Redundancy reality for Robson as he looks to rebuild his future
Wasps’ season is over and their very existence hangs by a thread. Rugby writer BOBBY BRIDGE spoke to Dan Robson about a traumatic month and what lies ahead...
WITH a baseball cap pulled over his eyes, Dan Robson came into view through the window of our Leamington Spa meeting point. Pleasantries were exchanged as we quickly consumed our ham and cheese toasties before I cut to the chase.
“Is there anything you want this interview to say, a direction you want it to go in, or anything you want to avoid?”. Looking back at me squarely, the 14-times-capped England scrumhalf replied, “No let’s crack on and see where it takes us.”
Understandably, there wasn’t a spring in the step nor a twinkle in the eye of a player who has spent four weeks in the wilderness.
Robson was among the 167 Wasps players, coaches and staff to be made redundant after the club entered into administration last month. He was here at my request to discuss events that, by his own admission, he might never be at peace with.
Our conversation came after an emotional morning that brought home the realities of a professional club’s sudden and shocking demise.
“My mum has been helping me sort the house as we’ve got Brad Shields and his family moving in,” he said. “I was packing away all my shirts, she was getting emotional. At the minute, I am quite emotionally withdrawn from it all. I feel it has taken a lot out of me the last couple of weeks.”
Just a few months after Robson tied the knot with his partner Elizabeth, the newlyweds are opening their home to a former teammate and his family during a period of unexpected upheaval.
Former England flanker Shields is among the growing group of former Wasps players to have found new employment. A switch to Perpignan is bittersweet for those left behind, pleasure for a friend finding a club weighted against further erosion of the status quo they once cherished.
“When one of your closest mates goes ‘he’s moving to France,’ suddenly it’s a bit of a reality check,” Robson explained. “There’s also a part of you where you say, we’re still in Leamington, we’re still seeing the boys. It still feels normal-ish without the rugby games, but there’s still that lifestyle that you’re still kind of doing.
“As soon as that happened, yeah... they’re actually moving into our house today. Brad is going over next week then the rest of the family aren’t going until December, so we’ve got a full house until then!”
The Stoke-on-trent native moved from Gloucester to Wasps in 2015 ahead of their first full season in Coventry, following the club’s migration north from London.
He’s experienced nearly all of the trials and tribulations of the Midlands chapter of the club’s 155-year history, including its darkest day on October 17. Faced with a winding-up petition over an unpaid tax bill, the bombshell was delivered to a packed-out canteen at the club’s Henley-in-arden base.
“The administrator was pretty blunt,” Robson recalled. “But that’s his job, he does it every day of the week. I’ve never been in a room that was as silent as that. And when he said those words, it was even worse.
“We knew it was going to be bad news. We were pretty quiet then he said we were all redundant. There was just shock, disappointment, sadness all in one.” And anger, I asked? “Yes, anger,” Robson confirmed.
“Under the table, I text the wife straightaway ‘I’ve been made redundant.’ And that was it. It probably went on for another an hour. I didn’t take anything in after that. There were a few more questions, not a lot of answers, as you can imagine. The administrators couldn’t say too much.
“I am a pretty emotional person anyway, I took it pretty hard. Seeing other teammates get upset, that sets you off. I wanted to be there for those guys. All these young guys who have come through the club. Charlie Atkinson, Will Porter, Tom Willis. That was everything for them.”
For the majority of Robson’s time at Wasps, his day-to-day duties were carried out at the former ‘temporary’ base at Broadstreet RFC as projects to establish a promised ‘state-of-the-art’ base of their own failed to materialise. He saw his great friend Elliot Daly head to Saracens in 2019 with the club’s failure to solve the training ground issue widely believed to be a key reason behind his departure. Finally, after failed projects at the Alan Higgs Centre in Coventry and at Old Leamingtonians RFC, Wasps managed to secure a site formerly owned by the Warwickshire College Group, and in the summer of 2021, they moved into the £4million facility. All their prayers had finally been answered. “I’ve been waiting for that training ground for nearly eight years,” Robson said. “After the meeting, we went up to the changing rooms with a few bin bags to clear out our lockers. I had my spot, I made it my own. That set me off again. “Suddenly, to just wipe everything off and take everything...”. For the first and only time during our interview, the 30-year-old paused and checked his emotions, composing himself before adding, “It was something that will stay with me for the rest of my life.”
