‘Having spent many nights in his company, I can tell you he is one of the most entertaining characters to come out of the rugby world. It’s no wonder he’s still in great demand as an after dinner speaker. Just for the record his story below about being arrested is absolutely true. I won’t give away here what it was actually for, but I for one am pleased he was released because a long-term period of incarceration would have been (deserved?) a sad loss to the sport of rugby.
I admired Lawrence as a rugby player and have been even more impressed with his charitable work since retirement, in particular his Charitable Foundation which has raised millions of pounds for Cancer Research UK, Help for Heroes and the Rugby Players Association (RPA) Benevolent Fund amongst others. So when he gave me a ring regarding his World Cup book which is supporting a favourite charity of mine, Wooden Spoon, I was delighted to get involved.
If it’s okay with the editor I want to contribute two stories: one concerns how I almost never made selection for a World Cup squad, or any other squad for that matter, and one relates to the inaugural World Cup in 1987, in which I played.
I’d had a great year in 1984: my club side Bath won the John Player Cup final at Twickenham for the first time and I made my international debut against Australia, also at Twickenham. To celebrate these events I accepted an invitation to help train the Thailand national rugby team for a few weeks during the summer. Little did I know I was going to be arrested for air piracy – yes, you’ve read that correctly – after the plane taking me to Bangkok made a forced landing in Karachi and four armed police deposited me in a local prison cell.
I was with a few mates from Bristol and we left Heathrow airport on Thai Air Flight 124. Shortly after take-off we landed in Paris to pick up a few more passengers, including the Agen rugby team who were departing for a tour of the Far East. This is when the seeds of disaster were sown. One or two of their lads spoke some English and we enjoyed a few beers together, every now and again breaking into song with a rendition of ‘Rule Britannia’ which was invariably followed by their version of the ‘Marseillaise’. Perhaps inevitably, with alcohol levels rising, the Anglo–French rivalry began in earnest and, dare I say it, reached a boisterous level. We upheld the honour of the British for a creditable length of time as more and more glasses of plonk and beer were consumed by both parties. Unfortunately one of my mates, Martin Shepherd, who was particularly unsteady on his feet anyway, received a bit of a ‘nudge’ from the opposition, tripped over nothing in particular and fell, managing to split his head open on an armrest before hitting the floor. Out cold!
I was out of my seat and ready for action in an instant. Well, I dragged myself up eventually at least. I managed to take out four of them with perfectly timed and expertly delivered punches without receiving a single blow in return, which was a hell of a lot easier than it sounds as they were strapped in their seats at the time and unable to move. I turned to face another Agen player running down the aisle and caught a blow to the side of the head. I knew it was going to be serious as I’d spotted a glass in his hand just before contact. We both looked at each other and then down at his hand which contained a crushed plastic cup. Let’s just say I nodded in his direction and the job was done. The stewardesses were obviously not used to the slightly eccentric way in which the international camaraderie of rugby manifests itself, and one of them ran to the cockpit and convinced the pilot lives were at risk. He made an emergency landing in Karachi where uniformed police with rifles poured onto the plane, bashed my groggy mate Martin on the head with a rifle butt (he was only just coming around from the incident with the armrest) and slapped a set of handcuffs on me.
As we marched across the tarmac in the blazing sun another idiot idea came to me – make a run for it. With my hands handcuffed behind my back, I ran as fast as I possibly could, not thinking of the police and their weaponry. How I didn’t get shot I’ll never know. Of course there was nowhere to run and I soon found myself locked up in solitary for five days. From time to time someone would come into the cell and tell me I was departing on a flight later that day, but as each departure time came and went I began to get very worried. Eventually I was put on a flight to Bangkok, this time with my hands ‘cuffed’ at the front, and seated next to a striking couple and their beautiful young daughter. I had not shaved or showered for five days and wore the same set of clothes I’d been arrested in. Not a good look. The flight was full, so instead of moving as far away from me as possible, dad swapped seats with his daughter and acted as a human shield between me and his family.
Hours later, we landed at Bangkok and I was released from the handcuffs. Without a passport or luggage, which had arrived several days earlier on my original flight, I soon found myself a guest of the security forces once again. I tried to explain I was due to be coaching the national team and was a very important person. Twelve hours later my mate Andrew arrived with my passport and I knew I was just a few hours away from experiencing the Bangkok night life, or so I thought. No sooner had I arrived in our hotel, when my bowels gave out. I think I’d been fed something decidedly dodgy in Karachi. The net result was three days confined to my room, or more accurately the toilet.
