My Life in Rugby: Roger Shackleton – former Harrogate and England fly-half

Receiving a letter from then secretary Robin Prescott inviting me to play for England a few days after I’d broken my leg and been stretchered off in the final trial game should have come as a surprise to me but that was how the RFU was back then – charmingly amateur!
After spending several months in plaster I returned to play and belatedly made my international debut against the Springboks at Twickenham the following year in 1969.
As a young man eager and excited to be playing for his country the controversy surrounding the “Apartheid” tour did not make much of a lasting impression on me, certainly not while the game was on. I think it affected the South Africans more than us. In hindsight, we still did pretty well to beat them. It was a great game and I remember Peter Larter, who I later played with at Harrogate, scored the crucial try.
Harrogate was where I started and finished my senior playing days, with a few stops elsewhere in between.
I went there fresh from Bradford Grammar in 1967 and the team enjoyed a great season, winning The Daily Telegraph Northern Merit Table under Jeff Young’s captaincy. I also played for the senior Yorkshire side that year, alongside the great Phil Horrocks-Taylor – “Horrocks went one way, Taylor went the other, I was left holding the hyphen”, as said Irish star Mick English.
Then it was off to Cambridge University to study economics and land economy – and three years of Varsity rugby. With Gerald Davies and John Spencer at centre there wasn’t an opportunity for me to play in midfield so I switched to fly-half, the position where I earned my four England caps. Gerald was a rugby genius; he did things on a pitch that nobody else could. I contributed a few points through a drop-goal and try in a win over Oxford in my first year.
It was while I was at Cambridge that I got capped by England. After the South Africa game I was selected to play in the 1970 Five Nations. In my first game, against Ireland, we came back from 3-0 down to win 9-3. I scored a try, after Tony O’Reilly, playing in his big comeback game, generously bought a dummy down the blindside.
The Wales game was an absolute corker. To be honest we thoroughly outplayed them and should have won only to give away two soft tries. The first half performance was exceptional, Bob Taylor, in the back-row, was immense against a Welsh side in its pomp.
Scotland, however, was a disaster zone, and it turned out to be my last game for England, at the grand age of 21. I remember the changing rooms at the old Murrayfield were right down in the bowels of the stadium; there was no light or air and you came out to thousands of screaming fans and a cauldron-like atmosphere. We never really got going, and I was dropped after that – one of six that didn’t make the final game in Paris. In those days, selectors earned their corn!
I left England to take up a research post at Montpellier University, and eventually worked and played in Lavelanet, near Carcassonne.
An Englishman playing in France was a rarity in those days and the Telegraph decided to do a feature on me which caused quite a stir. The reporter strongly intimated that French rugby was basically professional and I was being paid to play – Quel horreur!
The RFU wrote to me demanding an explanation and I was obliged to tell them categorically that I hadn’t received a penny. The hoo-hah ended when the reporter retracted his story after failing to back up his claims.
After four enjoyable years I returned to England and played for Richmond alongside a good friend of mine, Chris Ralston. London wasn’t where I wanted to bring up my family though and after a short period in London it was back to Yorkshire and Harrogate, who I later went on to coach with Peter Clegg and later Jeff Young. We always played good rugby and enjoyed a couple of promotions.
The transition to the professional era proved difficult for Harrogate and the club fell on some hard times, but thankfully those financial problems are all in the past now and things are a lot more positive with a good team on the pitch and an excellent new ground at Rudding Lane ready for the new season.
*As told to Jon Newcombe