Category: Sports

A few people had told me that just because I had completed a half marathon the jump to full distance was not straightforward. Pah, couldn’t be that hard. I entered through the ballot and deployed a tried and trusted method of putting a faster finish time of 3 hours and 30 minutes to avoid the popular blocks of four hours plus (the theory being that you had less people putting faster times, and blocks of fifteen minutes were filled up). I was told by letter a few months later that I had secured my place. When you get your entry pack it comes with a suggested training schedule, so I followed that as my weekly routine from five months out.

Training was going well until I started developing a sore foot with about six weeks to go. Thinking it was just some kind of bruising I attempted to carry on training, but it wasn’t getting any better. I ended up back at the sports physiotherapists who diagnosed it as a metatarsal stress fracture. I hadn’t even heard of this type of injury before David Beckham famously had a problem with it. Complete rest was diagnosed for a minimum of two months. Luckily I had one deferral with my London entry, so moved my slot to the following year. Maybe this marathon lark was harder than I thought.

I duly rested up, and picked the training schedule back up later that year. This time around my training went uninterrupted and I looked forward to the day of the race. The furthest run I’d completed prior to race day was nineteen miles, which I considered to be close enough. I knew the race would be tough as I’d be stepping in to the unknown, but I felt confident I was running well.

It felt good to be part of something as big as the London marathon and I’d drummed up some sponsorship to help with the motivation. I’d chosen the County Air Ambulance as my charity, and managed to raise a good enough sum of money from friends, family and work colleagues. I travelled down to London the day before to pick up my race bag from the event fair. This was an event in itself. There were hundreds of exhibitors and loads of activities going on to support the race. It really was an impressive set up. After registering and collecting my bag of goodies I headed to a friend’s house to relax and carb load with the customary pre-race pasta. I went to bed feeling nervous but excited.

It was an early start to get the bus to the appropriate point with the thousands of other competitors making their way across London. The weather was great. It was dry and sunny, with the usual early morning chill of April. Keeping warm and hydrated was the priority before the start, although it’s a fine balance between drinking and needing the toilet every 5 minutes particularly when you’re nervous. The amount of people taking a leak was ridiculous, there were some sights I didn’t really want to see as people avoided the portaloo queues.

It seemed to take forever, but eventually everyone was lined up and the start gun fired. Due to the amount of people it took a few minutes to get over the start line, and I was off. It’s hard not to get carried away in these events, and do the sensible thing by running at your own pace. I definitely went a little bit faster than I intended to for the first few miles. A fatal error. With the temperature creeping up and my adrenaline kicking in, the slightly faster pace started to take it’s toll at eleven miles. I felt a slight twinge of cramp in my right calf, and instantly knew this was going to be a problem. I started taking extra fluid on board at each drinks station, combining water and energy drinks but the damage had already been done. Cramp was here to stay.

The atmosphere was incredible the whole way round. From the very start there were crowds lining the streets, shouting support. Reading that it was a good idea to put your name on the t-shirt so that people could shout your name as you went past, I’d put my nickname, Boney, on mine. (I’d ended up with this nickname by default when a swimming club coach called my brother it, and it didn’t stick. Not really sure why…Stoney, Boney…but I do know it has nothing to do with being thin, although I am and it is highly appropriate). Having my name visible to all worked great in the first half of the race when things were going well. Shouts of encouragement of ‘go Boney’ (or Bonnie as one person called me) were replaced by ‘stop walking Boney!’ when my legs were cramping like mad. I took to moving away from the side of the road to the middle of the pack to avoid the shouts.

After the eleven mile point the twinges in my calves became more frequent and it didn’t take long before my legs started properly cramping. I stopped a few times to stretch and try and shake it out, but the effect would only be shortlived. Before the race I had also heard about the notorious cobbled section that can affect your running. On entering the cobbled streets I promptly fell over, embarrassingly incurring shouts of ‘man down, man down’. Picking myself up, I got going again and fell over a few metres later. This was not turning out to be a good day. By the time I got to the nineteen mile mark and met up with my mates that had come along to cheer me on, I was in all sorts of trouble. ‘I’m in bits’ I spluttered when I saw them. Rob, who had done a marathon previously, just pushed me away and told me to keep going. Tough love, but to be fair he knew there was no point giving sympathy with 7 miles left to go.
The cramp got worse along the Embankment and I was reduced to a slow jog. This culminated in me cramping up in both calves and quads, making me fall backwards like a frozen corpse on to the floor in agony. Two St Johns Ambulance volunteers ambled over and enquired if I was alright. ‘Can you give me some salt tables, or pain killers? I’m cramping like hell’ I squealed. ‘Sorry love, we can’t give you anything like that. Would you like a massage or a boiled sweet?’ came the reply. Realising that this was the best I was going to get I accepted the offer and they did their best to get me back on my feet. Clearly the boiled sweet was about as useful as a chocolate teapot, but at least it had sugar. I was not only cramping in my legs, it seemed like my whole body wanted to join in. I even got cramp in my ear for god’s sake! I didn’t even think that was possible.