To finish this story you need to know at the time there was very little rugby played in schools in Thailand, the majority of senior teams recruiting their playing personnel from the armed forces and universities. Such was my luck on this trip, Thailand had experienced horrendous monsoons and half the country was under water, with the result that the majority of the military players were out on flood relief, whilst the remainder contemplated wistfully where their pitches had once been before the rains washed them away. During a ten-week stint as coaching assistant, I spent six days in custody, two days in transit, three days on the toilet and managed just two training sessions, both of which took place with me standing in front of a blackboard. Rather than suggest I go home early, my hosts were apologetic about the weather and constantly checking I was okay. I genuinely wish I could have done more for them on the coaching front, but they provided me with enough memories to last a lifetime. I know, of course, that fighting on a plane is not a clever thing to do, but in my defence I was young, hot-headed, full of beer and red wine. I often think back on that episode now, and how easily I might have just disappeared from life languishing in a Karachi cell. I would never have experienced playing for England again, a British Lions tour, marriage and children. God knows I was lucky.
Beach Balls
Having survived my spell in the Karachi ‘Hilton’ I was going to make the most of freedom for the rest of my life, which obviously included the 1987 Rugby World Cup. A trip during which I improved my scuba diving, learnt the rules of water polo, reduced my golf handicap from 22 to 19, took my first sky dive, enjoyed my second ever bungee jump and frightened myself to death during a white water rapids trip in a relatively small inflatable boat. I also have a vague recollection of playing a bit of rugby.
The World Cup was a rugby tour with bells on, the only difference being you didn’t know the date of your flight home until twenty-four hours prior to departure. I suspect I won’t be the last to say so in these pages that the England approach was not all it could have been, especially when compared to the preparation of squads leading up to the more recent tournaments. Every single aspect is so totally different today; I look at the space-age kit provided for current international players and think about the bulky, baggy (although not that baggy in my case), heavy cotton shirts we used to play in, which more than doubled in weight if it rained. The only similarity is the red rose of England on the chest, which to me was always the most important thing.
One instance when England managed to get preparation spectacularly wrong was the period between qualification through the group stage and the quarter-final. Australia, Ireland, Wales and England were playing their quarter-final matches in Australia. Three of the four named countries travelled to Australia for training camps. The English management decided we needed some rest, recup
eration and recreation to help recharge the batteries – a decision that was greeted with massive cheers from the squad, although with hindsight it was probably not what was required at such a critical stage of the tournament. So with the other teams heading into strict regimes we headed off to Hamilton Island, the leading resort destination in the Whitsunday Islands.
Four days of sunbathing, swimming and water polo would have been paradise at the end of a long season, not ideal for a match to determine who would proceed to the semi-final of the Rugby World Cup. During the break a decision was made to play a more expansive game, with Mike Harrison as England captain and right-wing obviously wanting to show the world what he and his fellow backs could do with the ball in their hands. Prior to this we had utilised the immense power of our forwards and dominated the opposition up front. I’m not certain the decision received unanimous support but when you’re lying on a sun lounger with a Piña Colada in your hand, quite frankly it took too much effort to object.
The truth is England took a gamble which didn’t pay off. Granted we felt fresh and relaxed when the quarter-final match started against Wales, but after a few minutes we all realised we would have done better if we’d done some proper training and worked on getting things right for the match. Our change of tactics failed miserably. We did release a great deal of ball to the backs but even though we had discussed it previously the arrival of that oval-shaped object still seemed to come as a surprise to them. We spent most of the game running backwards and cleaning up knock-ons and stray passes. We lost the match 16–3 with our only points coming from a solitary penalty from our full-back Jonathan Webb.
Twenty-four hours later we were on our way home, feeling disappointed we’d not progressed further in the tournament. Still, at least we were all sporting deep suntans and feeling completely stress-free.
Brought to Book
Gavin Hastings
Gavin Hastings is a true legend of Scottish rugby and a former captain of the 1993 British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand. For many years he appeared as a permanent fixture at full-back for Scotland, winning sixty-one caps, twenty as captain, as well as playing in all three Lions Tests in both New Zealand and Australia four years earlier. To achieve selection for a Lions Tour is the pinnacle of any British player’s career; to gain selection for more than one is a true indication of the quality of player.
‘During his career he set a new record for the most points scored in a major international. Just imagine what he would have achieved had he been born in one of the three big southern hemisphere rugby-playing nations. I first met Gavin prior to embarking on my international career and was struck by how genuine and down to earth he was, a model player and a gentleman (at least in public).
‘The following quote from Sir Ian McGeechan sums up Gavin as a player better than I ever could. “Gavin is a big man in every sense of the word, and his greatest asset was to engender confidence in those around him and to lead by example when the opposition had to be taken on. In New Zealand, they considered him simply the best full-back in the world.”
As a result of Scotland’s membership of the International Rugby Board we were automatically selected to compete in the inaugural World Cup and looking back we probably arrived in New Zealand with high hopes and somewhat lower expectations. Obviously we were going to give it our best shot on the field of play but we were also not going to let the opportunity of several parties along the way slip through our fingers. On this front I like to think we were nothing short of ingenious.
