My Life in Rugby: Peter Winterbottom – former Lions, England & Quins flanker

Rugby was in my blood from an early age. Chris Rea lodged with us for a bit after he’d moved down to Leeds from Scotland with the BBC. He had joined Headingley, where my father was chairman, and needed somewhere to stay. As an 11-year-old, it was brilliant to play rugby in the back garden with a soon-to-be Lions centre.
To go on two Lions tours myself, in 1983 and 1993, was beyond my wildest dreams, particularly the first one as I’d only been playing international rugby for a year and had limited experience at Headingley and Exeter.
Having caught the eye for Yorkshire and England B against France B, I won my first cap against Australia in 1982 – the Erica Roe match. Billy Beaumont told us to stay focused which prompted Steve Smith to say: “How can we when there’s a bird over there with your arse on her chest.”
Probably because I’d been knocked out tackling Brendan Moon, I don’t remember much else.
Playing in New Zealand was always an ambition and an opportunity to join Hawke’s Bay came up after England’s tour to the States. I don’t think too many Englishmen can say that they played in a Ranfurly Shield game in front of 30,000 people in Wellington.
Bearing in mind there were no competitive leagues in UK at the time, the standard there was an eye-opener.
I embraced any opportunity to travel through rugby and also had three different spells of club rugby in South Africa.
Both my Lions trips were to New Zealand. Jim Telfer probably won’t thank me for saying this but he trained the life out of us in 1983; the older lads were in heaps and we lost 4-0 although we weren’t as bad as the scoreline suggests.
After too much rugby on the hard grounds of South Africa in the late Eighties, I developed a pelvic problem. I’d joined Quins, with whom I played three Cup finals, but my form wasn’t great and in 1989 I missed out on the Five Nations and Lions.
Geoff Cooke came in as England manager and gave some much-needed structure and direction to the England team. Under him and coach Roger Uttley, we won Grand Slams in ’91 and ’92 as well as reaching the ’91 World Cup final.
After missing out on the ‘90 Grand Slam to Scotland, we decided to do whatever it took to win. Even squeaky clean Rob Andrew flicked two fingers up at the Scots when we beat them the following year.
We played Scotland again at the ’91 World Cup, but the game before, the quarter-final against France in Paris, is the one that really stands out. It was probably the most intense game I’ve ever played in. Not that you ever get used to such brutality but I had a fair idea of what the French were all about, having once been on the wrong side of a good shoe-ing.
The French had this lineout move where they would throw over the top for Jean Pierre-Rives to run around and catch it having initially positioned himself at scrum-half.
When they tried it I hit him well before the ball arrived. He was down for several minutes but he got up and winked at me. I knew I was in trouble and, sure enough, 20 minutes later the French forwards got their retribution.
New Zealand is a very unforgiving environment and, again, the ’93 Lions tour (below) was tough. The second Test win in Wellington, though, was special. We mastered the windy conditions really well and Rob had a great game at 10 behind a dominant pack.
There’s not many times when you know you’ve got the All Blacks beaten with 15 minutes still to play but, from my point of view, that was the case.
I’ll be back there again this summer, on a charity back ride – Ride of the Lions – between the second and third Tests, travelling from Wellington to Auckland to raise money for Wooden Spoon.