I was eventually helped to my feet and got a gentle round of slow-hand-clap, empathetic applause from the people who had clearly been watching my cramp nightmare unfold. Waving feebly and smiling with a grimace I hobbled away to try and finish the final few miles. A combination of walking and slow jogging saw me get past Buckingham Palace and down the Mall to the finish line. I’ve never been as happy to finish anything in my life. I finished in 4 hours and 31 minutes, a lot slower than I had originally hoped. However, marathons are not exactly intended to be easy so I’m still proud that I completed it. I can’t recall getting overtaken by a rhino or a womble, so it could have been worse.

For years I tried to re-enter the London Marathon to atone for my crampathon, but never got accepted in to the ballot again and couldn’t face committing to raising thousands for a charity place. It’s probably a good thing. And anyway, clearly marathon running was not going to be an Olympic wildcard. Another one knocked off the list.

I think it’s fair to say that I’m probably best suited to running. Middle to long distance running to be more precise. I’m definitely not a sprinter.

I discovered I could run fairly fast at primary school. Some PE lessons involved running laps of the school as a kind of mini cross country race. I always did pretty well, often finishing amongst the fastest. I got more and more competitive with these type of races and didn’t like losing. I carried this through to secondary school, also during PE lessons. We sometimes had to run the dreaded 1500 metres, which everyone hated. A few of us were fairly competitive with each other, but I wasn’t the fastest. I discovered after a while that 800 metres was my preferred distance.

The only time I really did any structured athletics events was in the summer, in the build-up to sports day. We used to do laps of the track that was marked out with white paint on the school playing field. I always got really nervous when racing on the track. Something about it just made my stomach knot up. I think it was probably because I knew it was going to really hurt, and something about doing laps was psychologically quite tough. I always preferred cross country events for that reason. Not being able to see the finish was somehow far more easy to cope with mentally. I ended up breaking the school record for the 800m four years in a row, which I am proud of. I competed only once in an athletics meet, coming fourth as I recall. I just didn’t enjoy it enough to train properly for it. Swimming and rugby took up most of my time anyway, so there wasn’t really scope to add another sport on top. Even though it was the one I was naturally better at. Running with a ball in your hand and being part of a team was much more appealing. Apart from the short summer athletics interlude and training for rugby, the only other pure running I did was in biathlon competitions…but more of that later.

Now I was in the Post Knee Injury era, running became a more regular pastime. There didn’t seem to be a lot of options left, so I began regularly going for runs when I could. During my third year of University I took part in an Erasmus Exchange programme to Lille University. I was the only student from Loughborough to go, and I discovered that my studies during that year had absolutely no bearing on my overall degree. This was perfect, I could concentrate on speaking French and having a good time. I’d studied French at A-Level, but was never particularly confident speaking it so I saw this as the best opportunity to work on it. It couldn’t have worked out better in terms of immersing myself in French life. On arriving at the university on the weekend before term started I found out I was in an all French hall and was sharing with a French roommate. This was pretty daunting, and my Dad looked like he knew what I was thinking when he said his goodbyes after dropping me off. He later admitted that I looked like I was some kind of terrified stranded puppy when he drove away. He wasn’t wrong. I had no choice, it was sink or swim. The first week was quite tough, and my roommate was a proper tool but I think I learnt more about speaking in French in that first week than I had over the seven years I’d studied at school.

I went to as many Economics classes as I could during the week (and there were a lot in comparison to my 9 hours a week at Loughborough. It was almost full time at Lille, which was great for my language development), and loved the environment. When I heard the first English voice at the hall of residence dining area a few days later, I practically threw my dinner on the floor to rush over and introduce myself. It was a huge relief to know there was someone else there I could talk to in my own language. Greg and I got on pretty well and he introduced me to some people from Hull University that he’d met, Kat, Kirsty and Emma. We quickly became good mates, and it was good to jump out of French life to socialise with English friends in the evenings and at weekends when most of the French students disappeared back home. Don’t get me wrong, the French speaking part was great but there is definitely a big cultural difference between the French and English which made it hard to connect on a social level. Benny Hill is one of their favourite comedy shows. I rest my case.

