My Life in Rugby: Gordon Bulloch – former Lions, Scotland, Leeds and Glasgow hooker
John and I were good friends and it was just bizarre what happened in training from everyone else’s point of view.
It was an innocent clash of heads. I put my head into a ruck and came out with stitches and nothing else was said about it. Then two weeks later I get a phone call from Clive Woodward and he said: “What’s this about fighting John Hayes?” And I just thought: “Oh my God, what’s happening?”
It must have been a slow day in the newsroom and someone had decided to spice things up a bit but it just spiralled out of control.
My wife, Jenni, rang to say they were talking about me on 5 Live asking why it was all right for rugby players to get into fights and not footballers!
I played two Lions Tests but both tours were far from straightforward because in 2001 I was a replacement for Phil Greening.
I’d actually gone to Colorado to see friends and do some altitude training when I got a phone call at 6am saying I was needed and 28 hours later I’d done three or four flights and landed in Australia, a few hours before the rest of the squad.
Back then people didn’t really know a huge amount of rugby union and certainly nothing about the Lions so not only did my luggage not arrive but no one knew who I, or the Lions, were.
I can’t imagine this year’s squad having those problems.
I kind of fell into rugby because although I did a lot of different sports growing up at Hutchenson’s GS, and the fact that my parents let me try out a lot of things, my dad Jim played and eventually became a referee so that’s how I picked it up.
The early days with West of Scotland when rugby was still amateur were great because you were playing with mates rather than colleagues. I don’t think in Scotland we were particularly ready for professionalism as we got left behind a bit internationally. There was all the uncertainty around it and we didn’t have the pool of players to select from.
Having said that, my debut for Scotland in 1997 was great because it is every boy’s dream to run out in the blue shirt at Murrayfield and I got to do it for the first time against the then world champions South Africa.
Like most Scots with a bunch of caps (75) your win ratio is not that close to 50 per cent so good times tend to stick in my mind.
Winning the last Five Nations in 1999 was good not just for the trophy but in us scoring 16 tries in four games and playing a good brand of rugby.
Another would be in 2002 when we finally beat one of the Southern Hemisphere giants for the first time in ages with a 21-6 victory over South Africa.
I retired from internationals in 2005 and had a short spell with Leeds before I went back to West of Scotland and it was like going back to the amateur days.
But I always wanted to walk away from rugby being physically able to do other things so that’s what I decided in 2010 and now I’m studying for a Masters in Business at the University of Strathclyde.
I still don the boots for the odd ‘classic match’ and have done a bit of coaching. It just so happens I’m using my head a bit more … and not to endanger myself or John Hayes for a change!
