My Life in Rugby: Redford Pennycook – former Bristol, Newcastle and Ealing flanker

My old mate at Bristol, James Merriman, said that life as a professional player was like being on an emotional roller-coaster: you just try and hang on for dear life through the incredible highs and the gut-wrenching lows. Like most, I experienced both, but I count myself lucky to have played over 100 games for my hometown team Bristol and also spend a season and a half at a great club like Newcastle.
Now that I’ve hung up my boots – yet another neck operation made sure of that – people ask if I miss anything about not playing. The answer is not much. Trying to renegotiate a contract when you have pains all over your body is not much fun and neither is being told to take a 50 per cent pay cut or leave – as was the case with Bristol after we’d lost to Exeter in the first Championship final.
To be left on the pitch that Wednesday evening when their fans were running on and celebrating was hard to take. It felt like a complete waste of a year. Going to Vegas on Nathan Budgett’s stag do three days after that defeat to Exeter probably wasn’t the best timing as that hurt me in the pocket too. I spent half the time I was out there talking to my agent in the small hours, normally half-cut, in an effort to sort out my future. It was late in the day but luckily Newcastle came in for me.
In truth, I’m a lot more relaxed now that I’ve got a normal job as a construction project manager. The weekends are pretty much my own and I no longer have to worry about when the next body fat test is or being hauled up for a mistake in a match at an analysis session.
I must have loved rugby to have put my body through what I did. I’ve lost count of the number of operations and concussions I’ve had. I didn’t go through a year without being sidelined for at least six months and I only ever completed three full pre-seasons. At one point, I was sent to see a shrink by certain medical staff as they thought the pains I had in my neck were imaginary! Unbelievable.
My Bristol debut was away at Northampton in the 2006/07 season. We won 14-8 and I remember Shaun Perry laughing at me for a mistake I’d made – I couldn’t understand how anyone could react like that. Having come through the Bristol academy with my brother, Chevvy, I was deadly serious about everything rugby related and hugely competitive, like the rest of that Bristol squad – especially Joe El-Abd, who would be distraught if he lost a game of touch.
I learned to lighten up a bit, and became social secretary at Bristol in my second spell and took my socialising to another level  – and too far for Alan Tait’s liking – when I first joined Newcastle. Tim Ryan, the Irish prop, and I used to go out on the ‘Toon’ fairly frequently. I’d heard about the amazing Newcastle nightlife but still couldn’t believe my eyes when I got there. Eventually, Taity took me to one side and told me to rein it in, it was such a professional setup at Newcastle.
I left Newcastle midway through my second season because my wife and I had had our first child in Bristol and she wanted to remain closer to our family. I remember scoring against Lyon away in the Challenge Cup and getting the man-of-the-match award a week after our daughter was born. That was my last game for the Falcons as they kindly granted me an early release from my contract.
So it was back to Bristol, the place where it all began. Unfortunately, another operation meant I couldn’t play straight away but the following season I was an ever-present under Liam Middleton. But I knew the writing was on the wall once Andy Robinson took over and his son, Ollie, a very good flanker, signed on soon after.
My last season was at Ealing. A few of us would meet up at 5.30am at Junction 18 on the M4, twice a week, to commute to training from the West Country. We wouldn’t get back there until early evening because of the traffic. That was a hard slog but we had some laughs, too. The car park where we met up was a renowned gay dogging spot and you’d see all sorts going on. One time we had this young triallist travelling with us and he didn’t believe the stories so we told him to go and knock on the door of one of the caravans. He ran a mile when a transvestite answered!
I do miss the brutal banter, and the social side of rugby, and Cake Club Tuesday has been hard to replace. But I don’t miss being made to feel like cock of the walk one minute and a feather duster the next.
By the end, I was coming up against kids who were bigger, faster and stronger and the only thing I had going for me was experience. My rugby career has certainly been that: an experience.