The whole year was amazing, I had such a good time. I definitely developed as a person and became much more self-sufficient. It was by far the best year at University because it was so different to anything I’d experienced thus far. I didn’t do a lot of physical exercise that year as there was far too much going on but I went for the odd run, and that was enough at that time.

I joined the athletics club when I returned to Loughborough University in my final year. There wasn’t really any expectation about competing at a serious level but I was curious to know how I would get on if I put some structured training in. The winter season basically involved a lot of cross country runs and some track work to build endurance. I joined in the middle to long distance training sessions. At the same time I was there, Paula Radcliffe was also a student and obviously a member of the athletics club. One Tuesday session involved a club run of around eight miles around the town, and on one occasion, as we all left, Paula was still chatting to the coaches. At about five miles she came bombing past me, and by the time I reached the clubhouse she’s got changed and left. Different level altogether.

I took part in a couple of cross country BUSA events over the winter which were good to be involved in. I was never in any danger of troubling the fast runners, but it was nice to focus on some kind of racing. As the training started to intensify on the track, it soon became obvious that my knee couldn’t cope with the kind of sessions that were being set. So I drifted away from the athletics and just stuck to more recreational running.

After graduating I didn’t really do anything structured until I entered the Reading half marathon in 1999. I was living down that way as I’d got a job at a company in Bracknell as part of their European Accounting Centre. I had no intention of being an accountant, but I had learnt from a colleague that I was temping with at the time that they were recruiting French speakers. This was part of a work shadowing project to migrate all accounting functions to the UK head office. My colleague had been recruited in to the German wave, and suggested I apply for the French one. So I did. I successfully went through the selection process and recruited in to the French transition team. This meant a 3 week induction programme followed by a four month workshadowing period at the French Headquarters in Cergy, a short train ride from where we would be staying in Paris. All of the recruits in to the transition programme were recent university graduates, with language skills as the primary requirement. As far as first permanent jobs go, this couldn’t have been better. Twenty university graduates dropped in to Paris for four months with a salary and expense account …we couldn’t believe our luck. Needless to say, the assignment was like being a student but with cash. We made the most out of our time, and enjoyed the nightlife of Paris as much as we could.

Reality hit hard when the transition period came to an end. We found ourselves back working in Bracknell doing the day job, Paris a long distant memory. I had done the odd run around some of the local parks in Paris whilst we were there, but it was an occasional thing and probably more designed to cure a hangover than anything else. On getting back to England, having something fun to focus on was required. Hence the application to run the Reading half marathon.

I got myself in to some kind of shape over the winter by doing increasingly longer runs and practising some of the race route. By the time of the race I was feeling good. It was always a fairly well attended event as it was in March just before the London Marathon. A lot of athletes used it as a warm up, and some elite runners also competed. It was the first longer distance event I’d entered. I’d done a couple of 10ks here and there, but this was my first attempt at anything with the word ‘marathon’ in it. I had a good race, and finished in 1 hour and 31 minutes. I was pretty pleased with that. Although the sight of one of the top Kenyan finishers running back along the route when I had three miles to go reminded me just how fast the top runners go. Still, I enjoyed it. So much so that I applied for the London Marathon the following year.

I’d had a few injuries before the one I sustained during that county rugby match, but nothing too serious. I’d had concussion a couple of times, once from tackling a guy with my head during one of our school matches in the worst conditions I’d played in. It was cold and sleeting, and by the time the guy ran in to my head with his knees I was already ready to get off the pitch. I probably over exaggerated the collision by wobbling a little bit too dramatically, and ended up walking back to the changing rooms for the best hot shower I think I’ve ever had.

The second time happened when my fly half, Neil, kicked the ball straight in to my face after I’d passed it to him. That one hurt. Displaying true sympathy, my coach told me to stop whingeing and get back on my feet as we hadn’t got any replacements. The rest of the match was a blur.

Other than that I’d only had minor problems from a recurring nose bleed and had had trouble with my right knee after over extending it whilst stuck in a maul. However, the knee injury this time was clearly more serious. By the time I got dropped home by a teammate after visiting A+E, it had become very swollen. The A+E staff couldn’t really give me any clear idea of what the injury might be so just suggested I iced it and waited for the swelling to go down.

