MY LIFE IN RUGBY

MARK NELSON FORMER VALE OF LUNE & FYLDE WING NOW COACHING ROSSENDALE AND LANCASHIRE

AS a coach I’ve been fortunate to win nine County Championships with Lancashire but, as a player, the title sadly eluded me. Thousands were packed inside Edge Hall Road for my debut against Yorkshire and I went on to score nine tries in five games that season but was dropped for John Carleton for the semi.

I’m not bitter and twisted, but I was about that. We lost too!

I learnt the game at Lancaster RGS, and one of my playing highlights was representing England Schoolboys against Australia in the fog at Twickenham. The French referee ruled out a perfectly good try because he claimed he couldn’t see it.

I swapped shirts with Mark Ella and we had a post-match drink together – it was in the days before they were worried about under-age drinking and it was a free bar! His jersey was one of my most-prized possessions but, unfortunately, it got nicked from my student digs in Liverpool during a house party.

At Vale of Lune, we won what it now National One. In those days, fixture lists were much more varied, and I’ve got a programme where we played all the current Premiership clubs with the exception of Gloucester. One season I got 38 tries, and much of the credit has to go to Don Mosey, the former cricket commentator, who was involved with the club. At the end of one summer he brought a young Jock Hobbs back from NZ with him and I got more ball than I’d ever seen before in my life that season.

I retired at 32. I injured my knee in a tackle and it was never right after that. I remember we needed to beat another of my former clubs, Fylde, to stay up and they had a fast winger up against me. I was a knackered old ox by then and the only way I could stop him was by taking him out off the ball. I thought if it’s come to this, it’s time to quit.

Throughout my club career the only coach I ever had was Brian Ashton, for one season at Vale of Lune and a couple at Fylde. At Vale he worked alongside Trevor Glover, a Cambridge Double Blue and another brilliant thinker of the game. Both were massive influences, but for most of my playing career at Vale of Lune we pretty much coached ourselves.

It was Paul Turner who first got me involved with coaching at Sale. Initially, I helped out with the forwards which basically involved me sitting on the scrum machine shouting, ‘push, 1-2-3’ to the likes of Steve Diamond and Dave Baldwin.

I’d have never have guessed that one day I’d be having a champagne and oyster breakfast with Philippe Saint-Andre on the morning of a Premiership final! We’d got there by beating Wasps in the semi at our place – they pretty much wrote our team talk because rumour has it two of their players stepped off the train at Stockport and said, ‘you can almost smell the poverty’.

We had some phenomenal players and Philippe wasn’t afraid to bring all the egos together. I believe that title-winning side of 2006 to be one of the best the country has ever seen.

I’ve got so many fond memories from coaching, from levels 1 to 6, including spells at all my former clubs as well as Orrell. One of the highlights is winning National 2N with Fylde in 2010. That was a great side and included Jason Robinson... one of my better signings!

Aside from Lancashire, I coached the North to the Divisional title in 1995 and had a successful spell with England Counties but I didn’t get the Saxons job when interviewed – I didn’t speak the right jargon and wasn’t wearing a polo shirt and chinos. So that was me and the RFU done and dusted!

I’m now coaching at Rossendale with a great group of people. Vale of Lune are in the same league, so my career has almost gone full circle.