MY LIFEIN RUGBY
LEE DICKSON THE FORMER ENGLAND, NEWCASTLE, NORTHAMPTON AND BEDFORD SCRUM-HALF
I’M currently five years into being master in charge of rugby at Barnard Castle School, which is where it all began for me on my journey to becoming a professional rugby player. I was part of a very good age group, which included Mathew Tait and Ross Batty, and one of our star players was a guy called James Hamer. He was a full-back but he did his ACL three times in as many years at the start of his professional career. We were ‘the nearly men’, getting beaten in all the finals.
I didn’t think I would be going into pro sport at all when I was in school. I’m very much from an Army background and I was going to join the Royal Marines and play sport through them. I wasn’t in any academies, I had done some county stuff but nothing major. But then John Fletcher got in touch when I was in the Upper Sixth and asked me to go to Falcons to train. So I did that and they offered me an associate contract and I never looked back.
Fletch and Walts (Peter Walton) were exactly what I needed as an immature 18-year-old lad who had no clue what was going on. They were very good at allowing you to express yourself. They were the diamond duo. In the academy we had at Newcastle, I think 10 of us went on to play for England in the end. I still stay in touch with Fletch now, his boy is at Falcons, where I am doing some skills coaching as a consultant alongside my role with the school.
I actually made my Falcons debut off the wing in the 2004/05 season. I think it was more down to a lack of options rather than my pace! In my second game, I came on as scrum-half, when we were 60-odd points down against Leicester at their place, and I remember looking across and seeing that they were bringing Martin Johnson, Martin Corry and Neil Back on, and we were bringing me on, and I thought ‘oh my god’.
In my third or fourth game, against Wasps, I did my ACL in and that was me done for the rest of the year. I did think about canning rugby at one point but it was Peps (Barnard Castle 1st XV coach Martin Pepper) who said get a grip and sort yourself out. It is difficult being out of the game at that age, 18 or 19, but I turned it all around and it was all good. I’ll always be thankful to him for the contribution he made to my career.
I think I did a couple of backto-back seasons where I played in virtually every game; my body must’ve been held together by tape. Not that I was complaining. I was a competitive lad and I wanted to start every game. I’d sulk if I was on the bench, even if it was for the right reasons, because I just wanted to play so badly.
I think I had a bit of a mindset change when I was at Saints and they signed Kahn Fotuali’i, who was the world’s best 9 at the time. I was in my mid-20s by then and whilst I was still hugely competitive, I wasn’t aggressively competitive and understood there was a system in place. We played two on, two off, and I became a better person and a better player for it. Rather than just always be worried about myself and how I played and not caring about anyone else, I looked at him and thought, what can I learn?
“I’m proud of what my brother Karl has achieved as a top class referee”
I never had any intention of leaving Newcastle. I was actually about to re-sign for them for another two years but then Fletch got sacked. Something in my head said to me to look at what other options were out there. I had just played England U21s under Jim Mallinder and Dorian West and they had just brought Northampton back up.
I got a phone call from an agent and boom, boom …two days later I had signed for them.
Saints were building. The first year back up, we won the European Challenge Cup and then the LV and then we got to a couple of finals, Heineken final, Premiership final, and didn’t win either of them.
And then in 2014, we did the double. There was a core group of us that had to go through quite a lot of hurt and disappointment together to get to the point where we wanted to be. There is no better trophy to win than the Premiership when you are with your mates who you’ve been in trenches with, through good times and bad.
I didn’t make my England debut until I was 26. For my second cap against Italy, I came on and made a big difference and as a result I started the next three after that, which was superb. In 2013, a lot of players were away with the Lions so I went to Argentina that summer. Benny (Youngs) wasn’t there, Danny (Care) wasn’t there, so I got to put my stamp on things of how I wanted to play the game. Going into the Autumn Internationals I still had the shirt. But if I am being honest, my England time haunts me a bit. I got 18 caps but personally I think I could have made more of the opportunity.
Missing out on the 2015 World Cup was the biggest disappointment. Being involved for four years and then being dropped at the last minute was a tough pill to take. But again, that is rugby. I went for a coffee with Lanny (Stuart Lancaster) and he knew how I felt because I don’t mince my words. But I shook his hand and wished him the best of luck. He had the common courtesy to see me after the World Cup and I have a lot of respect for him.
The year I left Saints I probably fell out of love with rugby a little bit, I needed a change. I could have gone to France but I was 32 at the time and had three young boys so I chose to go to Bedford. Karl, my older brother, below, had enjoyed his time there, but quite a few years earlier. Actually, the only time me and Karl were in the same 15s matchday squad together was on an England tour. I started and he came off the bench for me. I don’t think too many brothers have done that, replace one another in the same position at that level. I’m so proud of what he has gone on to achieve in refereeing, he deserves everything that he gets.
I was starting to think about what I wanted to do after rugby and Bedford got me a job in a school, which was good, and the rugby was fun and enjoyable. It was two really good years, but without the same amount of pressure on me as I had previously at Saints and Newcastle, before I got a phone call from Peps asking me if I fancied going back to Barney. And the rest, as they say, is history.
As a coach I am exactly as I was as a player – loud and energetic. I prided myself on being quite organised, a little bit of a dog: a Jack Russell-type scrum-half who got on everybody’s nerves on a rugby pitch. Off the pitch, though, I was quite quiet. My wife always says to me if I was the same away from the pitch as I was on it, I probably wouldn’t be with her!
The role of the scrum-half is changing but the fundamentals are still there: you have to be the eyes of the forwards, steering the ship. I created a relationship with the forwards where if I had their back and was slapping them around and making them do stuff, we were going to do well in games. If the 9 is the general of the forwards, the 10 is the general of the whole team. And sometimes the 9 and 10 don’t get on. Me and Stephen (Myler) had many arguments on and off the pitch but we are best of mates and had mutual respect for each other. There would be a few choice words said to each other during games but it was laughed about straight after. It was because we were passionate and we knew where we wanted to go with the team.
– as told to Jon Newcombe