Once my knee got back to normal size and I was able to walk I went to the GP and promptly got referred to a knee specialist. I was then booked in for an arthroscopy to uncover the problem, as the surgeon suspected cartilage damage. Following the relatively minor operation he confirmed that I had damaged my cartilage so he tidied it up and cleared away the fluid which was filled with blood and debris. Unfortunately, it soon became obvious that the operation hadn’t cleared up the problem as my knee would often collapse, particularly when trying to do any kind of running or twisting.

A friend of mine recommended a sports physiotherapist in Stafford, who he had seen for a knee problem he had been struggling with. Feeling as though I had nothing to lose I booked an appointment and went along to see one of the senior partners. He got me to lie down on the physio table, and within minutes of manipulating my knee he stated that I had clearly snapped my anterior cruciate ligament and needed surgery to fix it. Given that the surgeon who performed the arthroscopy had not even noticed it, I was more than a bit surprised.

He instantly referred me to a sports knee specialist to have a Jones-Hersen ligament repair. He explained that this was a pioneering technique which involved taking a strip of my knee tendon with bone at each end to use as a new ligament. He also said that there was no chance of playing rugby again, as my joints would be too weak. Apparently some people can continue playing without cartilage or ligaments, but I clearly didn’t fit in to that group of people. He said I had very supple and slack joints, more associated with a gymnast (probably from swimming breastroke for years) than a rugby player which meant I was more susceptible to this type of injury. Either way it was the end of my rugby playing career and I was going under the knife.

To cut a long story short, the ligament repair didn’t quite go as well as planned. After I’d made a full recovery and finished my rehab physio, my knee still kept collapsing. Frustrated I went back to the physio and ended up having an MRI scan, another arthroscopy and another ligament repair. All in all it took three years to fix and enable me to do exercise without my knee collapsing on me. Even though it was fixed, I never did anything that involved severe twisting and never played any other physical sports. I wasn’t going to go through all of that again.

I saw my sporting life from this point on as two distinct eras. Pre and Post Knee Injury.

School rugby was always the prime focus. As we developed and grew as a team we became a good local force. We made it to the Staffordshire county cup final when we were in our fourth year, coming up against Stafford. The match was a battle of attrition which we were winning for most of the time. However, a late try from them meant that we ended up drawing the match 10-10. Most of us thought we would end up deciding the outcome with extra time, but that wasn’t to be the case. The final was tied and we ended up sharing the trophy. A fairly strange end to a cup competition which felt deflating. We were convinced of course that we could have won, but our coach delicately pointed out that their team was finishing much the stronger so it could have well ended in defeat. Anyway, it caused much debate and at least we hadn’t lost.

Every year the first and second teams at the Friary would go on a tour to Hawick in Scotland. This was a pretty legendary event for drinking and playing reasons, and one which everyone in the squad wanted to go on. I missed out in the fifth form, but ended up going whilst in sixth form. The tour was over three days and involved playing three matches on consecutive days against anyone that wanted to play a snotty English club from the Midlands. We also trained each morning, on a local rugby club pitch. This included a daunting run up ‘Cardiac Hill’, which unsurprisingly was very steep and not at all pleasant. When you add the fact that most of us were hungover when this was done, it really wasn’t a great experience.

There were lots of traditions involved on tour, including shaving someone’s eyebrow off whilst they were asleep to punching holes in the hotel walls (no idea why, but there were lots of strategically placed pictures and furniture dotted around the rooms covering up the latest holes). The hotel wasn’t the Ritz and the management clearly weren’t too bothered by the fact that thirty or so lads were destroying their rooms because the school was allowed back every year. The matches were good fun as well, and drinking games were always played afterwards with the opposing team. School ties were swapped as part of the post-match ceremony and there was good banter around who got pummelled the most. I remember making a particularly bad decision in one match, by deciding to kneel on the chest of the guy I had just tackled. Given that this was a club team of grown men, this was a very bad move. Retribution occurred a few minutes later when the same guy tackled me, shouted something about being an English tit and punched me in the face. Fair enough.