We had hundreds of beautifully embossed gold invitations printed, complete with the Scottish Rugby Union logo. ‘The Scotland World Cup Squad requests the pleasure of your company . . . ’ with space left to fill in the time and venue by hand. Obviously the team’s management, and indeed the grandees of the Scottish Rugby Union who were ostensibly the hosts, knew nothing of this enterprise. The highly impressive invitations were to be predominantly distributed by the boys who were not involved in the next match, commonly known as the ‘dirt trackers’. At the time we were sponsored by Steinlager, a prominent New Zealand lager brand, ensuring the supply of alcohol was not a problem. We also had our prop forward Ian Milne (nickname ‘The Bear’ in light of his physical size and strength) on door duty, which was sure to deter undesirables from attempting to gain admittance.
The first extravaganza was scheduled to take place after our initial match in the group stage of the tournament, against France. Everything seemed to be in place and every contingency covered to ensure maximum pleasure. I say ‘seemed’ because we had overlooked one vital component – the nous, or lack thereof, of the dirt trackers. For some reason, not all of them had grasped the concept fully, as demonstrated by the surprisingly high number of blokes who turned up at that initial do. A meeting was hastily convened where it was made clear that our prestigious invites were to be handed out to ‘beautiful young ladies’ only. After all, these gatherings were ultimately for our benefit and not that of the guests.
From then on, our post-match shindigs were a huge success, which made it all the more surprising that we managed a few impressive performances on the pitch, the 20–20 draw with France perhaps best of all, which of course took place before the first party. At the end of the group stage we finished unbeaten in second place (on points difference) to the French, resulting in a quarter-final clash against the hosts and favourites New Zealand at Lancaster Park, Christchurch. Victory against the All Blacks was vitally important to the team. Obviously it would mean we progressed in the tournament, but in our eyes an even greater incentive was the fact that a win would ensure at least two more weeks on tour with a semi-final one week later which even if we lost would be followed by the third- and fourth-place playoff. If we were defeated by New Zealand we would be on a flight home the following day and as we still had a massive pile of invitations we were not keen to waste them. Simply put, more matches meant more parties.
Match day found us in the tunnel at Lancaster Park, side by side with the All Blacks, as our talismatic team-mate Finlay Calder walked up and down the Scottish line, urging us on. ‘Come on, boys, we can do this, look at them, they’re nothing, come on, this is ours,’ etc., etc., etc. He was so sincere, everything he said genuinely heartfelt, that I along with the rest of the side believed at the very least we had a good chance of victory, even if it wasn’t quite ‘nailed on’. As impressed as we were with Finlay’s passion, it did not seem to faze our opponents unduly. Indeed, one of their wingers, John Kirwan, very much a hero to millions of All Black fans, had clearly had enough of the ranting and tapped Finlay on the shoulder as he passed by. Finlay just glared as John produced a book from the pocket of his shorts and handed it to him.
‘What the hell is this?’ demanded Finlay, to which John calmly replied, ‘It’s a gift, something for you to read during your flight home tomorrow.’ Finlay was furious. Had it been a cartoon, there would undoubtedly have been steam coming out of his ears. Before the incident could escalate (anyone who knows Finlay will understand this was more than a distinct possibility) the referee called both teams onto the pitch.
As the All Blacks performed the haka Finlay did not take his eyes off Kirwan and for the entire eighty minutes of the match it was obvious he was desperate to get his hands on him. For the record John was a big man blessed with a good turn of speed, unlike Finlay. To quote from The Complete Book of Rugby: ‘Calder had the ability to use his drive, determination and innate knowledge of the game to overcome his undoubted shortcomings – in particular he was always a bit slow for an out-and-out open-side – this helped him become one of the most effective back-row operators of his generation.’ Even with this drive, determination etc. he was still not capable of catching hold of John that day, which turned out to be the penultimate one of our campaign. We lost by 30–3, but at least I can proudly state that I scored all of Scotland’s points in the match. It will come as no surprise that all the remaining invites were hastily distributed and Scotland left New Zealand with
the impressive record of only having lost one match, to the eventual winners, and of hosting the biggest party Christchurch has ever witnessed.
Finlay may well have exhibited the pace of a lame elephant, but he also had the memory of one. A year later we were participating in a bicentennial celebration seven-a-side tournament in Sydney. Miraculously Scotland reached the final and ‘only’ had to beat New Zealand to lift the trophy. Halfway through the second half, with little between the two sides on the scoreboard, Kirwan made a break and for once in my life I managed to get hold of him and bring him down. As he was getting to his feet two things happened. First, John acknowledged my tackle with a knowing look, and second, out of the corner of my eye I saw Finlay frantically charging across the pitch, arms and legs all over the place. Moments later he absolutely clattered Kirwan who, having just got to his feet, was horizontal again within a fraction of a second. With the wind knocked out of him, John was briefly incapable of speech, and could only look up at Finlay proudly standing astride his body, ready for anything. It took a moment or two, but the big All Black did eventually regain some air, a degree of composure and his voice. ‘That was f****** late, you Scottish twat.’ With a wry smile Finlay replied, ‘Aye, about twelve months too f****** late, you b******.’
More Blood, Sweat and Beers Page 3