Deep down, I’m simply stressed and angry with what is happening to me. Most of the energy I’m burning is pure worry and that’s what is waking me up so early, too. But I can’t stop. My frustration and anxiety used to be channelled into rugby; this is the outlet it has settled upon instead. It’s my way of keeping sane, although it also has adverse results. I am extremely fit but also unhealthy.
When I go to watch our home games, my regime is particularly strict. I go to Kingston Park and straight to the gym underneath the stand to get a session done. Then I change into my suit to watch the game, often in a box with some of our corporate sponsors, and at half-time, I’m back down to the gym for ten minutes’ gym work and then back up again to watch the second half in my tracksuit. As soon as the second half finishes, I’m off down to the gym again.
That’s my way and the regime doesn’t drop for away games. It’s just simpler. I need to be in the gym when the game is going on. That way I still feel part of it and I don’t feel so much as though I’m being left behind.
People want to know if I’m going to be back and fit in time for the England summer tour to New Zealand and Australia. I have a breakfast meeting with Clive, but have to tell him I’m not ready. If there was any chance, I’d be there like a shot. Clive doesn’t push it. Put rugby and England on hold a little longer.
THERE’S a scene in the Bourne Identity series where the Matt Damon character explains how he can go into a bar and tell you immediately how many people are in there, which ones have got a gun, whether they are right- or left-handed and where the best escape routes are. I think I have now developed the same technique.
I can go into a café or a restaurant and immediately sense who has noticed me, who is likely to recognise me, who is carrying a camera, who is pretending to text on their phone but is actually using it to take my picture, where the best seat is so I don’t get boxed in and what is my best exit option if a hasty departure becomes necessary.
Don’t misunderstand me. I love having the opportunity to speak to rugby supporters, to talk about the game and the World Cup and all these fantastic things. And I think the passion and values of the supporters are really special. The energy that kids seem to have for the game, and the spirit they have to listen and learn, makes me feel that the future is in good hands. It’s just that in public, non-rugby settings, I get embarrassed, and turn inward. Off the field, you see, I’m really no performer.
I have started to be apprehensive about being in those places where I can’t control the situation. So I tend not to go to restaurants in town any more. It’s a good thing I love country pub food, and around my way, a few places suit me perfectly – the Black Bull in Corbridge, the Travellers’ Rest in Slaley, the Wellington in Riding Mill. I can go to any of these places and the people look after me brilliantly. They hide me at a table round the side or in the corner without the slightest fuss.
It’s worse if I go to the cinema, a sports event or a concert. In those environments you’re kind of stuck. I get very self-conscious, and feel like a sitting duck. When I do go to the cinema, I walk down the aisle head down, hat on, relieved if I can make it to my seat without hearing my name mentioned behind me. And during the film, in the dark, I’ll be thinking mostly about my exit strategy at the end.
When Sparks and I go to see The Last Samurai at the Warner Bros in Newcastle, the whispering starts immediately we join the ticket queue. I notice one person lean in towards their friend’s ear and say something. That person spends about ten seconds pretending to look around the cinema before turning round to stare straight into my face. Others are doing it, too, and in the end it just gets ridiculous and we just can’t relax, so we go. We leave the cinema and go home.
It’s Sparks and my other friends I feel most sorry for because it impacts on their lives, too. But Sparks just says OK let’s go. He makes it really easy for me.
One of the worst situations occurs when I walk into a bar. It’s the first bar I’ve been to for months and I have barely made it inside before the DJ announces my arrival to the entire club. My immediate reaction is a quick 180 degree turn and bolt for the door.
But the all-time most awkward situation for an introverted person like me was waiting to board an EasyJet flight to Newcastle. There is simply no match for this one. I am on the transfer bus to a plane that seems to be parked miles away. I sit in the corner of the bus with my beanie hat pulled low, feigning being totally engrossed in a book that I’m not really reading. I’m staring at the words while concentrating on every little sound around me. That’s when it begins. One guy says that’s that rugby bloke.