At the end of every school season we would have an annual dinner at the rugby club. This was a predictably drunken affair where players and coaching staff got together to celebrate the sporting accomplishments of the year and bid farewell to the players in the upper sixth form who would be leaving school. At the end of the meal there were speeches by the coach, vice-captain and captain which were always a bit of a mixed bag in terms of quality. It was tradition to name the incoming school vice-captain and captain which was highly predictable most of the time. It tended to be the best player that had the most county caps. At the annual dinner that marked the move up to the Upper Sixth form for me and my year mates, it was widely expected that our number eight would be named as captain. He had always been the biggest player in our team and had captained most of the year groups, as well as representing Staffs on multiple occasions. It came as a massive surprise to pretty much the whole squad when he was named as Vice Captain this time round. Given that we were half cut by then, the confusion was compounded and we all chuntered our disbelief as the outgoing captain, Richard Brooks (Brooksy), started his speech.

It was even more of a surprise when at the end of his speech he announced me as the incoming captain! By this time I was quite drunk, and definitely did a double take. Now, I loved my rugby but I was by no means the best player and I had no county caps to my name. Obviously I was delighted and extremely proud, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why I’d been selected, and I’m pretty sure most of my team mates couldn’t either. Although they hid it well. The night then descended in to one long drunken stupor as reality started to set in.

Another tradition at the annual dinner was to strip the incoming captain naked. I was well aware of this, so legged it out of the rugby club door as soon as I realised what Brooksy was up to. Unfortunately, I’m not the quickest and it didn’t take long for them to pin me down and rip my clothes off (not as dodgy as it sounds). Brooksy also took the opportunity to ‘christen’ my dinner shirt under the goal posts, to add to the ritual. I seem to remember ending up behind the bar with no clothes on trying to avoid any further humiliations (believe me, there are many humiliating rugby japes that happen and I wasn’t about to let it get any worse), until the bar man politely told me to get out. After that it’s a bit of a blur, but it was a good night and the hangover the next day proved it.

I later found out the reason why I was selected as captain from the head coach, although not until right at the end of the next season. In fact there were two reason. Firstly, the number eight had decided to go on operation Raleigh. This involved raising money through various means to travel to a far flung country to help out with local conservation projects like creating a water supply or helping build a school. This meant that he would be very preoccupied in planning this during his final year, and so the coaching team felt that he would be too distracted to lead the team. Secondly, we were a fairly small team overall so we would need to be extremely fit to be able to compete this year. I was well known for busting a gut in training, and they knew I could set a good example for fitness. What I lacked in physicality and skill, I made up for in fitness and bloody mindedness. Maybe that wasn’t a bad combination for a captain.

That summer before training began I spent a lot of time practising passing off my left hand as it was always pretty weak. I was a long way from being ambidextrous, to the point where doing anything with my left hand was a waste of time. I borrowed a bag of rugby balls from school and spent hours spin passing to a tree. By the end of the summer I was pretty handy with my left hand. I also got as fit as I could through running and swimming. I was determined to be as good a captain as I could be, and the only way I knew how to do that was to train like mad.

That season was our most successful ever. We were practically unbeaten, only losing twice. We gelled as a team, and made up our shortcomings by training hard and working on our tactics. We grew extremely confident and felt unbeatable. Our fly half, Neil Law, was a real talent. He’d spent years playing rugby league, and was a great decision maker. He could also kick off both feet and was tall. He was the catalyst for many of our wins. If he played well, we generally won. He went on to get to North of England level, just below getting a full England cap. After school he played for Northampton rugby club and eventually switched codes to play for Wakefield rugby league team as a professional. During my time as a player he was our most successful sportsman.

During that final year I got my chance to play for Staffs County team when a couple of injuries to the first and second choice scrum half gave me an opportunity. I was very proud, and so were my parents who came to watch. We won that match, and I learned a lot from the other players who I knew well from the other school teams. I’d got my taste of another level as I had done with swimming, and I wanted more of it. I knew I wasn’t as good as the scrum halves who were absent but that didn’t stop me from thinking big.

At the tail end of the season we progressed through the rounds of the Staffs County cup and found ourselves in the final against Newcastle-Under-Lyme. We’d played them a few times before and had mixed results. I had also experienced the humiliation of losing to them 113-0 in a Seconds match two years before. This was undoubtedly the worst game I have ever played in. Playing for the seconds wasn’t a great experience anyway, as you knew you were outside of the favoured group. It is however a good learning ground and provides you with match time, but no one wanted to be stuck in that team for long. Right from the kick off they scored, and it continued like that the whole match. They just ripped us apart. Given that tries only counted for four points back then, and they missed a lot of their conversions they must have racked up around twenty tries. After one try towards the end of the match they all cheered and started laughing, much to our annoyance. It turned out the reason for their extra celebrations was that every player on their team had scored a try. It doesn’t getting any worse than that.

