My Life in Rugby with Simon Bunting: The former Yorkshire, Rotherham and Doncaster prop talks about his life in the game
To achieve what I achieved, playing 234 times for my hometown club Rotherham, travelling around Europe with them, and playing against some of the best players in the world, is something I am really proud of especially as I was written off as a kid. I was once told by a teacher that I would never amount to anything but I was pleased to bump into him not so long ago and hear him admit he was wrong. It was funny seeing his Nissan Micra next to my top-of-the-range Mercedes!
Growing up in a mining village (Maltby), you had to be able to look after yourself, and that’s what I did, on and off the pitch. I was expelled from school at 13 and sold flowers in the local market. Making money was always going to win over education for me back then, and happily I have gone on to have a successful business in the building trade. One of my best customers in the early days was John Bentley, when Newcastle got rid and he came to Rotherham. Mike Yarlett, the club’s money man, paid for him to have an extension to his house, and I built it!
I was one of a few lads from Maltby who went down to Rotherham in our teens and I came up through the colts before making my first team debut against Birkenhead Park in 1990. We were in North 1 back then and to be part of the journey up through the Leagues, right to the very top, was brilliant, and something I don’t think will ever be repeated.
In those days, games were self-policed. If you took a backward step people would take advantage. A big part of our success at Rotherham was that we would always stand our ground. We didn’t have the flashiest of players but our pack was one to be feared and, with having a lot of local lads in the side, we played with a lot of heart. If there was any fisticuffs, we sorted it. The biggest melee I can remember was against Harrogate in the Yorkshire Cup final. It kicked off after about 15-20 minutes and we laid them all out.
Not many tried it on with me. I had no end of battles with Trevor Revan, he was a big bloke him, he used to be at Rugby Lions and Coventry. I played against them all, Gary Halpin, Jeff Probyn, Paul Burnell at London Scottish, and at the end of the day, I think I did all right.
Wade Dooley once played against us, a week after he’d played for England against France, as we were chasing promotion along with Preston Grasshoppers and they needed a bit of a boost. He was alreet with us and a lovely bloke, but it’s funny to hear that he’s now a citing commissioner because he was one of the biggest thugs ever.
I’ve still got all the old posters and newspaper cuttings from our trips to places like Grenoble and Perpignan. Our attitude when we were playing in Europe and when we got into the Premiership was, ‘right, let’s do us best’ and to enjoy it. Killer (Jim Kilfoyle) was always good company on the beers. We played Grenoble about a week after New Year’s Day and I think it’s the coldest place I have ever been to. They wouldn’t let Leon Greeff on the plane because he had a Zimbabwean passport so he had to travel all the away to the shadow of the Alps on the supporters’ bus. Luckily it was a Sunday game so he had most of the weekend to get there!
Out of our two promotions to the Premiership, I’d say the first in 1999/00 was the most special. We’d had a couple of goes at going up before then, losing in the play-offs, so to finally do it was a brilliant feeling, especially as it felt like the whole of Maltby had come down to watch. The reception we got back at Rotherham was like we’d won the World Cup. We might have gone up a few years earlier but a Dinnington kid called Dean Lax, one helluva player, had the ball knocked out of his hands by Justin Bishop when he was over line. He’d run around everyone and was celebrating what would have been a special try, waving his arms in the air, and I remember shouting, ‘put it down, put it down’.
Over the years I’ve had lots of coaches, some good and others not so good. Jon Curry were one of the best, he were down to earth, and encouraged you. He wasn’t one of the shouters. People always ask me what Geoff Wappett was like, thinking I’ll slag him off. But I thought he was bang on. If he thought you were a prick, he’d tell you but that didn’t bother me. Monkey (Mike Umaga) and Schmidy (Mike Schmid) were good and so was Greg Austin, a big Aussie Rugby League lad, who’d come to us from Leicester.
The second time in the Premiership, we were at Millmoor, and Steph Nel had come in. It quickly became clear that neither were good moves. I couldn’t get on with him. He obviously wanted to leave his mark but I don’t think he ever got his head around the fact that we weren’t a Bath or a Leicester; we had a lot of good lads but our squad was nowhere near that level because as well as Mike Yarlett had done in business with Yorkshire Windows, we were in a different league financially. Geraint Lewis and Jason Strange couldn’t believe it when they turned up from Wales and saw us training on park pitches. Nel took me all the way to Italy for a European match, against Viadana I think it was, meaning I had to miss work, and he never put me on. I had him up against the wall, I was fuming.
Because of Nel, I went on loan to Donny and a week later Russ Earnshaw was there with me and Dan Cook come, and it was good. When I returned to Rotherham on loan, Nel had gone and Ross Reynolds had taken over. He wanted me to stay but Donny had been after me for years and I said to them I would go there when the time was right, and the time felt right even though they were a league lower. I’d known Paul Morris at Donny for years and I wasn’t about to let him down by going back on my word but Ross wouldn’t take no for an answer. He said, ‘I’ll meet you next week’ but come the Friday, the club had gone bust.
I signed for Kingsley (Jones) at Donny but it wasn’t long before he left for Sale. When he played for Worcester, I bopped him, and he went straight on his backside. He got up like a headless chicken. We had a laugh about that. Pieter Muller replaced him, he was a brilliant kid, and Griff (Clive Griffiths) after that, he was one of the best coaches I ever had.
Did I ever think about leaving Rotherham beforehand? I did get offered to go to Leeds a few times but I wasn’t bothered like. Rotherham was a proper club, it didn’t feel the same at other places. Take Worcester, another of our long-time rivals for promotion, they just felt like a squad full of individuals with no heart. To get in the Roth team, you had to earn it. Bath were interested when Knuckles (John Connolly) was in charge there. There was no way in the world I was fitting in down there though, and I told the agent I wasn’t interested.
After Donny, I helped Westy (Craig West) out a bit at Rotherham but it wasn’t the same, the young lads had no bottle. I also played under him at Dinnington, after I’d had a cyst removed from my appendix, and along with JD (John Dudley) we helped them get up from Yorkshire 1. I still play a bit for them now at 53 when work allows and when I’m not watching my son, Morgan. He was coached by Monkey at Bishop Burton and has played for Hull, Rotherham and is currently at Nottingham. I get people going up to me saying ‘eye up’ when I am scrounging around. Most I don’t recognise at first – I had my head down and bum up most of the time – but it’s always nice to hear them say they hated playing against me. As a loosehead, that’s the best compliment you can have.
Every dream is achievable. I had one, worked hard at it, and luckily for me, life went the right way. If it wasn’t for rugby, it could have been completely different, I could have been in and out of prison, you never know. But I think I’ve done alreet, I’ve even been to Vegas playing rugby for Rotherham!
– as told to Jon Newcombe
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