MY LIFE IN RUGBY

FORMER OTLEY AND NEWCASTLE LOCK

AT the age of 13 I moved to Haydon Bridge High School, in the middle of Kielder Forest in Northumberland. The sports master, Derek Todhunter, was a javelin thrower and rugby player and it quickly became apparent I was pretty decent at both. As a senior I was ranked in the top 10 competing alongside the likes of Mick Hill and Steve Backley, but a troublesome torn tendon in my arm ended my hopes of being an Olympian.

Understandably heartbroken, I gave up sport altogether until I was bullied into coming back to rugby to play for Blaydon 2nds. I was sat on the bench trying to stay out of the rain in Ashington thinking what the hell am I doing? But I stuck at it and I’m glad I did. Before too long, I was selected by Northumberland and then on the first England Counties tour overseas with players like Dave Strettle, Ben Foden and Dean Schofield.

After a successful tour, a few clubs were interested but I ended up at Otley and enjoyed three fantastic years there. Head coach Peter Clegg was like a father and I grew into the enforcer position in the team. I loved being part of one of the nastiest, biggest, horrible packs in the League that would have rivalled anything in the Premiership. I think I played over 100 consecutive games for them.

I remember us going down to 14 men at Worcester, who were a full-time setup, and they had a scrum 5m out. We decided we’d shunt them back off their ball with seven men, and we did just that. It was one of my fondest memories. Beating Bristol down there was another. We finished in the top five in National One (then the Championship) for two seasons in a row which was phenomenal.

Time was ticking and I thought that perhaps my chance of playing in the Premiership had gone. John Fletcher and Peter Walton had been telling Rob Andrew to take a look at me for ages, as I was playing well and from the North East but to no avail. I remember saying to my wife that I wished I could have a single year playing for Newcastle Falcons and literally a week later I had a call out of the blue from Rob, and I couldn’t believe it.

I played in every Premiership game in the 2006/07 season – bar the first one, after I got a stinger in my neck in training. On closer inspection , it turned out I must have broken my neck while I was at Otley because several scans showed I’d suffered a fracture of my C3 and C4 vertebrae.

Quite clearly it had healed and strengthened since then, but I needed to show the Falcons coaches I was okay. At one training session, I lined up Robbie Morris and smashed him. I remember looking over at Walts and Fletch and them giving me the thumbs up. My first game was against London Irish at home, we got beat but I remember having a good game and that was that, I was a mainstay of the team.

The following November I had to retire. I had ‘jumper’s knee’ and partially tore my Achilles but kept on playing with it until it became too much and decided to get out. I was 30 and ready for the knacker’s yard.

I did make a comeback a few years ago, playing for the Newcastle Legends side against the Southern Hemisphere Legends during the last World Cup. It was great to get to share the same pitch again as the likes of Matt Burke, Jamie Noon and Tom May. Having enjoyed that, I then played in another charity game at Otley and scored at try. Cleggy tried to persuade me to come out of retirement after that.

I once played virtually a whole season for Otley with a snapped bone joint in my hand, but I had no intention of going back, even though I love him to bits. I’m too busy running my own renewable energy business, Oakes Energy Services, part of Pacifica Group.