The final was pretty important to a few of us who had been involved in that humiliation, and the school as a whole was behind us. We hadn’t won the cup for a few years so there was quite a buzz around the place. On the day itself we were warming up at the ground thinking there weren’t that many of our supporters when three coaches turned up with a healthy number of people from our school. It all added to the occasion, and the atmosphere was the best I have experienced. The game itself was good. It was close, but we never felt we would lose. Neil made one of his customary breaks, and scored under the posts. I came close to scoring in the corner in a well-practised training ground move, but got tackled before the line. We played well as a team, and came away winners 13-9. Being captain made it extra special and of course it felt great to be the school heroes. Predictably the day ended with many beers down the pub and a curry. A previous captain presented me with an oil lamp stolen from the curry house as a trophy. It was as good as it got.

After I left school I played for the Club during the summer and got selected again as first choice scrum half for Staffs County in their Colts team. I was all set to try and get in to the university squad at Loughborough where I started in late September 1992. I had visions of breaking in to the Freshers team so put my name down for Fresher trials pretty much as soon as I got there. There were a few of us from my hall of residence, The Holt, who went along. When applying for the trials you had to state where you played and to what level. I proudly put Staffordshire County but noticed that this was a minimum requirement to get even a nod at getting a twenty minute run out at the trials. I eventually got my chance and was pitched against a scrum half who had played at a very high level. Predictably he ran rings around me, literally. It became immediately obvious I was trying to play above my skill level, and it wasn’t a great surprise to find out I hadn’t made the Freshers squad.

Not being too downhearted I signed up to the rugby club anyway during Fresher’s week, hoping to start with the Thirds and move up. I was reliably informed that Neil Black had done something similar years before ‘and look what happened to him!’ said the lad behind the desk at the Fresher’s fair. I’m sure he said the same line to everyone who had missed out at trials, but it worked for me.

I was still playing for Staffs County Colts when I started University, travelling back every Sunday to play or train. It seemed worthwhile given I hadn’t made the Uni squad anyway. The second weekend at University I had a county match against Leicestershire. I remember it well as Les Cusworth, former England International, was watching. It added an extra dimension to the match knowing someone of that calibre was watching from the stands. The match started well enough until about five minutes in to the match. I took a ball from our lineout which meant I was facing the wrong way to my fly half. I had to turn all the way round to deliver the pass, and while I was spinning round I got clattered by the opposition flanker. I heard a loud crack, felt a huge pang of pain in my leg and fell to the floor. I screamed out, and slowly looked down at my leg. I was convinced I was going to see it broken, but there was nothing obviously wrong. Quite surprised, I tried to stand up and my left leg collapsed beneath me. I tried a number of times but just kept falling over. Something was clearly not right, so I hobbled off to the changing rooms. That was my last game of rugby.

I think I was always destined to like rugby. As already stated, my dad was a club rugby player and played for Tamworth. His preferred position was winger and his nickname was ‘Tiger’, due to his competitive nature. He was pretty quick by all accounts and strong. By the time I was old enough to watch international rugby matches with him on the lounge sofa he had already retired. One too many injuries which culminated in a broken collar bone. I think mum had the deciding vote on him hanging up his rugby boots.

So my lessons in rugby started on the sofa. My dad trying to explain the rules as England got regularly beaten by Wales in the Five nations tournament. My memories are hazy but I do remember seeing blokes in big shorts throwing a brown leather ball around, and a guy called Dusty Hare kicking all the penalties. Dad got quite animated during the matches, so I did too. I think he was always keen for me to play, but never pushed me in to it. At primary school it wasn’t an option anyway as football was the only sport on offer, so it wasn’t until I moved to secondary school at the Friary, Lichfield, that I got introduced to playing.

The first PE lesson at Friary involved all the boys in Year 1 running to the end of the rugby pitch and back. From that piece of in depth analysis, we were divided in to groups based on size and speed and put in to our first rugby lesson. I was selected as hooker, which was an odd decision given my slight frame and small size. I think I did it for one lesson and decided that being stuck in the middle of a bunch of sweaty lads wasn’t for me so I got shunted to the wing pretty quickly.

