My Life in Rugby: Steve Smith – former Sale and England scrum-half

I came from a council house family in Stockport and my dad was football mad. In fact, I’d never seen a rugby ball until I passed my 11 plus and went to Kings School, Macclesfield.
Rugby was compulsory there but all I wanted to do was play football. I was dragged kicking and screaming and threatened with detention until I turned up on a Saturday. Clearly, I’m glad that was decision taken out of my hands because I wouldn’t have enjoyed the memories and the friendships I’ve got to this day had I not gone down that route.
From Kings I went to Loughborough College, and that’s where I met Fran Cotton, my team-mate with Sale, the North and England and now my business partner at Cotton Traders. We were coached at Loughborough by Jim Greenwood, a great bloke and an outstanding coach. They reckon it was the best team Loughborough ever had in those three years. While still a student, I was called up by England to go to South Africa in 1972.
After graduating I joined Sale and won my first cap away to Ireland in the 1973 Five Nations – the game where John Pullin famously said, “we might not be any good but at least we turned up”. Wales and Scotland had refused to travel because it was at the height of ‘The Troubles’ in Ireland and we were all given the option of playing or not. Stupidly, given the circumstances at the time, I said I’d play for England in a minefield. In the same year, I won the first World Sevens tournament with England at Murrayfield.
From that point I was in and out of the England team until the 1980 Grand Slam win. The selectors at the time were just awful. They were a bunch of mates who seemed to pick people on a whim. Back then getting 30 caps was the stuff of dreams, it just seemed impossible to string three or four games together. It was biased against the North for whatever reason, and it was only because we kept on winning, including the famous victory against the All Blacks, that meant we couldn’t be ignored any longer. The frustration was that the bulk of the team that won the Slam in ’80 had been around for 10 years, had they picked it. Unfortunately, a lot of the players were coming to the end of their careers and we lost lots of experienced heads and world-class players in one go shortly afterwards.
I remember the Slam campaign as if it was yesterday. The win in Scotland was probably the highlight. It was a great game of rugby with a lot of tries in an era when they were normally few and far between.
When Billy (Beaumont) packed in, I was made England captain, which was a huge honour. Funnily enough, my first test as captain was against Ireland in 1982. I led the side on tour to North America and retained the captaincy for the 1983 Five Nations, but was dropped after we drew in Cardiff.
At club level, I had a lot of fun with Sale and we had one hell of a team. There wasn’t a lot on offer in terms of silverware in those days but we won the Merit Table in 1984 after beating Gloucester at Kingsholm for the first time in years and away to a very strong Bath team.
Before immersing myself in business, I coached players like Matt Dawson and Kyran Bracken with England U21s. I also thoroughly enjoyed commentating on four World Cups for ITV, between 1991-2003.
With Simon Orange recently buying Sale Sharks, I’m delighted to be back on the club’s board for what should be an enjoyable trip. I’m also chairman of Sale FC, which is akin to a life sentence with no parole! There were better rugby players than me, but no-one enjoyed it as much.