My Life in Rugby with Peter Mensah: ‘So glad I left the bank to turn pro with Quins’
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The former England A, Harlequins and GRAN Parma centre/winger talks about his life in the game
One of the things I am very proud of in my rugby career is being part of what was known as “the last amateur tour” to west Africa at the end of the 1995/96 season. Harvey Thorneycroft and my cousin, the Ghana RFU President Herbert Mensah, organised a series of matches between leading English and South African players to raise funds for Max Brito, who had been paralysed whilst playing for the Ivory Coast at the World Cup the year before.
I played in one of the matches in Ghana, which is where I am originally from, against an ex-Springbok side that had people like Naas Botha and Danie Gerber in it. It was played at the National Football Stadium and my father was sat alongside the country's President, Jerry Rawlings, in a crowd of 40-50,000.
I scored a hat-trick and the stadium commentator called out my name, ‘He plays for England but he's Ghana's own, Peter Mensah etc. etc.' It was boys' own stuff. That tour embodied all that is good about the game in terms of supporting our own and is a memory that will live with me for ever.
For rugby players today there is a professional pathway in the sport for them to follow if they are good enough. For me, there was never an aspiration to be a professional rugby player because it wasn't a career option until I was nearly 30. I played rugby for fun and a big reason I played for Old Millhillians rather than a first-class club on the weekends when I was back home in London from Cardiff University was because all my mates played for them.
I continued to play for Old Millhillians whilst working in the City as a Futures Broker even after I had toured Argentina and Chile with the Middlesex County team. But it was suggested I should give first-class rugby a go. I was reluctant at first and I spoke to a number of people, Nigel Wray, another alumni of Mill Hill School, being one of them. The assistant coach for Middlesex was a guy called Andy Keast, and he was also number two at Harlequins, and he did a lot to persuade me to get out of my comfort zone and join Quins.
Quins has always had this cosmopolitan history with players from all backgrounds. As well as myself, there have been plenty of other black players that have represented the club – people like Everton Davies, Everton Weekes, Mike Wedderburn and Andrew Harriman – and I can honestly say I never encountered any racism there, or in any rugby environment except on the odd occasion during my schooldays.
With people like Will Carling, Jason Leonard, Keith Wood, Thierry Lacroix and Laurent Cabannes in it, the changing room at Quins was like a ‘Who's Who of Rugby'. But no one was ever above their station, we all had a common bond. The extensive former players' WhatsApp group that I'm in, and is still very active to this day, is testament to that.
After about half-a-dozen games for Quins I got a bad knee injury and was out until around Christmas-time. But once I was fit enough to return I had a good run in the side and, unbelievably, I got called up to England A tour to Australia and Fiji in the summer of 1995. I was gobsmacked because it was my first season of senior rugby. At the time I was working for an American bank and I had to go to my boss to ask them if they were happy for me to have time off, which they weren't.
Talk of professional rugby was in the background by this stage and it was at this point that I made the call to prioritise rugby. In for a penny, in for a pound was my thinking but when we got back, the contracts being offered were significantly less than those being offered a few months earlier by Ross Turnbull of the Rugby World Corporation. Nevertheless, I decided to grab the opportunity to play professional rugby with both hands and to see where it took me, and I'm glad I did because rugby took me to lots of places I probably would have never been to had I not made that decision.
We had great fun at Quins although the period of rebellion against Dick Best and his methods and management style wasn't such a great time but, on the whole, we were having the times of our lives. It would have been nice to have won some major silverware when I was at the club but even without any trophies, so many good memories were created on and off the pitch.
One that stands out on the pitch is standing toe-to-toe with Bath and beating them down at The Rec at the end of the 1998/99 season which meant we qualified for Europe. It was a real ‘all hands to the pump' type of game, one where our closeness as a squad stood us in good stead against the reigning European champions.
Playing in the Heineken Cup the following year was a great experience. I remember we played Montferrand in front of a full house at The Stoop and in that game I had to turn and chase down Sebastien Viars, the French international who was on the opposite wing to me. I vividly remember the crowd going wild as I corner-flagged him and prevented a try being scored. It is those little things that stick with you. The second leg was something else, too. Talk about a hostile atmosphere!
Up until joining Quins I had always played fly-half so I'd like to think my ball-handling skills were pretty decent and I had pace too, which is why they weren't afraid to put me on the wing on occasions. But more often than not I played inside centre with Will Carling outside of me. I was a reasonable size for a centre back then so the physical side of it was part of my game also. When you play a certain time of game you need players to fulfil certain roles and I wasn't afraid to do my fair share of heavy-duty work.
By the time it got to 2000, I was well into my 30s but wasn't ready to hang up my boots just yet. My agent had lined up two options, one in Italy and one in France. But I never found out who the French club because we were treated so well as a family when we flew over to Parma to have a look around, that there was no need. Our minds were made up within 24 hours of landing when we went as invited guests of the Club President to his house in the hills. It felt like everyone from the club was there, officials and their wives, players and girlfriends … and the food was amazing.
The rugby wasn't as high a standard as in England, obviously, but we had two brilliant two years there. If it wasn't for my Kiwi wife wanting to go back to New Zealand to be closer to family support we'd probably still be there to this day. We've been in New Zealand for 21 years now but I still watch Quins play whenever I can as Sky TV show all the games here and it's great to see the club is still playing the same entertaining brand of rugby that we liked to play all those years ago.
– as told to Jon Newcombe
