Playing rugby ‘Bristol fashion’ suited me well
MY LIFE IN RUGBY – RALPH KNIBBS
THE FORMER ENGLAND, BRISTOL & CLIFTON CENTRE
I spent some of my youth in Knowle West, 30-plus years before Ellis Genge turned up! Back then, we were one of around four or five black families on a white, working class council estate in a community of 12,000, so you can imagine the racism I encountered.
Most black families only lasted about a month but my parents, who had come over to Bristol as part of the Windrush generation, stuck it out and they showed me how to rise above the abuse and turn the other cheek. As a kid, I learnt very quickly, when to run, when to fight (on the odd occasion when turning the cheek simply wasn’t an option), and when to talk my way out of trouble – all skills that would serve me well on the rugby field.
I’d been introduced to rugby at Merrywood School by my teacher Clive Harry a former Bath player. Because I was quite tall and lanky, I was put in the second row. People kept standing on my toes and I hated it! But it changed when we moved as a family to Easton and I went to Whitefield Comprehensive. I was quite intelligent, but I didn’t really put anything into my education because none of the school teachers believed in me, so most of us messed around at the back of the class to be honest. But when it came to sports, that was our way of expressing ourselves. I just happened to be a very, very good sportsperson. I was captain of all the teams: I was good at basketball; I was good at rugby; I was a British junior age group record holder and ranked number one at the high jump.
As a rugby team, we punched well above our weight. Our PE teacher, who did believe in us, was another Bath player called John Davies and we beat all these private schools in the area. No one could believe it. By then I was enjoying running rings around people and keeping them on their toes rather than having mine trod on! I remember we got invited down to Millfield once to participate in an athletics team competition, that involved us as Avon Schools’ Champions. You could see everyone thinking, ‘who are all these black kids?’ We won, and that gave us all a huge amount of confidence.
By the age of 16 I’d played men’s first-team rugby for Whitehall Rugby Club, Bristol Colts and Bristol United and it was only a year later that I made my first-team debut. Bristol had just been knocked out of the John Player Cup by Liverpool and were short of centres due to an injury crisis. Bristol captain Alan Morley came onto the pitch after I’d just played a game for Gloucestershire Schools at Kingsholm on the Tuesday and told me to make sure I came to training the next day because I’d be playing against Pontypridd on the Friday night. I was 17 then and I was like. ‘Oh my
“Rugby went from being my love and passion, playing with mates, to being a job”
gosh, what!?’ I played outside John Carr and scored with my first touch under the posts. The rest, as they say, is history. That’s how my Bristol career started.
I was lucky to be joining an established team and they allowed me to play my game and do my crazy stuff. Playing rugby in the ‘Bristol fashion’ suited me down to the ground. As a team we loved to entertain. Even if we were beaten 29-30 but played well our supporters appreciated it. I think we went unbeaten until the end of the season (something like 13 games) and I’d obviously made a big impression because that summer my mum kept getting calls on her landline from the club asking where I was. Thinking that would be it for me with regard to the first team, I’d taken myself off to Jamaica for a summer-long holiday and, of course, back then it wasn’t easy for people to get in touch. Pre-season training hadn’t even entered my mind and the club were desperate for me to come back.
The 1983 John Player Cup win over Leicester was my first time at Twickenham. I remember us climbing over the wall and practising on the pitch the night before. Imagine that happening now! Back then, Twickenham was basically four green garden sheds. We beat Leicester in what was regarded as the best final to date and made it back the following year only to lose to rivals Bath.
Very quickly, I got on the England radar and after touring Romania and playing for the England U23 team in a non-capped international alongside Simon Halliday in the centres, I was asked whether or not I wished to go to apartheid South Africa in ’84. After considering what they had to say, I declined the offer. Basically, the South Africans said I would be received with open arms as ‘an honorary white man’ but I would need a bodyguard with me at all times. When I asked why, they explained that because I would be going to places that black people weren’t allowed to go and if I got separated from the England party, I would be shot on site for breaking the rules. I was like, ‘wow’.
I had offers to go to Bath, I had offers to go to Harlequins, I even had an offer to go to Toulon … I could have gone to other clubs but Bristol was my club, my city, and it wouldn’t have felt right to play for any other club at that time. Widnes RL watched me in a County Championship game, I think it was against Lancashire, and as I came off the pitch, I was given a phone number. One of their officials arranged to come down to Bristol to talk about me signing but I said no. After that, they signed Martin Offiah!
When Rugby Union joined Rugby League in going professional everything changed very quickly for me. Bristol wasn’t set up for the change at all and I got asked to do multiple jobs. As I had a background in human resources, I was asked to help set up a payroll and contract fellow players, oversee the younger player development programme and also be the joint team manager – all while still playing. A bit later, I became player-coach of the United, too. If I am being honest, I hated the change. Rugby went from being my love, my passion, playing with my mates, to being a job.
I left Bristol to join a group of other ex-Bristol players, led by Derek Eves, at Coventry. I was the backs and skills coach, while still playing the odd game. They had put together a squad that they hoped would get them to the Premiership but their backer pulled out and the club went bust. I was owed three months salary and as I had young kids at the time it made me realise, I needed something more stable, so that’s when I went back to HR and got a job with Rolls-Royce.
Disillusioned, I walked away from rugby until Pete Polledri persuaded me to join Clifton. I was reluctant at first but I’m glad he persuaded me in the end because I thoroughly enjoyed my three years there, initially as a player and then as a player-coach. In essence, that was the end of my senior playing career. I moved up to Derby when Rolls-Royce relocated and continued to play some Vets rugby for 10 years or so, which I fully enjoyed. But after that, my focus was on supporting my children who are all sporty. My twin boys are now both professional sportsman – Harvey plays for Reading F.C. and Alex is a 400m hurdler, and my daughter performed on the professional stage as a dancer. I’m still involved in sport, too, as head of HR at UK Athletics, a founding member of the Rugby Black List and a Trustee of the Star*Scheme Rugby Charity.
