Bill Beaumont: The Autobiography. Bill Beaumont

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СКАЧАТЬ The following week I was in the back row forwards and, never having had any rugby ambition other than to play the game, happily settled into the routine. I may well have stayed at that level for ever because there was a tendency for the lower sides to hang on to anybody who was as prepared as I was to run around like a mad young thing for 80 minutes. However, a selector called Roy Gartside turned up to watch the sixth team, and even though my team-mates somehow contrived not to give me the ball, Roy must have spotted some talent since I was eventually picked to play for the third team at Percy Park in the North East, probably because some of the regular team members didn’t fancy the trip. So off I went – having told my mother to expect me home about 10 p.m. – all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, clutching a one-pound note, which constituted one-third of the weekly allowance I received from my father.

      It was the first time I had ever travelled any real distance with a senior side and I was an innocent abroad. The game went well and, although I found senior rugby harder physically, it was played at a pretty pedestrian pace after what I’d been used to at school. Only afterwards did I realise that I had a lot to learn about club rugby. We went into the clubhouse for a pint of beer and a bite to eat and I asked one of my new team-mates what time the coach would be leaving for home. It came as a surprise when he told me we were on a ‘stopper’ and wouldn’t be leaving until midnight. I was 17, wasn’t used to drinking – not more than a couple of pints anyway – and we ended up in a pub called The Jungle near the docks in North Shields, where I found myself surrounded by the local clientele, who all seemed to have had their faces stitched at some stage in their careers. A few years later I was battling it out with All Blacks, Wallabies and Springboks, but at that stage in my development I was a young lad straight out of public school and I was crapping myself. I was absolutely petrified and determined not to make eye contact with any of them in case they took exception to my scrutiny and decided to ‘fill me in’. My pound didn’t last very long either but I was subsidised by the older players and gradually started to get into the swing of things. I was even chirpy enough to ring home from a transport café at Scotch Corner to tell the folks that I would be home later than planned. It was after 2 a.m. when my mother answered the call, handed the telephone to my father and told him, in no uncertain terms, that I wouldn’t be playing rugby again. I stumbled into the family abode at about the same time as the milk arrived on the doorstep, having discovered the delights of rugby touring. The ‘choir’ sang most of the way home on the coach, and as the vehicle didn’t have an on-board toilet we had to hang out of the door to relieve ourselves until one bright spark decided it would be a good idea to lift the floorboards and pee down the hole. The only problem with that was that our offerings merely hit the drive shaft and sprayed all over the place.

      At the same time that I joined Fylde, I started a textile technology and business studies course at Salford Technical College and, not surprisingly, gravitated towards the college rugby team. I played in the back row alongside a former England Schoolboy, Richard Jazwinski, who was playing club rugby at Broughton Park. He was a very good player and went on to represent Lancashire, and, during that time, I played against Nigel Yates, who was a centre at Sale and went on to become a senior referee.

      I graduated to the second team at Fylde and also made the move into the second row, but at the start of the following season it was felt that I was too small for the position in which I was later to make my name, so I was demoted back to the third team to learn how to prop. It was in that position that I made my first-team debut against Waterloo in November 1970, when the team were short, but I afterwards returned to the position I was to occupy for the remainder of my career and, a year later, had established myself in the first team.

      The only time I was ever dropped by my club was at Christmas during that season, when Roger Uttley, who was studying at university in Newcastle and playing for Gosforth (now the Falcons), returned home for the holidays and was picked ahead of me for the Boxing Day game against our oldest rivals, Preston Grasshoppers. I wasn’t very happy to see this total stranger, to me anyway, suddenly walk in and take my spot, and I had a quiet chuckle to myself when ‘Hoppers’ won.

      Looking back it is quite incredible how my playing career has interwoven with Roger’s over the years, our rivalry extending over a considerable time. When I started playing in the second row for Lancashire he was playing for Northumberland and was already an established international. I owe my England debut to Roger because I was called into the side when he had to pull out through injury. He also captained England ahead of me – I then took over the captaincy from him, only to lose it back again later. We were intense rivals, and I think we both felt more comfortable when I was fully established as captain and he came back into the national side in 1980 as a flanker. I had made my mark and the selectors weren’t going to bring Roger back as captain again. I think we always respected each other and we have been good mates ever since. Hilary and I thoroughly enjoy his company – and that of his wife Christine.

      My elevation to the second row at Fylde had again only come about because they happened to be short in that position one day, but once in the engine room of the pack I never looked back. Having worked my way through to the first team, I made my senior debut at second row against New Brighton; a side that, like Fylde, was more of a force in those days. Certainly, the side I played in would beat the current Fylde team without too much difficulty. Brian Ashton was at scrum-half and he was a class player with a good understanding of the game, as has been proved since with his coaching success at Bath and with England. He currently has the vital task of looking after the country’s Academy players who are being groomed for the national side. He toured Australia with me in 1975 when he was really on top of his game and he would surely have been capped had he been able to stay Down Under, but he had to return home to be with his wife after she had miscarried the baby they were expecting. It is a tragedy that he never won his cap because he then went to live and play for a time in Italy and so was largely lost to us. When he finally returned it was to move into coaching, where he has played a considerable role in helping to change the way English backs play. He was not just a top player but is a bloody good bloke too and he is ideally suited for the development role he has taken on.

      Another Fylde player who came close to representing his country during my playing days was wing Tony Richards. He and Brian were my regular travelling companions and Tony was Lancashire’s wing for many years, playing in England trials but without getting the call he wanted. Despite the passing years, I still see quite a bit of Tony because he is an enthusiastic worker for The Wooden Spoon Society, the rugby charity.

      By the time I had established myself in Fylde’s first team I was starting to take the game very seriously and I did find it frustrating that not everyone in the side had the same approach to training and preparation. The difference in attitude became more apparent when I started playing for Lancashire. Suddenly I was in the company of players of international calibre and it didn’t take long to work out why. They were a dedicated and very single-minded bunch. Coming second best was not on their agenda and you never had to worry that anyone might be slacking on the field.

      Still, Fylde had a reasonable fixture list, which provided me with the opportunity to play against powerful clubs, none stronger than Coventry in those days. They could almost field a side of internationals and when I picked up a match programme and saw the quality of the opposition I started at last to acquire real ambition. I remember playing against Moseley at The Reddings one day and their side included England half-backs Jan Webster and John Finlan, John White and Nigel Horton. On that occasion I had an excellent game against Nigel and decided that I rather liked the game of rugby union. He clearly had a long memory because, a year later, he smacked me at the first line-out and gave me a hard time generally. I was suddenly made aware that this rugby business wasn’t as easy as I had been starting to think it was.

      Lancashire would run a series of trial games, and I played in these in the hope of breaking up the experienced second row combination of Mike Leadbetter and Richard Trickey. Both played in the North West Counties team that became the first English provincial side to beat the All Blacks – at Workington in 1972, during which I stood on the terraces to cheer them on. Mike did win an England cap but only in a 35–13 СКАЧАТЬ