White Gold

by Peter Burns

  The six men were leafing through the latest inserts into the England ‘black book’ to discuss its content before presenting it to the rest of the squad. The book had been commissioned by Woodward and Humphrey Walters shortly after their first meeting. It was, as Woodward describes, ‘an everything-you-need-to-know manual about playing rugby for England’. The A4-sized black leather-bound book was embossed with the England rose and the words This is England on the front. It had ring-binding inside so that pages could be removed or added and the content had been written in full consultation with the players; and it evolved constantly over time. As well as explaining standards of behaviour, dress codes, information on meeting times, training schedules and other expectations that players coming into the England environment should adhere to, it also contained material expressing what it meant for the players to represent their country, and the team’s philosophies and goals. Central to the whole document was a key phrase beside an image of the Webb Ellis Cup: How do you want to be remembered? It was a powerful document as well as a practical one.

  The new pages that the six men were reviewing contained a list of ‘Teamship Rules’, which had been put together over the previous nine months. These were rules that had been set down by the players for the players. Near the top of list was a note about punctuality. Lombardi Time, it read.

  Martin Johnson smiled at that. It had been his idea, inspired by his great love of American Football.

  Growing up in Leicestershire, Johnson had been adept at a whole range of sports. He was blessed with incredible stamina, which he inherited from his mother, Hilary. She had been a Great Britain ultra-marathon runner (an ultra-marathon is run over a distance of 100km) and had often worked Johnson and his brother, Will, to a standstill on family holidays and weekend breaks, making them run up and down sand dunes with her, doing hill sprints, interval training and circuits – and carrying on for hours after her boys had collapsed with exhaustion. Johnson’s physique (he would grow to a height of 6ft 7in), fitness and hand-eye co-ordination could have made him a decent central defender in football, or seen him carve out a career in tennis, basketball or rowing; but his two great loves had been rugby and American Football.

  He had progressed quickly through the schools rugby system, representing England at every age group and it was that success that ultimately made him opt for rugby over American Football. But his passion for the latter never waned and he would spend hours poring over annuals, histories and biographies of the great NFL dynasties and players, and staying up late into the night to watch Monday night football games beamed from across the Atlantic.

  His rugby career really began to take off when he travelled to New Zealand to play for Tihoi in King Country when he was nineteen. He had been spotted by the Tihoi coach, John Albert, when England Schools had travelled to Australia for the three-way tournament with Australia and New Zealand. England had won both their games against their illustrious opponents and Albert had been impressed by the imposing figure of the young Leicester second-row. After just a few games for Tihoi, he was invited to a training session with the King Country provincial side and within ten days was playing his first game for them. He played throughout the season for King Country and was, much to his own surprise, then selected to train with the New Zealand Under-21 side. Although he didn’t make it into the main Under-21 team on that occasion, he joined College Old Boys Marist in Taupo the following season and was again selected for the Under-21 squad for a trial match. He put in a much improved performance and at the end of the trial found that he had been selected for the side, which was coached by John Hart, who would later coach the All Blacks at the 1999 World Cup. The Junior All Blacks went on an undefeated three-match tour of Australia and in the game against their Australian counterparts Johnson lined up against John Eales, who would become a formidable opponent over the years ahead.

  Johnson returned to England in October 1990 and worked his way into the Leicester first team. He won his first cap for England in the 1993 Five Nations against France at Twickenham and was a late replacement on the Lions tour to New Zealand later that summer. Despite not being an original selection, he impressively fought his way into the Test side for the series.

  ‘As soon as Martin Johnson came out to New Zealand, it was clear that he would be in the Test side,’ recalled Peter Winterbottom, the England flanker. ‘And it was clear that he should have been on tour from the start – he was that good.’

  Johnson’s career continued to blossom on his return and he became a mainstay in the England team. He experienced a great deal of pain in an England shirt, not least the hammering that England suffered at the hands of the All Blacks in the semi-final of the 1995 World Cup, when Jonah Lomu, aged just eighteen, rampaged past – and over – the England defenders time and time again to score four hugely impressive tries. But there tended to be more highs than lows when he pulled on a white shirt. He was part of a Grand Slam-winning side in 1995 and picked up a Five Nations championship title in 1996. He was named as captain of the 1997 Lions and went on to become only the fourth man to lead a series-winning tour party since the Second World War.

  He had been disappointed not to claim the England captaincy under Clive Woodward, but he was also philosophical about Dallaglio’s appointment ahead of him.

