My Life in Rugby: Steve Booth – former Leicester and Bath wing

There are two major incidents that shaped my rugby career – first it was watching the 1994 Challenge Cup final and second it was getting in a fight with an academy lad.
Every year we used to watch the Challenge Cup final and one year I said to my dad ‘I recognise that player – who is that?’
It was Francis Cummins – the youngest guy ever to play in the final at 17 years and 200 days when he appeared for Leeds against Wigan. He was my vice captain when I  played for Yorkshire.
I went back into school and had a chat with a lad who played for one of the local teams and within 12 months I was playing rugby league for Huddersfield Giants.
I played for five years and we merged with Sheffield. I signed a new contract in December 1999 – my first decent contract – and then while out on the town I got into a bit of a fracas with one of the academy lads. He came off worse and I got sacked.
My agent sent out a couple of videos – one to Bristol and one to Leicester and I got offered a contract from Dean Richards.
I don’t think there has been a team in the world that has been as good as those Tigers. We won two European Cups back-to-back – though I missed the final of one.
I was disappointed as I was top try-scorer that season, but the following year I was top try-scorer in the Premiership as well.
Where I come from, in Castleford, there are no football posts – it’s all rugby posts so you have no choice.
A friend of mine, Jamie Coventry, introduced me to rugby. His dad and uncle coached an amateur club called Travellers U9s.
I loved it.
I was a natural rugby player – as soon as you put a ball in hand, you just love what you do.
It was always league until I went to high school, at St Wilfrids in Featherstone.
We had rugby league players playing rugby union. We were fantastic in the Sevens competitions!
We won the two Sevens tournaments year after year and they didn’t invite us again. All the posh schools didn’t like it very much.
The switch to union was something I wanted to do.  I was a half-back in rugby league and all the clubs seemed to be signing second rate half-backs from Australia.
When the opportunity arose to play rugby union, I got a lot more space playing on the wing or at full-back.
For all the years I played at Leicester I was very lucky that we had such good facilities, coaching staff and players.
But in 2004 we had two pre-season friendlies and I dislocated a bone in my foot. It was before everyone had heard about metatarsals and three different specialists didn’t know what was going on.
Then in another pre-season friendly I tore my posterior cruciate. I had two years off and you know what clubs are like – they don’t like paying you when you can’t play.
I was lucky enough to go to Bath for a season and then I went back to rugby league for a season at Wakefield.