RUSSELL EARNSHAW
THE FORMER BATH, ROTHERHAM, DONCASTER AND BIRMINGHAM & SOLIHULL FLANKER
I'D do it all again! From the day my old headmaster Matthew England suggested I join Stockton Rugby Club in 1988 to my last match in Matt Perry's testimonial at Welford Road in 2012, I met amazing people and travelled to amazing places through our wonderful game. The boy from Billingham did OK and got some cool stamps in his passport.
Geoff Hurst was my first coach, not THE Geoff Hurst but a bouncer who worked at The Mall in Stockton. My memories of growing as a team of young men include the annual match against Houghton-le-Spring where their best players started arriving in Ford Capris with beards and kids of their own at U16 level.
I wore my oversized Australian jersey imagining I was a goose-stepping David Campese, cleverly (or so I thought) wore luminous socks for county trials and drank Newcastle Brown at the bar. We played with intent and helped everyone belong. It shaped my view of the purpose of rugby to this day. I wish most coaches could remember what that felt like.
Aged 17, I visited Cambridge University for an open day that turned into five social days, a hitch-hike home and dreams of playing in the Varsity match.
It ended four years later with a Masters in Economics and Maths and having met even more incredible people with whom I shared lifelong memories. After playing in the U21s in my first year and the LX Club (2nds) in year two (a late developer), I was lucky enough to play in two winning Varsity matches and left with so many memories including beating Queensland, touring Zimbabwe, Captain's Cocktails, Cupper's Final and losing at Welford Road against a fullstrength Leicester by 80 points while wearing white boots before they were even a thing in the early 90s.
Two memories stand out in particular. The first, beating a fully-loaded Western Samoa at Grange Road 22-14 with the maestro Rob Ashworth pulling the strings and Steve Surridge (who went on to tour with the All Blacks) helping me realise that there was so much more I could learn. The second: the squad trying to leave a nightclub in Cascais without paying the bar bill and climbing over the rocks at the back of the club. Some were accosted by the bouncers, had a gun put to their heads and thrown into the sea in the hope they would drown. No one did.
It was during that time that Ben Ryan and myself drove an ice-white Citron AX courtesy of Mark Ring from Cambridge up to West Hartlepool to play. Ringo fuelled all my bases: develop skill, play what's in front of you and force the larger members of the squad to run on treadmills with dumbbells ‘til they could get around the pitch more effectively. The added benefit was that no one wanted to play at Brierton Lane and so we had some decent results including running Bath very close at home, a game where I spent most of the game turning Bath over at the breakdown and goading my future coach (Andy Robinson) about his age before being smashed at a ruck by Nigel Redman and being put firmly back in my place.
The goading seemed to work and I was offered a contract at Bath having also played well in the away game. In my first season, we won the European Cup beating Brive in Bordeaux followed by an open top bus trip around Bath where thousands of people turned up much to our surprise and joined us for a reasonable portion of the pub crawl that lasted a week. That season, I also went to Kuala Lumpur for the Commonwealth Games 7s and loved being coached by Andy Harriman who was an incredible storyteller. We managed to get knocked out in the quarters by a Campese-inspired Australia, consoling ourselves with another epic social including a ride across KL on the top of a taxi. That season I also trained with England A and even had a cheeky game for Bath at 12. This rugby thing was easy!
After three years of way less success and numerous disagreements with the Bath coaches including the nail-in-the-coffin statement “I don't care how well you play… I am never picking you”, my time was up and I left mid-contract to Rotherham. The reality… ‘professional' rugby had not excited me and I needed a coach or mentor to help me make sense of the situation.
At Bath, we had British Lions saying they would play better if their win bonus was bigger, young players forced to fight on a bus with older players, Thursday training sessions where we played harder against ourselves than the opposition on a Saturday, coaches that did very little to connect with you individually and our S&C coach smoking in the gym. For me, it was a step down from what we had done at Cambridge. The reality was a game coming to terms with what ‘professional' meant. Fortunately, I met so many great people who are still good friends such as Charlie Harrison, Matt Perry, Andy Long, Rich Bryan, Mike Tindall (the lad from Billingham went to a Royal wedding!), Nigel Redman and most importantly Amy (my future-wife) one night at the Assembly Inn.
coming to terms with what ‘professional' meant. Fortunately, I met so many great people who are still good friends such as Charlie Harrison, Matt Perry, Andy Long, Rich Bryan, Mike Tindall (the lad from Billingham went to a Royal wedding!), Nigel Redman and most importantly Amy (my future-wife) one night at the Assembly Inn.
The book yet to be written about Rotherham is quite frankly unbelievable with Simon Bunting's exploits as a bare-knuckle fighter, Steph Nel's spider maul, the away victories in Perpignan and Grenoble without a coach, the pre-match parachute guy landing in a tree and our failed attempts to get as many Bath players as drunk as possible the night before we played them in the league. It felt much more like rugby than Bath ever did simply because if we had one thing it was a real identity.
My wife's dad toured with England and when he died, we moved back to Bristol and a fresh rugby challenge at Birmingham-Solihull which was quickly magnified by an historic tax bill. A promotion from National 1 and ‘The Great Escape' were two amazing highlights.
On the coaching front I learnt loads from Eugene Martin and on the playing front from club legends like Davo and Mash and loved playercoaching (a balancing act I never quite mastered!) alongside great friends and players such as Mark Woodrow and Simon Hunt, neither of whom would have looked out of place in any Premiership team. It was also a real privilege to coach loads of players who went on to play at a higher level such as Nathan Catt, Pete Murchie, Leo Halavatau (who moved to prop from the back row due to necessity and not my coaching skills!) and Alex Grove.
“Micky Steele- Bodger found me under the table at the beer-fest”
Most of my favourite memories come from touring with Terry Sands and the late Colin Hillman with Samurai, Craig Brown and the Penguins and the Barbarians in Germany, where we were led brilliantly around the nightlife by captain Scott Hastings. From the moment Derwyn Jones drove onto the pitch with his head out of the sunroof of a (Newcastle Brown-sponsored) Mini Cooper to the moment Micky Steele-Bodger found me under the table at the beer-fest and told me it would be my last Barbarians tour (it was), I worked and played hard as always.
Since playing, I've been lucky enough to coach the game Geoff Hurst made me fall in love with. From Israel 7s and 15s to PNG at the Commonwealth Games to England 7s for seven years, including a few memorable wins, to England U18 Women to GB Students to England 18s and 20s. I even found time to teach Economics at Eastbourne for two years and still tutor today (at very reasonable rates!).
I'm now 45 and have found my sweet spot. Fletch (John Fletcher) and myself are directors at the Magic Academy and we get to help coaches and leaders create amazing environments for people to thrive in. In the last two years alone, I've learnt loads from working with businesses such as Google, Abbott and Tyler-Grange and in sport with GB hockey, women's cricket, England handball and recently with Eddie and the England coaches. No day ever feels like I am working!
