by Peter Burns
‘Earle, Jim and Chalkie had massive influences on how I played and then how I coached. They were so positive – especially when compared to the way the England team was coached, which was so bad. The tragedy for me was that neither Jim nor Chalkie coached England and they absolutely should have, especially Jim. Looking back now, Jim should have been made England coach and then when he stood down, Chalkie should have replaced him. It was such a waste that they never got the chance – and they both wanted to do it. They were both hugely ambitious but they didn’t fit the mould at Twickenham; the RFU were never going to have guys that thought so differently coaching England. It really was a tragic waste.
‘So I was really pleased with where I was going to be playing rugby post-Loughborough, but I still needed to find a career. Jim’s recommendation of Rank Xerox had piqued my interest and this was further enhanced when Leicester arranged for me to meet Alan King, the regional branch manager for Xerox in Leicester. Although King was a big Leicester fan, he didn’t make the interview any easier for me – but I was delighted when I was finally offered a job. Xerox was a hugely competitive, driven company that demanded furious competition among its employees for results. It was a high-pressure environment, but I loved it and soon began to thrive. I probably played my best rugby while at Loughborough, largely because it was as close to being a professional player as you could get at the time, but it was when I joined Leicester that my rugby career really took off.’
Leicester were one of the traditional powerhouses of English rugby and were just launching a dominating run in the national knockout competition. They won the John Player Cup in 1979, 1980 and 1981 and had a team laced with internationals, with hooker Peter Wheeler, prop Steve Redfern, scrum-half Nick Youngs, fly-half Les Cusworth, centre Paul Dodge and full-back Dusty Hare forming a talented spine to the team – with Wheeler, Dodge and Hare all British & Irish Lions.
‘We didn’t have the biggest pack of forwards at the time,’ said Peter Wheeler in an interview with The Guardian’s Richard Williams in 2003. ‘But we were playing an open, expansive style of rugby that inspired everyone. We scored a lot of tries from all over the place. The best coaches try to be pragmatic, and we happened to develop that style because we had a lot of good backs and not much in the way of forwards. I’d be pretty sure that while Clive was at Loughborough he’d have spotted the sort of squad we had, and realised that it would benefit him.’
‘Clive had bags of flair,’ remembers Les Cusworth, ‘but it was Paul Dodge that kept a talented backline together and made Clive look a better player. Chalkie White was a pioneering coach, in the mould of Jim Greenwood, and he helped Clive a lot. Chalkie and Paul were significant factors in Clive’s development and really helped him push on to gain his international recognition.’
‘They were a great combination in the centre, Paul Dodge and Clive,’ recalled White before his death in 2005. ‘In many ways Paul helped Clive to become the player he did: if Paul hadn’t been there, Clive might have looked quite ordinary. Clive had bags of pace, which is invaluable, he was brave in the tackle and wasn’t afraid of anyone, but he could be flighty and Paul kept him in line. They formed what many pundits considered one of the most effective centre partnerships in world rugby at the time and they carried that on to the Test stage.’
Woodward joined the club in 1979 and went straight into the Leicester first team. He scored fourteen tries on his way to selection for the England squad in that year’s autumn internationals, before winning a place on the bench against Ireland in the 1980 Five Nations opener at Twickenham, by which time he was the club’s leading try-scorer. He made his debut in that match when he replaced Tony Bond and England went on to record a 24–9 win. It would be a memorable Five Nations for many reasons. Woodward established his place in the team thanks to Bond’s injury and England went on to dominate the competition, winning their first Grand Slam for twenty-three years and playing an almost unrecognisable brand of expansive rugby in the final game against Scotland. It seemed as if England had uncovered a new attacking élan that had eluded them for decades. They followed up their victory over the Irish by defeating France 17–13 in their first ever win at the Parc des Princes in Paris, Wales 9–8 at Twickenham, before clinching the Grand Slam in epic style at Murrayfield 30–18.
Unfortunately, the success of that season would prove to be a flash in the pan with the expansive style the consequence of overwhelming forward domination over the Scots rather than a specifically pursued tactical approach. As Woodward explained, ‘That season is largely remembered for the attacking play in the Grand Slam clinching game, but it wasn’t all like that. We won the first game against Ireland playing in our usual ten-man fashion. I think that for the twenty or so minutes I was on, I touched the ball once – and was penalised for holding on in the tackle.
‘We played well out in Paris, scoring tries through winger John Carleton and my centre partner for that game, Nick Preston. Dusty Hare kicked a penalty and John Horton at stand-off kicked two drop-goals. It was all the backs scoring the points, but the forwards did a magnificent job against a big French pack, which was led by the great Jean-Pierre Rives.
‘The win against Wales was huge because they had been the outstanding team throughout the seventies – but it was a tight game. Dusty Hare kicked like a machine to give us the win, but it was a battle of attrition and we were given a real help early on because Paul Ringer, their flanker, lost his rag and was sent off after fourteen minutes. Paul Dodge came back into the team for that game and it was great to be able to continue our club partnership together for the last two games.
