My Life in Rugby: Alan Buzza – Loughborough Students strategy manager
In those days, university was where to develop as a rugby player and I followed my brother (an athlete) to Loughborough where Andy “I never lost a UAU match” Robinson was captain of a side that contained several players already in the Divisional Championship, as the England trial system was then known.
It was in my first year at Loughborough that we played a huge John Player Cup match against the mighty Wasps, competing strongly but finally losing 18-3 after being killed off by a piece of Huw Davies magic.
After Loughborough I was faced with the choice of Cambridge or Bath, who were the top club at that point. It was a difficult choice but Jack Rowell’s belief in ‘creative tension’ in his Bath squad, clashed starkly with the fun and freedom of student rugby and two years of Land Economics at Cambridge followed.
Cambridge proved to be a great choice, and my first year was a festival of wonderful rugby, playing in a backline which included Welsh Internationals Adrian Davies and Mike Hall, although we got cuffed in a hugely entertaining Varsity match [1988] by an Oxford team with a full international backline. I captained the side in my second year and we narrowly won a dreary, rain soaked match, however winning a ‘clean sweep’, 1sts, 2nds and 3rds, remains a highlight of my career.
The choice was now Wasps or Bath and the strong link between Wasps and Cambridge made it easy to follow that path, all made possible by a maths teaching job at Harrow.
The dressing room was full of characters, The super intense Mark Rigby, laconic Fran Clough, squeaky-clean Rob Andrew, crazed Buster White, the very funny Huw Davies, Steve Bates, Graham Childs, Dean Ryan, Mark Bailey and others too numerous to mention, and I’ll fondly remember the pre-season trips to the south of France which generated all manner of unprintable stories.
As it was, I did finally play for England… my full career lasted five minutes – none of which I can remember. I’d sat on the bench in the Five Nations having been plucked straight from Varsity rugby, but eventually got my chance to pull on the white jersey on a non-cap tour of Canada in the summer of 1993.
Unfortunately, five minutes in, my head made contact with Scott Stewart’s and his was harder!
A similar fate awaited in my last professional game for Rotherham in the old Allied Dunbar Premiership play-off against Bedford. I’d had three great years at ‘The Mighty Roth’, a really tight club with passionate supporters, and played over 60 matches which was incredible given my injury history.
Rotherham were desperately clinging to an aggregate six-point lead with minutes to go when Paul Sackey got the ball in space. I hurled myself at him and woke up being stitched in the physio room… the smile on the doc’s face told me that we’d won!
When I’d joined Rotherham, the only time I’d made money out of rugby was from travelling expenses we’d rigged playing for the South West as students.
When invited for talks by owner Mike Yarlett, I arrived by bike and train and returned home driving a souped-up scarlet BMW with tinted windows. When Mike realised I was taking the train home he just handed me the keys! Those early days of professionalism were quite surreal.
After Rotherham and a year of travelling I joined Loughborough for a third time in 2000 – I’d also done a Masters there – as the university’s second director of rugby. I love everything about the place and I’ve remained there to this day, now as a strategy manager. I believe that young players should still have the opportunity to develop as top quality rugby players whilst getting a good quality degree behind them.
It’s nice to be able to say that ten players picked up full-time professional contracts last year but it’s also great to be able to say that our athletes perform really well academically and are getting good jobs.
Long may that continue.
