MY LIFEIN RUGBY
DAVE ATTWOOD
THE FORMER ENGLAND, BRISTOL, BATH, GLOUCESTER AND TOULON SECOND ROW
BEING blunt about it, I was crap at rugby when I first started out. I was just a big kid, bigger than most. I certainly didn’t know the laws and I almost got sent off in my first game for Frampton Cotterell Rugby Club minis for slide tackling. Before long, I moved to Bristol minis and juniors, which wasn’t affiliated to the professional club, but it got me noticed and I became involved with the junior academy at the Shoguns, as it was back then.
One day, Paul Hull, who was the academy manager, called me in, and I thought in my head, ‘oh, this is exciting, contract time’. I was 14/15 and thinking I had made it. But he told me he didn’t think I was good enough. I was crest-fallen and went to university, to study physics and philosophy, thinking rugby as a career was over.
To be fair, it was the best thing that could have happened. Going to Dings Crusaders and playing a season of men’s rugby as a student was the making of me, it toughened me up good and proper. I got red carded in my first game against Old Pats up in Gloucester for fighting a bald, little lippy bloke, which made me instantly popular.
Dings was a proper working class club in a rough part of town, with good, hardworking people. You were never short of a smile and a laugh in the bar, but it wasn’t unusual to see a burnt-out car in the car park, or a shopping trolley out on the pitch, and barbed wire was wrapped around everything. Landseer Avenue was something else.
My upbringing was solid working class, both my parents were teachers and I went to our local state school. But because I went on to go to university and was quite academic, I think some people saw me as a bit of a posh knob. I played up to it a bit, as you do, and used to do crosswords before every game and before meetings. There was even a vicious rumour that I took a monocle and a briefcase to my first-ever England training camp. The truth is I did have a book bag but I certainly didn’t have a monocle.
Bristol gave me another chance after seeing me play for Dings. I barely featured for the first team in the four seasons I was there, but I did play, and captain, England U20s. When the club was relegated, I moved on to Gloucester. When Dean Ryan signed me for Gloucester, he got sacked before I turned up. When Steve Meehan signed me for Bath, he got sacked. And when I signed for Bristol, there was a big worry. I said to Pat (Lam), you know my track record, don’t you!? Thankfully, he didn’t lose his job. I do have a lot of time for the fact Pat takes everything on his shoulders and it is very much his decision and you have to like it or lump it. I liked the clarity of knowing who was in charge, especially coming from Bath, where at the time you had five different people telling you five different things on a Monday morning.
“I got sent off for fighting a bald, little lippy bloke, which made me popular”
Most of the 40 England match-day jerseys I own (24 of them from capped matches) were won during my first spell with Bath. I obviously became a bit of a pantomime villain in the eyes of the Shed faithful by moving there, and completing that particular West Country triangle, but it was all very light-hearted. The fans at each club are very different but they’re all equally passionate about their rugby, which makes it all the more special.
I am very fortunate to have played in pretty much most of the major stadiums around the world and I think The Rec is the best in terms of location. Obviously, Ashton Gate is out on its own in terms of being an amazing stadium, and The Shed is a story in its own right. It was a privilege to play there as both a home and an away player. I was chasing the full West Country dollar sign, but Worcester folded and Exeter didn’t want me!
I think possibly the happiest I have been was when I got out to Toulon (in 2017/18). I think that was because I suddenly realised that trying to march to someone else’s beat wasn’t the way to be the best player I could be. Different coaches over the years would say, we want you bigger, we want you leaner, we want you stronger, we want you more mobile and so on. But you can’t have all those things. By moving to France, I escaped the analysis paralysis that goes on in the Premiership, where we are so statistically driven and defences are so competent, and played rugby where you were encouraged to play what you see, to go out on a limb and do what you’re good at rather than just be a coach-pleaser. That year with Toulon reinvigorated me and the season after I returned home I cleaned up at Bath’s end-of-season awards do.
If I had come back to playing for England at that point, I might have accrued more caps than I did. But I was 32 at the time and they had to make a decision about whether to invest in someone who had done 10 years with England but hadn’t been the full package, or go with someone who would be around for the next World Cup. The truth is throughout my England career I only ever really got into the side when Courtney Lawes and Joe Launchbury were injured. They were better players at their peak than I was, and could do magical things in games that I couldn’t do. Even so, I see it as a badge of honour in its own right that I was in and around the England set-up for so long and played under seven different coaches. The week before I got my big knee injury – pre-Toulon – Eddie Jones had had a conversation with me about building his pack around me. Eddie tells a million stories to a million people so who knows how true that was. I never got to find out; the timing wasn’t right.
I was fortunate to be in the 1 per cent of players that was able to choose to retire when they wanted to. At 37, I was still running around in the Premiership physically able to do the business, and was still one of the first names on the team sheet. But I never wanted to get to the stage where I was stealing a living and getting a contract that I didn’t really deserve. I had a conversation with Johann (van Graan) around Christmas 2022 about what I was going to do next year and because I had just completed a Law conversion course and had an idea of what I wanted to do after rugby, it felt like the right time to step aside.
I am a big ambassador for the relationships and friendships that rugby helps to foster and I am reminded of that whenever I look at the contacts I have in my phone or whenever I get to play with a load of other ‘old boys’ for the Bermuda Classic Lions. Thankfully, my body still functions well enough for me to be able to do that. Often rugby clubs talk about the train journey, and the people getting on and off that train at various points. I would like to think I made a good impression with all the passengers I met along the way. Some people maybe think I am that posh knob and I should be in first class. But the truth is in a lot of ways I am more the guy filling the engine with coal and covered in crap. I just try to scrub up nice!
Looking back, I played over 350 first class games for Bristol, Bath, Gloucester, Toulon and England and was part of the inter national team for over 10 years – and I’m proud of it all. I’ve played, won and lost in finals and semi-finals in all those settings. Yet my proudest moment came last year in my retirement game in Bath. I got to run out with my kids for the game – Jess and Patch – and the message I got from the fans was deeply humbling. The ‘thank you’ standing ovation and ‘thank you for your service’ made me realise that it was about more than just winning games.
– As told to Jon Newcombe