‘So we went up to Edinburgh for the final game and it is the one that is always shown on the highlights reel – and for good reason as we played superbly. But because it is the game that lives long in the memory it creates a false impression of how we actually played throughout the tournament. We were largely playing ten-man rugby still with a dominant pack, but because the pack demolished the Scottish forwards so effectively, we had more ball then usual to throw about.’
England did more than throw it about. They cut devastating running lines, with Mike Slemen and John Carleton lancing in off their wings or putting on the after-burners out wide, John Horton and Paul Dodge pulling the strings in midfield and Dusty Hare kicking two conversions and two penalties. Slemen and scrum-half Steve Smith both scored a try, while Carleton was in brutal form, scorching over for a hat-trick. Up front, the power of veterans like Fran Cotton, Peter Wheeler, Bill Beaumont, Maurice Colclough, Roger Uttley and Tony Neary was destructive. But at the epicentre was Woodward. With the platform created by the forwards, England were constantly on the front foot and the Scottish defence was run ragged. In the openings that were created on the wide Murrayfield pitch, Woodward was at his creative, elusive, mazy best.
‘I remember coming into the changing room at half-time and the game had been so fast in the first half,’ said Woodward, ‘and Fran Cotton got all the players around and he said, “Before anyone says anything, what the fuck happened to keeping it tight?” And everyone just burst out laughing and he had this big grin on his face. It really was fantastic the way we were playing, everyone was enjoying themselves so much. And Scotland were a great side – they had guys like Jim Renwick, Andy Irvine, John Rutherford, Roy Laidlaw, David Leslie and John Beattie playing – but we just blew them away. They came back at us in the second half but we kept playing and it was just a fantastic spectacle, the way rugby is supposed to be played. But it just happened – it wasn’t planned, there was no magic formula.
‘It was a strange experience to be part of a Grand Slam in your first season as a Test player. I remember sitting in the changing room after Bill Beaumont had been carried from the field and there were guys there in tears over what we had achieved. I was delighted with how I had played and felt that we were at the beginning of a new era. But unfortunately that didn’t happen. Winning the Grand Slam was like winning a one-off cup final for the veteran players. Guys like Fra
n Cotton and Roger Uttley were legends of the game, particularly after their efforts in South Africa with the Lions in 1974, and Bill Beaumont was one of England’s and the Lions’ greats. But it was almost as if they had achieved all they wanted to achieve with that Grand Slam. Bill was selected as captain for the Lions tour to South Africa in the summer of 1980, but he had to retire two years after that. Roger retired after the Grand Slam and Fran retired after 1981 Five Nations. As opposed to the beginning of a new era, it was actually the end of one. And from a personal point of view, I don’t think I ever played as well again as I did that day in Edinburgh; instead of pushing on to develop that fast, expansive game that won us the Slam, we reverted to type again.
‘It was a huge disappointment.’
TWO
THE ANATOMY OF A BUSINESSMAN
‘Success is about having money and fame, but excellence is being the best you can be.’
Mike Ditka
IN THE SUMMER of 1980, Clive Woodward was one of nine Englishmen selected for the Lions tour of South Africa – their first excursion to the Republic since the historic tour of 1974. But just as Willie John McBride’s Invincibles had left London under a cloud of political controversy, so too did Bill Beaumont’s class of 1980.
By 1980 contact between South Africa and the rest of the sporting world had almost entirely ceased. In 1976 the All Blacks had toured in the face of such international opposition that Abraham Ordia, the president of the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa, had stated that the forty-six member countries that made up the council would boycott the 1976 Montreal Olympics if the tour went ahead. When the Games began in July, athletes from several of the member nations did indeed walk out in protest, while threatening that the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton in Canada in 1978 would descend into further chaos if sporting contact with South Africa was maintained.
Things escalated in 1977 with the Gleneagles Agreement, which saw the Commonwealth of Nations unanimously agree to discourage sporting contacts with South Africa.
Despite rugby union being one of the key sports that the Commonwealth leaders were most keen to deprive South Africa of (along with cricket), the Lions committee and the four home unions held firm in the face of the swell of political pressure and confirmed in January 1980 that they would proceed with their tour as planned.
The power of the Springbok badge, which had loomed over world rugby for more than a century, was emblematic of the apartheid regime for both sides of the divide in South Africa. Rugby in the Republic was white-dominated and it represented the values of traditional rugged strength and masculinity that the white population (particularly the Afrikaners) vehemently felt defined them. But to the non-white population – all 40 million of them – that same badge and the green and gold of the Springbok strip were symbols of their oppression. Whenever the Lions toured, they were supported vociferously by small pockets of non-white supporters in the crowds. It was a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend and every time the Lions were victorious it was celebrated wildly as a wound to that symbol of apartheid.
Before the 1974 tourists had left their base in London, their hotel had been besieged by pickets led by the anti-apartheid demonstrator Peter Hain and hounded by the national and world press. The resounding triumph of the tour drowned some of this out but the Lions were under even greater media scrutiny by the time they came to tour South Africa again in 1980.
