My Life in Rugby: Steve Swindells – former Manchester, Waterloo, Barbarians and Cheshire fly-half

Being part of Manchester’s rise through the leagues from the North West region to what is now the Championship was a hugely enjoyable part of my 12-year playing career. I think we won six promotions in nine season all told. It also coincided with a golden spell for me on a personal level as a kicker.
Between 1998 and 2000 I was in a rich vein of form. It got to the stage where I felt I couldn’t miss, and through the hard work of the forwards, I had numerous opportunities to kick at goal. For two seasons I accrued more points than any player in the league system.
I joined Waterloo in 1991 after an enjoyable year playing in New Zealand for Invercargill Old Boys. Unlike Manchester, we never managed to get promoted although we came mighty close in the 1992/93 season. We won as many games as Newcastle, by now bankrolled by Sir John Hall, but missed out on the Premiership on points difference.
It was a successful season nonetheless, most notably for our run in the Pilkington Cup, which took us past Orrell and Bath to set up a home quarter-final against Harlequins. The hype around the Bath game was unbelievable, as all their big guns were there, minus Stuart Barnes and Ben Clarke, who opted to play for the Barbarians. Barnes was interviewed after the Baa-Baas match and I can still remember the look on his face when the reporter told him we’d knocked Bath out.
A crowd of 6,600 turned up at Blundellsands for the Quins game and it was shown live on Sky Sports, a rarity in those days. Quins were captained by Peter Winterbottom, had an all-England front row in Jason Leonard, Brian Moore and Andy Mullins, plus Will Carling behind. Not that the Waterloo side was short on class. I’d been capped at U21 level by England and was fortunate to be in a back line with future stars such as Will Greenwood, Austin Healey, Paul Grayson, Christian Saverimutto, and Andy Northey, who crossed codes to play for St Helens. Future England lock Ben Kay was in the pack.
We were all youngsters and played entertaining, off-the-cuff rugby under Dick Greenwood. The speed with which Healey could get across the pitch and make cover tackles was remarkable. We gave a good account of ourselves against Harlequins but the cup run ended with a 21-14 defeat.
I re-joined Manchester just as rugby went open and I remember getting 20 quid in beer vouchers as a win bonus. Thankfully, that happened quite a few times as we rose up through the leagues. Not that I got rich quick!
Having not been first-choice kicker at Waterloo, Grayson was, I was determined not to be in that position again. So I practiced my kicking non-stop and duly got my rewards. My kicking philosophy and technique was very simple. I just took three steps back, looked at the ball, looked at the posts and said to myself the ball is going through those posts. More often than not it worked.
As head of rugby at Manchester Grammar School it makes me laugh when the kids crouch down and clasp their hands like Jonny Wilkinson. They all think that’s the position you have to take to kick at goal. What they perhaps don’t realise is that it worked so well for him because it was his unique style and he was comfortable doing that. Everyone is different and I found a way that worked for me.
I’m proud to have scored 2,800 points in a career that saw me represent my country, the Barbarians, Sale, Manchester, Waterloo and Cheshire, with whom  I won the 1998 County Championship after we beat Cornwall in the final at Twickenham.