Oh shit, I think. I start praying that maybe there’s another rugby player aboard. No such luck. I chance a look to ascertain if I have indeed been rumbled, and what I see is a twelve-strong stag party. It’s barely ten in the morning but these boys have started proceedings early. They start to chant my name at me, loudly, and when we get on the plane, they don’t stop. So everyone gets a look. And now I have my own special version of fear of flying.
And because of all this, I end up spending time elsewhere, away from public settings, in the countryside or just kicking on the Slaley Hall football field. That’s not even kicking to get better. It’s just doing something enjoyable when I know that, all being well, nobody else is going to be there.
For the start of the new season, I have finally been given the all-clear. I’ve got about 70–75 per cent of my power back on my right side and that is, officially, just about enough.
We go to Ireland for our pre-season tour. The first game is at Connacht, and I’m asked to pose for a photo on the halfway line with Eric Elwood and his family before the match, because it is his last season and he has been a great Connacht player. I respect Eric hugely, but I don’t know why I need to be in his picture. I feel uneasy about it because the guy has been a legend in his career, and he’s played for so much longer than I have and been through more hardships and come through them all. I feel my past invading my present.
I don’t feel too comfortable with my kicking, either, and I start ringing Dave. I’m not sure about this, Dave, I say. Trust yourself, he says, it’ll come.
I feel a huge sense of the unknown about my whole game. It seems I am the big story – Jonny’s Big Comeback – and I feel that pressure, but I’m missing the old sense of familiarity. When I last played rugby, I’d strung together three Test matches on a full Lions tour, more than fifty games for England and God knows how many for Newcastle, and so I’d developed momentum. Instinct and innate confidence told me that experience would carry me through, even on the not-so-good days. Now I haven’t got a clue where I stand.
Rob Andrew keeps telling me it’s going to be six to nine months before I start feeling like I’m back where I was, but I think that’s bullshit. He doesn’t know how hard I’ve been working. And I pride myself on being the exception to this kind of accepted wisdom.
Actually, I have no idea how right he is.
We start off the league season against Worcester and we win pretty well. I feel I’ve lost a bit of the feeling I had for where the defence is and where my teammates are. But everyone is happy to put the responsibility straight back on me and, as ever, I am all too keen to step up and take it.
I am also starting to feel an intense pain in my right bicep, which gets worse and worse with every tackle. We look for ways to protect it. We try strapping, padding, everything, and I try to use a different part of my shoulder to make the hits, but nothing helps.
Then we come up with a new solution – bubble wrap. We wrap it, layer it thick and tape it over the top. Being me, I decide to test it hard immediately. I make one big tackle on the training pitch and I drop to the ground in agony.
I haven’t played rugby for England for nearly eleven months, but now I’m the captain. Andy Robinson was appointed head coach after Clive resigned, and he asked me to do the job. Of course, I feel immense pride, but I also have to face a press conference.
Beforehand, th
e England press chief, a guy I’ve got to know really well, Richard Prescott, says here are a few things, so you can be prepared, and he puts down a bundle of press cuttings, the kind of newspaper stuff I haven’t read for a couple of years. I start to read and am immediately staring at them in horror. Is this really what people are saying about me?
What is he captain for? That’s the tone of it. If he’s captain, that means he’s got to play, but he’s not even the best number ten. He’s not playing very well, he shouldn’t be playing.
This is a nightmare, like someone’s implanted a virus in your mind that’s going to breed and breed. Richard says that not everyone’s writing this stuff. Really just one guy, Stuart Barnes, is driving this agenda, but I should be prepared.
It’s difficult not to take it personally. The words jump off the page as though they are being said with venom. It’s been written for the public, yes of course it has, but deep down it feels as if the writers would like to know that I’ve read it, too.
