MYLIFE INRUGBY
I KNOW there’s the Currys and du Preezs at Sale, but I wouldn’t have thought many twin brothers have played with each other and against each other in professional rugby. But that is the case with me and Chris, my younger brother by 15 minutes. We’ve got an older brother, too, who used to intervene whenever things got out of hand when we were doing tackling practice on each other on the local field in Gloucester and playing mini and junior rugby at Widden Old Boys and then Gordon League.
Chris and I started and ended our senior playing careers at the same clubs – Gloucester and Worcester – but our journeys took different paths in between. I only played a handful of first-team games at Gloucester, whereas Chris spent nine years there. As a young player you want to be playing as much as possible and it was difficult for me to get game time in the first team because you had Trevor Woodman and Tony Windo there, and a good Berry Hill lad called Ade Powell competing for the same spot.
The Gloucester coach at the time, Richard Hill, was honest with me, saying that opportunities might be limited, so I followed Ian Smith – a distant relative of our family – to Birmingham-Moseley. A Welsh coach called Allan Lewis was there, too, and he asked me to go to Newport with him after Moseley had gone into receivership.
As an Englishman playing in Wales I had a target on my back most weeks. But I loved it there. It was the time when they brought over all the South Africans – Gary Teichmann, Adrian Garvey, Franco Smith, Andy Marinos etc. and there was the Canadian Rod Snow to learn off, too. I was still only in my early 20s, so playing with those guys helped massively in my development. I also went on loan to Pontypool, which was great.
I remember in Teichmann’s second or third game, against Edinburgh away, myself and a hooker called Gary Hicks, a proper character he was, were on the bench. Out of the blue, Gary said 4-0 (Fortey), watch this, I’m going to go on. He got the 4th official over and told him the changes, No.2 off, No.17 on, and he looked up to the management, who didn’t have a clue what was going on, and gave them the thumbs up and ran on. I think he got called in the office on the Monday! Gary would have seen most things in his rugby career but never a player subbing himself on. I think he included the story in his autobiography.
My set-piece really came on while I was in Wales and I look back fondly on my time there. But a lot of my old mates were playing for Birmingham & Solihull, who were punching above their weight in the old Championship, so I decided to join them. I had two years at the Bees and loved it. Phil Maynard, the coach, reminded me of a car salesman, he had the gift of the gab and got the best out of the players who’d been drawn from all over. We were really tight as a group and beat a lot of teams who had much bigger budgets and better facilities than us. The pitch was a park pitch but we knew how to play on it and we used our humble surroundings to our advantage; no one liked playing us at our place.
During that period I was playing really well. After I’d had a particularly good game against Worcester, their coach, Andy Keast, came up to me afterwards and said, we want to be in the Premiership and we want you to be a part of it. I knew John Brain (the Worcester DoR) anyway, as he’s another Gloucester bloke, so I didn’t have to think about it too long!
We were the first team to win every game when we won the old Nat 1 in 2003/04, 26 out of 26, although we nearly lost the first game up at Otley. I don’t talk a lot about rugby but I look back on winning that title with real pride. There was a lot of pressure on us because we had the squad, the money, and the infrastructure all around it, but we still had to go out and do it. It was a great reward for Cecil Duckworth and all the time and money he’d put into the club, and for the folk of Worcester.
Chris and I finally came together again at Worcester after he broke his leg playing for Gloucester against Sale and he didn’t get his contract renewed, which is when John Brain signed him. Near the
“Gibralter Rugby is in a strong position in terms of Rugby Europe” end of his first season at Sixways, we became only the third set of twins to play on the same side in a Premiership match against Newcastle. Tony Windo was loose-head, Chris was hooker and I was the starting tight-head. By that stage, I could cover all three front-row positions.
It was much better playing with Chris than against him, which happened once if I recall rightly (Gloucester vs Worcester). I remember my Mum saying, ‘right, you two, remember you are representing yourselves and your family, do it properly.’ The problem is whenever you play against your old club, you want to give them a bit and prove a point and I did that. I think she had a harsh word me afterwards but it was all good. We are really close still and we see each other every day.
I’d cemented the No.1 jersey as my own going into the 2006/07 season. But my shoulder kept dislocating. I did it once, and then it went again, and again. In a game against Northampton, Budgey (Chris Budgen) twisted me under and it popped out. I went, ‘Budge, stop, stop’ and he was like, ‘yeah, yeah, what you on about 4-0′ as if I was kidding him. And I said, ‘No, I’m serious, my shoulder has popped out.’ At first, he was like ‘get stuffed’ but to be fair, he stopped. I did all the rehab but it got to the stage where I couldn’t go through it all again, I had a young family, and it wasn’t fair on myself or my Mrs, so I retired.
While I was still playing, I coached at Gordon League, my junior club, for two years. I did my badges because I knew it would give me the chance to stay in the game longer once it was time to quit playing, plus I wanted to give something back to the game. I went to Cinderford and Lydney, and I’m now working with Andrew Stanley on the rugby programme at Dean Close private school, which runs from September to January, as well as delivering rugby in local primary schools and helping to bring young players through at Longlevens RFC.
I’m also head coach of Gibraltar Rugby. That came about after I bumped into Chad Thompson, the Gibraltar Rugby CEO, after a Gloucester match. He’s a Gloucester bloke, who I knew from Gordon League, and we got chatting about what we were both up to now. He asked me to do some sessions with the forwards and it’s progressed from there. Gibraltar are in international no-man’s land at present, but we played a friendly against Denmark recently and I feel like they are in strong position in terms of getting into Rugby Europe. The game on the rock has to be where it needs to be first, but it is exciting what could potentially happen in the future.
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