MY LIFE IN RUGBY
KRIS FULLMAN THE FORMER BRISTOL, LONDON IRISH, LEEDS AND OTLEY PROP
The best years of my rugby career came while I was at Otley. We had some great characters in the squad and a team that punched well above its weight. When Harlequins came up to Cross Green we gave them an almighty scare and Dean Richards said that our front-row, including myself, brother-in-law Justin Wring and Mark Luffman, was Premiership standard.
It’s a shame he didn’t have the same opinion of me when I went down to Leicester for a day’s training and never got called back!
I did make well over 100 top-flight appearances, though. I was a scrummaging prop who always worked hard, never missed training and tried to be as fit as I could. I’d started to build a good reputation for myself having played in virtually every game for Bristol in the inaugural Premiership season, and was apparently next in line for a callup to England’s infamous ‘Tour from Hell’ in 1998, by which time I’d moved to London Irish after Bristol went into receivership.
Going to Irish improved me as a player but my confidence took a knock as I was surrounded by big-name players such as Brendan Venter and Conor O’Shea and I perhaps needed an ‘arm around the shoulder’ rather than the hard line – some would say military – approach taken by Dick Best. I remember him putting a sign up on the wall after we’d lost at Rotherham, saying ‘the beasting will continue until morale improves’. But I did get on well with him and he got results on a small budget.
Even though I played a fair bit at Irish, it felt as though my career hadn’t kicked on as much as I’d have liked by the time I re-joined Bristol two seasons later. I also went on to have a short spell at Leeds before opting to go part-time with Otley and combine rugby with my original career as a quantity surveyor.
Relocating around the country every other season wasn’t easy with six young children. At Otley, we had the best of times on and off the pitch, playing a tough, hard style of rugby and at the same time drinking and carrying on; it was unbelievable.
Simon Binns was a superb game-manager but a liability when he’d had one drink too many. For some reason he used to try and set people’s hair alight when he was pissed.
We finished fifth two years in a row and I got in the Dream Team alongside Justin in 2004/05. I remember us beating Exeter, then league leaders, 27-7 at Cross Green, a week after they’d given us a hiding down at their place. We took them apart up front that day.
For one game only that season, I helped Leeds out of a prop crisis. They didn’t have enough fit front row replacements to fulfil the Premiership criteria and there was talk they might have to forfeit their game against Worcester.
I sat on the bench, for £1,000 in cash, and the wife and I had a great weekend staying in a nice hotel. It’s ironic, I did pretty well out of Leeds financially, even though I spent most of my time starting off the bench. They paid for me to leave, as it cost them £12,000 to buy me out of the second year of my contract, and then paid for me to come back!
After Otley I went to join my good pals Chris Murphy and Dan Cook at Hull and had another four good years there until retiring from National League rugby aged 39.
My final involvement was as player-coach at Wheatley Hills, a well-run club near Doncaster, who I still enjoy going along to watch, although most of my time is now taken up with business. Six years ago, I set up JFD Groundworks & Civil Engineering Ltd. From humble beginnings, we now employ around 70 members of staff.