It’s so strange. I’m trying to be the best I can be, get back all the match fitness I need and contribute to the teams I play in. I’m definitely not trying to stop anyone else playing for England, and I’m definitely not out there saying I’m the best, you should pick me, forget about so-and-so. The thought that I’m in the team when I don’t deserve to be, and I’m trading on some former glory, to me that concept is horrendous, absolutely horrendous.
In a tight match against Saracens, I hit a last-second drop goal to draw the game, and the media is rampant with ‘Jonny Does It Again’ stories. They couldn’t be further from the truth. I feel frustrated as hell with my game, and the pain in my arm is becoming unbearable.
I line up a tackle on Hugh Vyvyan, their number eight. He used to play for Newcastle so he knows full well how I love to go in for the big hit. At the last minute, as I launch forward, he sticks his head down low and hits the exact spot on my arm. The sudden flash of pain is worse than anything I’ve ever experienced. I feel physically sick.
I stutter through the rest of the game, fiercely protecting the arm, but there is no longer any hiding the fact that something is clearly wrong.
Rob asks me to come to a meeting and states the obvious. You can’t go on like this. This is so tough. I’ve barely been back. I am England captain and I am having to make my own decision to step away from it all again to get myself right.
So I’m back to the medics and specialists, the numerous tests and the X-rays. We get to the bottom of the problem, which stems from the muscle wastage as a result of the neck injury. The sheer number of hits and bruises on the exact same spot means that blood has been pooling on the bone beneath the muscle, and started depositing bits of calcium. The tiny shards of bone deposits within the blood have joined together and moulded on to the humerus. The medical term for this is myositis osificans. The result is that, whenever I take impact on the arm, the muscle is being shredded over these pointed bone deposits, causing more bleeding and inflammation. The remedy is largely pharmaceutical plus, sadly, another two months off.
The thought just destroys me. I have two teams that I am part of and yet absent from. At Newcastle, I can’t train, just spectate. I don’t feel part of the club. And England is even worse.
England’s big games of the autumn season are against South Africa and Australia. Before the South Africa game, I sit in the Twickenham physio room, just around from the changing room, listening to the noise of studs on the floor, the players shouting, people vomiting in the bin, the sound of pre-match anxiety and energy. They are sounds I know so well and I naturally feel the buzz and the energy, but I’m sitting here in a suit, with nowhere to release it.
I am England captain, but today Jason Robinson is doing my job for me. Being here like this is just horrendous.
Andy Robinson suggested that I should be down at Pennyhill during the week. It would be good for the troops’ morale, we agreed, and also sensible for me to keep in close proximity to the squad, so that when I’m fit, I can click straight back into it.
The problem is I haven’t been involved in the England set-up for almost a year. I don’t feel massively part of it, so trying to come in and have this rousing effect isn’t easy. If I was on the field with them, it would be totally different, but I feel a bit false, a bit of a pretender, and I suspect that comes across to the others.
Before the game starts, I go out to my seat in the coaches’ area, and it’s nice to sample the atmosphere of the big game build-up. Normally at this point, when I’m playing, I am so completely absorbed in my preparation, I don’t register anything that’s going on. It is interesting to see what actually happens. But the moment I sit down, the cameras turn round to find me. And then there I am, my face up on the big screen.
When the game starts, the cameras keep panning back to me, but only, it seems, when Charlie Hodgson does something. Today, he does a lot. He runs the game brilliantly and I am genuinely happy for him – fantastic bloke, great player. He deserves all the praise. The cameras constantly seek my reaction, but I’m not an extrovert, or demonstrative, so I’m not going to be jumping around, like Clive used to, because Charlie’s just scored … again.
As England’s victory becomes increasingly assured, I find myself sinking deeper and deeper. Eventually, I desperately want to go home so I can try to work out why I’m hurting so much inside.