Robson had a season-and-a-half still to run on his contract and tentative discussions regarding activating a plus-one option for a further year were held as recently as last month’s victory away at Bath. There was every reason to believe his career would conclude in the West Midlands. Instead, he found himself out of work and filling in paperwork for a ‘pretty awful’ redundancy payment.
“You have to have been with the club for at least two years, so a lot of the boys didn’t get anything,” he said. “And then it was capped at a couple of hundred quid a week, per year you’ve been there. We were owed 17 days’ pay, but again that was capped.
“Then you get taxed. By the time it came through it was a couple of grand. For someone like me, who has been there seven years. As much as you’ll take it and you absolutely take anything right now, it was not quite the pay people were expecting.”
As a senior player at Wasps, Robson benefited from a six-figure salary that has been further boosted by his England participation since making his debut back in February 2019. He acknowledges there’s players in worse situations than him, and shared his sadness for academy prospects who lost their jobs and homes after being vacating on-site accommodation.
If one day I can put on a Wasps shirt again, it’ll be brilliant. If not, it’s something I’ll have to accept and look back on the memories I’ve made.
Dan Robson
“You live to your means,” he said. “For me, it was a case of, get the house, pay off as much of the mortgage as you can. And suddenly you’re going ‘s***.’
“Obviously, I’d saved a little bit. I just got married which didn’t help at all, great timing! I spent all my money on the wedding, which was a great weekend. Suddenly, you’re going, two months ago you’re saying we will do this, put that aside. Suddenly you’re going ‘that’s gone.’ It’s tough, now you’ve got to ask how can we flip this and how can we sort it?”.
Instead of continuing his battle with Will Porter for the Wasps’ number nine shirt and potentially forcing himself back into Eddie Jones’s thoughts in a World Cup year, Robson found himself trying to secure what will be only the third professional club of his career.
“I just said I am open, it doesn’t have to be in England,” he said. “Just go out and see what we can do. I spoke to a couple of English clubs, and, as expected, with the salary cap, mid-season, I was just like I can’t move my whole life, for that. We’d have to sell the house, rent somewhere that wouldn’t be that comfortable, then in six months’ time to do it all over again.
“Even the ones that were for a couple of years, still, the money is not there because the salary cap is the same next year then you have that 75 percent dispensation that happened in Covid, that’s gone next year, so suddenly the salary cap is even tighter.
“It’s just crazy, it’s probably the worst timing ever. You get the odd offer, but it’s half, a quarter of what you were on. That’s just not sustainable. It might be for a couple of months, fine, but, we do put our bodies through a lot.
“When you’re getting offers from clubs, it feels pretty disrespectful, maybe. I understand the situation, I understand this is unprecedented, but it’s pretty tough to take when you’re getting these offers through. That’s when it hits home as well, what an earth are we doing? What’s going on?”
Fortunately, Robson appears to have found a top-level club until the end of the season, he is waiting for the final thumbs-up before packing his bags and heading off on a new adventure.
Once confirmed, his name will be added to the growing list of former Wasps players finding work. The future for the club he leaves behind appears bleak. Joint administrators revealed a fortnight ago they had accepted a bid from a consortium that includes former players. But time is against them to get the deal over the line, pay rugby creditors, lift their RFU suspension, find somewhere to play and build a squad and staff in time for the 2023/24 Championship season.
“I don’t know what the future holds for Wasps,” Robson said. “If one day I can come back and put on a Wasps shirt again, it’ll be brilliant. If not, it’s something I’ll have to accept and still look back on the memories I’ve made in the last seven or eight years as fondly as I can.”