It didn’t take long to get in to the swing of things. Even though the rules were pretty complicated, I enjoyed the team dynamic and the physical nature of the sport. Being on the wing meant that I didn’t really get to see the ball that often, but when I did eventually get my hands on it it was generally an opportunity to run as fast as I could in an attempt to score a try or at least make ground. That suited me. I also liked learning the tactics and was happy to fling myself in to tackles, so I quickly began to understand why my dad liked it as much as he did.

It was also a great environment to make friends at a new school, and most of my closest friends were also involved in rugby as we moved up through the school. Friary had a good rugby tradition, and it was its primary sport much to the displeasure of the football contingent. Given my total lack of skill as a footballer, this was great for me but understandably was pretty frustrating for those that preferred the spherical ball.

The pattern of school life evolved around training and matches, which were generally once or twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Training was great. We did a combination of fitness work and practice matches. We often had to warm up by running around the rugby pitches, and if it was a fitness session there would be sprint work mixed with strength exercises which mainly involved lots and lots of press ups and sit ups. Our head coach was notorious for his fitness focus and his fiery temper. There were a whole variety of rumours about how he terrified kids who were rude or misbehaved by staring at them in silence until they crumbled in his office. However, my experience was that he did not suffer fools gladly and just wanted everyone to work hard and try their best. Again, something that was fine by me.

Our closest rivals were the other rugby playing school in Lichfield, King Edwards. This was referred to as the ‘grudge’ match and was the one that everyone got pumped up for. We played them twice a year, home and away. It always had the largest crowds coming to watch, and annoyingly the Friary girls used to attend to watch the King Eddy lads. Something that was massively annoying to us teenagers, who thought they should be fiercely loyal to us. Our record against King Edwards was pretty good during my time at the school, and I managed to score a few tries. My favourite was when I was in the right place at the right time when their centre tried to kick the ball away from his try line. Unfortunately he completely miskicked it. It landed straight in my arms twenty metres away and I just ran straight under the posts for the easiest try I have ever scored. I think we won pretty easily that day.

After a while, in the third year at school I switched positions to scrum half. For whatever reason the current scrum half wasn’t in favour, so I was chosen to take on the role. I was delighted with the decision. As far as I was concerned, the scrum half was the play maker and had all of the important decisions to make due to controlling the ball from the line out or scrums. This meant I could dictate the play and had much more of a pivotal role in the team. I wasn’t the most natural in this role. I wasn’t great at kicking, and I adopted the diving pass in the style of Gareth Edwards (without any of his talent) until I learnt how to quickly spin pass. However, I enjoyed the scope of the position and was determined to hold on to the number nine jersey. I ended up playing in that position for the rest of my rugby life and enjoyed the challenges it presented.

I was also a member of Lichfield rugby club, as most of the school team were. This added an extra dimension as we played with lads from other schools in the area, including King Edwards and those from Netherstowe, a predominantly football oriented school. The club was pretty important for the City (yes, Lichfield is a city. It has a cathedral; with three spires no less, and used to be the capital of ancient Mercia many moons ago, and so had some historical significance. Apparently the ancient city boundaries are larger than London. No idea if that is true, probably some pub legend that I picked up at some point), so being a member of the youth set up was pretty good.

The senior team played in the lower leagues but every now and then they would draw a big name team from the top divisions in the national cup and the city would be drawn to Cooke Fields to watch the ‘professionals’ show a local club how it should be done. The biggest match I witnessed was against perennial national champions, Bath. One of the Friary teachers was captain and also scrum half at the time. He was lined up against Richard Hill, the England scrum half, and acquitted himself pretty well. I can’t remember the final score but it wasn’t an annihilation and it was a great occasion. Gareth Chilcott, another England international was also playing. He managed to fill the role of panto baddie by swearing a lot and upsetting the crowd by being generally provocative. Everyone loved it though and went home satisfied that the home team hadn’t been humiliated. Seeing some top class players up close was a good way to spend the afternoon and filled pages and pages of the Lichfield Mercury for weeks afterwards.

The club was a great social environment. We didn’t set the world on fire, but the Sunday matches were always good fun and we mixed it up with the different year groups occasionally too. There were some really skilful players that played at the club. One lad was particularly talented. He was stocky, fast and very strong. He absolutely smashed me once when I got given a hospital pass from one of my teammates. He must have knocked me back a few metres and completely knocked the wind out of me. I remember rolling round on the floor, winded, desperately trying to breathe. Another badge of honour from playing rugby.