I’m not really convinced I deserve the captaincy anyway, but it’s so hard to sit there and take a game like this. I’d like to be an absolute saint and say I am 100 per cent, unconditionally happy for the guys. But I can’t help thinking what does it mean for me? If the team is playing so well without me, where do I stand as England captain? To be honest, I feel a little embarrassed.
The following week, because the South Africa game confused the hell out of me, I try a change of tack. Around the players, far from helping, I feel a bit of a hindrance. So I keep more of a distance from the team. I don’t go in the changing room beforehand. I go to the gym instead. I can’t do a work-out because of my injury, so I talk to Calvin Morriss, one of the fitness coaches, and shoot a few basketballs around with my one good arm.
Walking up to my seat, the fans are so warm and friendly, but when they barrage you with comments such as don’t worry, Jonny, we still love you, or you’ll get your place back soon, it doesn’t exactly help.
After the game, which we lose, narrowly, I do go into the changing room, just briefly. I want to commiserate with the guys and let them know how much I respect them and all their efforts. We had come so close to a great autumn. But it doesn’t feel quite my place to be here among these players who have given everything and are now shattered and beaten up inside. I’m not remotely convinced I deserve to be here. It’s simple. What I need to do is change that fact. I need to play some more rugby.
If you are stuck in hospital and cannot move, and the nurses need to prevent bedsores, you are sometimes given silicon padding. This bedsore technology saves my career. Silicon padding works wonders for my arm. Unlike bubble wrap, which seemed to intensify any impact, the silicon soaks it up.
With rest, intensive medicine, numerous blood and urine tests and the new silicon padding, I am back on the bench for Newcastle in December. I get an hour of a game against Leeds, which we win, and my full comeback is against Sale and Charlie Hodgson, which causes a predictable stir. We snatch victory right at the end when I score a last-minute try under the posts. So all is going well. What a great feeling to get through a game without any pain.
Perpignan is next, in the Heineken Cup, and disaster strikes. We are a little behind, and I try to make an outside break round one of their forwards, who just manages to grab the back of my collar. As he does so, the studs of my right boot are stuck firmly in the turf, and as I’m pulled back over my right knee, I hear a big pop come from the inside of it.
Clearly, something’s happened, yet the pain is only a throb, nothing major. I don’t know much about knees. Knees are my strong point. When the physio su
ggests I get up and try a little jog, the knee wavers left and right as if the upper and lower leg are merely balancing on top of each other. There is no stability whatsoever.
I watch the rest of the game from the bench, feeling desperately low. Why me? Why me again? And how many weeks or months of rugby am I going to miss this time?
By the end of the game, the pain is worse, and Martin Brewer, the physio, is a bit more urgent about it. So Andy Buist, another knee-injury victim, is kicked off the physio bed and told to sit on the side so I can take his place.
From there, we are kindly taken to a local hospital, which is closed for the night but the Perpignan doctor gets opened especially for me. The scan shows a tear in my right medial ligament, grade 2/3 – no surgery required but a good eight to twelve weeks out. In that moment, another Six Nations campaign is completely wiped out.
Two days later, we discover that Andy Buist is far worse. He has anterior cruciate ligament damage – surgery definitely required and six to nine months out. Buisty is younger than I am, but he doesn’t have his foot in the door or special treatment, like I do, and he certainly has a far harder road back.
Not only am I struggling with another injury, but I am horrified that I kicked him off the physio bed like that. My self-importance needs reassessing. I can look in the mirror and see it. Everything right now is about me, and even if it is mostly based around fear, I don’t like what I see.
On the phone to Andy Robinson, I explain the situation, and he agrees and, as ever, he seems to understand. For the Six Nations, I won’t come down and hang around the team any more. I just can’t be that close to it.
What I don’t say is that me being around the England team wasn’t helping Charlie Hodgson, either. He was feeling added pressure and responsibility, which was completely unfair and made it harder for him to relax into the role. I would probably have felt exactly the same. As soon as I got wind of that, I knew I had to stop going down.
Jonny: My Autobiography Page 20