More than a hundred years of reciprocal touring between the home unions, France and New Zealand meant that the rugby union bond with South Africa was deeply embedded. To cast them out into the wilderness would be to cast out a member of the family – or so the thinking went. Furthermore, while other sporting bodies had withdrawn contact with South Africa, the International Rugby Football Board continued to encourage tours for fear that not doing so would result in rugby in South Africa abandoning the strictures of amateurism and turning fully professional while in isolation. With the advent of professionalism just fifteen years later in 1995 and the seemingly inexorable global growth of the game ever since, it seems utterly incongruous that official bodies would rather sanction – indeed actively encourage – tours to a country run by such an oppressive regime than risk one of its member unions falling under the ‘shadow’ of paying players to take part in the higher echelons of its domestic game. To reflect on those days now is to see a moral compass spinning wildly in the wrong direction.
‘In those days apartheid was a raging subject and we got a lot of abuse, but I had a very simple philosophy,’ said Syd Millar, the manager of the tour. ‘Rightly or wrongly I felt that politicians should not interfere with sport. We asked the South Africans to play mixed teams, which they did. We asked for mixed crowds, which we got. So we thought that was a step forward and more than the politicians were achieving. I remember one press report at the time, which said the UK had improved their trading position with South Africa by tens of millions and thinking, why isn’t that causing as much fuss?
‘You could argue for hours about the rights and wrongs of going on that trip, but my point of view is that we did achieve various things and I along with others spent a lot of time speaking to blacks and coloureds and finding out how we might help them in rugby terms, so it was a positive experience and I have no regrets.’
‘In my innocence, and it’s no defence at this stage of my life,’ recalls the Lions’ Irish fly-half, Ollie Campbell, ‘I was cocooned in this sort of rugby world that I was living in and all I wanted to do was play rugby. I was that innocent. I was almost oblivious to the political controversy that was raging at that time. It’s a very weak defence, it’s almost uncomfortable, it’s almost embarrassing saying it now, to be so unaware of the repercussions but I was so immersed in the game I was virtually oblivious to the whole issue, strange and unbelievable though that may sound.’
So it was that the 1980 tour was conducted under a vitriolic shadow of political opposition, even if there was, eventually, some relief from the media spotlight when the tour was overshadowed by the bigger international news story that the USA were to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
It was the shortest tour in Lions history, with eighteen games packed into a ten-week schedule – and while the shortened period away would become the model for future tours, it would soon be realised that the number of games scheduled was far too many for such a small window. Injuries soon began to mount up, particularly among the backs, and a record number of replacements were called up to join the tour.
Clive Woodward had joined the tour on a high, the Grand Slam in one pocket, the John Player Cup in the other. And he had started his new job at Rank Xerox, which was opening his mind to a whole new way of thinking.
‘I shared with Clive on that 1980 Lions tour and he was a Rank Xerox trainee at that time,’ recalls John Beattie, the former Scotland No.8. ‘I remember he accepted a call, and then immediately said “Hang on” and laid the phone down for thirty seconds, then went back on the line and finished the conversation. I asked him afterwards what that was all about and he said, “We’ve been told to always be in control of every situation – so that’s me getting my time to think, and he’s on the defensive.” So he was a guy who had been taught how to be a leader. He was a really nice man – but I remember thinking, “Wow, you’re different.”’
‘Throughout that tour he was always energetic, positive, imaginative, full of ideas about the endless possibilities of the game of rugby,’ recalls Ollie Campbell. ‘He trained and played with a smile, always gave the impression that he was enjoying himself thoroughly and he was great fun too. Beyond playing with him on that tour, I will always remember him for that mesmeric, outrageous, breath-taking and impossibly brilliant try he scored against Scotland at Twickenham in 1981. It is surely one of the greatest individual tries ever scored at that famous and historic ground. He was such a talented player.’
While many of the tour party felt a distinct level of discomfort with both the apartheid system and the abject poverty that they encou
ntered as they toured South Africa, and despite the injury problems, they enjoyed considerable success on the field. The Test series was lost 3–1 but this was a poor return for the Lions; they were dominant up front but, as was the case with England, the backs were given very little licence to thrill – which was criminal considering the running ability of players like Woodward, Jim Renwick, Andy Irvine, Mike Slemen and John Carleton.
‘We had a plan to play ten-man rugby,’ recalls Scotland centre Renwick. ‘And that is what we were going to do. But if you arrive with two or three different ways you can play then it makes life easier for you when plan A doesn’t work. On a tour like that, plan A is not going to work all the time.’
‘Syd Millar, the manager, Noel Murphy, the coach, and myself as captain were all forwards,’ remembers Bill Beaumont. ‘And we decided that we would take on the Springboks up front. During that period our rugby had probably become too preoccupied with forward domination at the expense of back play, and as captain in 1980 I hold my hands up. When you are on top in the forwards it is easy to say, “Let’s keep it here,” and one or two of our backs got frustrated because there is no defence against quick front-foot ball, as the Springboks showed us. In South Africa we were a bit one-dimensional – the forwards kept the good ball to themselves, and then gave the backs the bad ball and said, “Do something with it.” I have to accept responsibility for that.’
The Lions deserved to get more out of the Test series, but with injuries taking their toll, so too did luck desert them – and Clive Woodward in particular.
