Steele-bodger won his place back and took a full part in the game, in which there were several injuries because of the frozen pitch. England won 24-5.
Against Scotland the following year, the England scrum-half went off badly injured and Steele-bodger had to stand in (no replacements were allowed in those days). An official history records: “Steele-bodger took to the position as to the manner born.”
In the following match, against France in Paris, he broke his wrist while diving over the full-back in an attempt to score a try. A French official drove him to hospital, but they found themselves at the end of a very long queue. The Frenchman suggested a couple of bottles of champagne as an alternative medicine. Steele-bodger agreed with alacrity.
Steele-bodger was in great demand as an after-dinner speaker, and gladly presided over events such as club anniversaries. He tended to do the bulk of his rugby administration over a drink at the East India Club in St James’s Square, which became Twickenham’s branch in central London. He was club chairman for 11 years and then president for life.
Micky Steele-bodger, who was appointed CBE in 1990, is survived by his wife, “Muff ”, Violet Mary St Clair (née Murray), whom he married in 1955, and by their daughter and two sons (one of whom has been on the staff at Rugby School for more than 30 years).
Micky Steele-bodger, born September 4 1925, died May 8 2019