As I write this, a group of 50 of us are a day into the latest Walk4Matt event, covering the 100 miles of the Warwickshire Ring Canal network. The route passes Nuneaton, Atherstone, Birmingham, Warwick and Leamington, and we're collecting donations for The Matt Hampson Foundation along the way. Matt, as I am sure a lot of you are aware, was paralysed from the neck down after an accident during an England U21 training session in 2005 and breathes via a ventilator.
But rather than feel sorry for himself, Matt focused on the things that he still could do and decided to get busy living whilst helping other young people seriously injured through sport. Having spent a lifetime walking from scrum to scrum, 100 miles shouldn't be a problem even with a few pub visits on the way! It would be great if you would like to join me and a few other ex-Tigers players en route.
Nuneaton, one of the first stopping points, was the starting point for me as a senior rugby player. But it was by accident that I got into the sport in the first place really. I used to be a footballer at a local club in Coventry called Folly Lane, as a stocky centre forward. But one day our game got called off and as I was walking home a minibus full of rugby lads who I knew pulled over and asked me if I fancied a game.
Because I had all my kit with me, I said, ‘go on, then' and I played for Coventry Saracens against Barker Butts, who were a very good team. They threw me in at prop, aged 16, and I got absolutely annihilated by what turned out to be the entire Warwickshire front row. Afterwards, the bloke I was playing opposite walked across and I thought, ‘here we go, he is going to stick one on me'. But, instead, we shook hands and went and had a few beers and I never played football again.
I liked the physicality and social element of rugby and I continued playing for Coventry Saracens for a couple of years and then I went on tour to America with another local club, and Bob Massey and Tony Simms, from Nuneaton Rugby Club, were on it. They asked me to come over and have a run out for them. I didn't think I'd be good enough but I ended up spending three years there before Dean Richards' father, who was forwards coach, said I should try out for Leicester. I still wasn't sure of myself so he got Dean to ring me up.
It was a Sunday dinnertime and I was at the pub having a couple of pints. Remember, this was in the days before mobile phones, so my Mrs took the call on the landline at home and when I got back she said, ‘you'll never guess who'd just been on the phone …'. I had only ever seen Dean Richards before on Rugby Special, let alone speak to him, but I rang him back, and that was it, the start of a fantastic time at Tigers.
That was 1991. I wasn't picked for the first or seconds at first so I went back and played for Coventrians against Harbury, at No.8. It was the only place where I could get a game. Tigers put me in the second team the week after, because of an injury, away to Cardiff, and then the third week I was in the firsts, against Northampton. It was my first game and Stuart Redfern's 300th game on the other side of the scrum. We got beat but that was one of only the few times that happened. Dosser Smith, our coach in those early years, was incredible; he could get you up for games no problem.
Of course, at that point, I never dreamed I would have become the first Tigers player to appear in 200 top-flight league games or go on to enjoy the career I did, winning four Premiership titles and back-to-back Heineken Cups as well as 25 England caps. Dosser was the one who gave me the self-belief that I was good enough so I have a lot to thank him for.
We started to get a decent team together, strong upfront – with me, Graham (Rowntree) and Cocker (Richard Cockerill) as the ABC Club – with always a good fly-half to put us in the right areas, and slowly but surely we began to challenge Bath. We weren't the best team around but we were very good at what we did and we used to wear teams down. It was all us lads at the front of the pack who did the hard work and Backy (Neil Back) got all the glory with a load of tries from the back of mauls.
Johnno (Martin Johnson) scored from a move that we'd tried in training a thousand times and it had never really come off to win us the Pilkington Cup in 1993, and the year after that we won the League for the first time in ages. By now, games against Bath had become massive grudge matches and we used to have some good ding-dongs down there. In one game, Andy Robinson was being a right pain in the arse so I walloped him and got away with it but at the next ruck, I got a clothes line from Coochie (Gareth Chilcott), who'd clocked the previous incident and gave me what I deserved.
Of all the big games, I would say the win over Stade Francais in 2001 has to be the standout one. Stade at the time were on a different level. But we knew we would be fitter than them and we just needed to keep the pace up and Leon (Lloyd ) scored two tries and our defence was right on it at the end. We drank through the night and Deano, the legend that he is, was still able to do a live radio interview at 8 o'clock in the morning. For the Munster final the next year, the ‘hand of Back' incident was right under my nose. I think half the ground saw what had happened but the referee didn't. To be fair, they never looked like scoring that day whereas we scored two good tries and had one disallowed.
To play for your country, that's the pinnacle. So I was very pleased to play as many times as I did for England. I made my debut against Wales down at Cardiff Arms Park in the 1997 Six Nations. Continuing the theme from Stuart Redfern before, it was my first game and the last for Jonathan Davies and Rob Andrew, my roommate for the weekend. We were each given a pint to down at the post-match function and I'd finished mine and sat down before they'd barely touched theirs. Graham Rowntree was supposed to be looking after me that night but it ended up me being the one looking after him. I was 31 so had been around the block a bit by then.
To get man of the match against South Africa, when they were going for 18 wins on the trot in 1998, was obviously something I was very proud of, given their forward pack's reputation. The fact a prop got man of the match tells you what kind of match it was, though. We won 13-7 but they got their revenge the following year, in the 1999 World Cup quarter-final. Christ almighty, did Jannie de Beer kick well that day…
I had 12 good years at Leicester, five or six of them exceptional. But, by 2003, my body wasn't recovering from games quickly enough and although Dean offered me a rolling contract, I decided that it was time to call it a day as a professional, aged 37, and I returned to Nuneaton, initially as a player-coach. My brother and I set up a scaffolding business just before the game went professional and I left him to get on with it, but I was always still involved and thankfully I've had that to fall back on.