The best player I came up against was undoubtedly Colin Charvis, who later went on to become the Wales captain. He was playing for a school in Walsall. It was an away match for us, and on the way we discussed the legend of the large player they had. We were in our fourth year at school when we played, and he was massive. I’m pretty sure he had some kind of beard already. He ran in at least four tries, and steam rollered his way past all of us. If you’ve seen the England vs New Zealand semi-final World Cup match when Jonah Lomu basically ran through our entire team, then you’ll get the idea. He basically swatted us off like flies and won the match single handedly. That was definitely a lesson in ‘man vs boys’.

After the nightmare at my first competitive gala I soon became a regular selection at the club and my competitive swimming took off. I had a competitive spirit, and enjoyed the challenge of trying to win my races. After a while I discovered that my best stroke was butterfly. It may be one of those occasions where everyone else took a step back when asked if they wanted to race butterfly, but I liked the challenge and that soon became my regular racing stroke.

At the age of nine I became the regular butterfly swimmer at our competitive galas for my age group and did ok. Each week the results were summarised by one of the parents and an article appeared in the local newspaper, the Lichfield Mercury. I’m sure hardly anyone other than club members and family read them but it was always good to get your name in for an ego boost. I got labelled the club veteran before I reached the age of ten, having managed to rack up a few single length wins.

At that time I was fairly small but that didn’t seem to impact my speed. I think this only became a factor as I got older and the physically more mature swimmers started to get the advantage of longer limbs, bigger feet and broader shoulders. I think I can say I was a pretty good club swimmer, but was never going to get much further than the one Staffordshire county cap I picked up. Even that was pretty fortuitous as I’d finished 6th in the county championships at the individual medley. This normally didn’t qualify swimmers to get picked for the county meets, but there was probably a combination of absentees, injuries and doubling up which meant I got my selection. I was delighted of course, and so were my parents. I came 3rd in the I.M. race I swam in, but it wasn’t really about that. It was my first experience of competing at a higher level and I loved it. It felt as though I had stepped in to a slightly different group of athletes and was reward for years of swimming up and down Lichfield Friary pool. I still have the swimming cap I was given on that day as a souvenir. It was signed by Olympic medalist at 200m breastroke, Nick Gillingham, who was there at the county meet, so it made it extra special.

I swam for the club all through school, right up until I went to University. I got a lot out of it on a social level as well as from a fitness perspective. My mum was heavily involved in the organising committee as well as taking on record keeping and timing roles at galas. My parents also made great friends with the other parents, so it was a great social environment which was perfect for me growing up. We even had a twinning arrangement with a club in the Netherlands, Horst. Every year we would make the trip over to them or they would come to us and we would compete in a gala. These visits were always great fun and added an extra dimension to life at the club.

At one point I was training up to eight times a week, it became my life. Having just started taking my daughters to galas and training I am only just beginning to understand the dedication of my parents in supporting my hobbies at the time. I sometimes trained twice a day and I was selected for swimming galas most weekends, with open meet events on top of that. It was great for me but it must have been tough on them, although they have never said so.

I’m not sure many of my school friends really understood my dedication to it, but it suited me just fine. The more sport I could do the better as far as I was concerned. I still have the same attitude today. I’m not sure where it came from exactly as I didn’t come from any particularly strong sporting heritage. My dad was a very keen rugby club player, my grandma played a bit of local cricket and My grandad rowed for Hereford. But there was nothing to explain why I would become so preoccupied with sporting challenges.

After school I went to Loughborough University to study Economics. For no other reason than my school basketball coach was the Economics teacher, and I quite enjoyed his classes. Loughborough seemed like a good option as it was pretty well known for being the most highly regarded sports University in the UK, and was also recommended by my basketball coach as he knew how in to my sport I was. The Economics side really had nothing to do with it. In his own words I was ‘definitely not a natural economist’ as he told my parents during sixth form parents evening. Undeterred, and with no other idea for a subject to study I applied to and got accepted in to Loughborough to study Economics.

By this time I had other areas of focus, so swimming wasn’t my main area of interest. I joined the swimming club during fresher’s week, and took part in fresher’s trials. With the standard being very high, I only managed to qualify for the B squad. After the initial adrenalin rush of joining University sporting life and attending a couple of galas in the second squad, my interest tailed off. As you get older, hairier and your eyesight makes it difficult to read the training notes on the pool chalk board, the life of a swimmer starts to get less and less appealing. I started to get interested again later on when I looked in to triathlons, but swimming as a standalone sport was no longer an option in my mind.