  ‘Clive and I weren’t that similar,’ said Johnson in an interview with Alison Kervin. ‘We always got on because we both wanted to win and that’s what made the relationship work when I did become captain, but it didn’t surprise me when Lawrence was his first choice as captain. I suppose I’ve got my feet on the ground a bit more. Clive would have his barmy ideas and I’d just stand there and look at him.’

  Johnson looked down at the words Lombardi Time printed on the paper in front of him. Vince Lombardi was the doyen of American Football coaches, having led the Green Bay Packers to five championships in seven years in the 1960s, including winning the first two Super Bowls in 1966 and 1967, and coached the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins. The National Football League’s Super Bowl trophy is named in his honour. ‘Lombardi Time’ was a tribute to the NFL legend’s penchant for punctuality; it meant being at a meeting ten minutes early, so that everyone was ready to go at precisely the scheduled time.

  Beside Johnson, Jerry Guscott was scanning further down the document. He read the words No Mobile Phones with a wry smile. Guscott was the longest serving England player in the room – when he had come into the side in 1988, mobile phones had barely been heard of.

  Described by the great BBC commentator Bill McLaren as ‘the prince of centres’, Guscott had burst on to the international scene as a one-cap bolter on the 1989 Lions tour to Australia after scoring a hat-trick of tries for England in a 58–3 win over Romania in May of that year. His delicate grubber kick behind the Australian defence, which he gathered himself to score, had won the Lions the crucial Second Test match to tie the series, and he had gone down in Lions legend again when, in 1997, he kicked the late drop-goal to win the series-clinching Second Test against the Springboks. Between those two momentous occasions he had won Grand Slams with England in 1991, 1992 and 1995, won the Five Nations in 1996 and toured with the Lions to New Zealand in 1993.

  Beside Guscott sat the barrel-framed prop Jason Leonard, who had been an England regular since 1990. Known as the ‘Fun Bus’, he played a huge part in keeping morale high in the England camp, but played an even more important role on the field as the cornerstone of the scrum and with his vast experience. By the time he retired from international rugby in 2003, he was the world’s most capped player – a remarkable feat considering the brutal attrition endured by players in the front-row of the scrum.

  Paul Grayson and Matt Dawson, the half-backs, smiled easily as they flicked through the pages. The two were clubmates at Northampton and had played together for England since making their debuts in December 1995, in England’s win over Samoa at Twickenham.

  Dawson had, in many ways, mirrored Guscott’s Lions story: he
had been the third-choice scrum-half for England when Ian McGeechan, his club coach, selected him for the 1997 Lions tour. Many felt that his inclusion in the tour party had been nothing other than pure nepotism. But that was to underestimate McGeechan’s genius for talent spotting. While appreciating that luck had played its part when the Lions’ leading No.9, Rob Howley of Wales, was injured and ruled out of the tour during a midweek game, Dawson’s play in South Africa more than merited his inclusion in the Test team – which he proved still further when he broke from a scrum in the First Test, set off down the blindside and seemingly into no man’s land as five Springbok defenders closed in on him. In one of the most audacious pieces of play ever witnessed on the Test scene, Dawson feigned to pass the ball back infield with an overarm lob. All five defenders bought the dummy and halted in their tracks, giving Dawson a clear run to the line to score a decisive try that brought the Lions back into the game.

  He played in all three Tests and scored another delightful try in the third Test, returning to England a hero.

  Grayson had had a less fortunate tour. He had been selected as a probable Test starter in the No.10 shirt but a thigh injury picked up against Border in East London ruled him out of the tour. But his pedigree was such that as soon as he had returned to full fitness he was back in the England fold, running the show again from stand-off.

  As the other five players in the room worked their way through the new inserts, Lawrence Dallaglio was still staring fixedly at the first page. His large square jaw was locked tight and he blinked one or two times, trying to quell a rising tide of emotion.

  The opening line of the document had three simple words. Inspire the Nation. That was the mantra that Woodward wanted his team to always hold close, with an understanding that a nation’s mood, its hopes and its dreams could be raised or dashed by the performances of those who represent them on the international sporting stage. It went hand in hand with the question, How do you want to be remembered? But a few lines down from Inspire the Nation was a sentence that read, And never forget who you are doing this for. It is for all those people who have supported your efforts to get here. Your friends and family, your teachers and your coaches. It was a simple sentiment, but emotive. And for Dallaglio, one word in particular shone from the page and played a painful melody on his heartstrings. Family.

  Dallaglio thought about his elder sister, Francesca. He thought about her every day – and she was always there in his mind when he prepared himself to play rugby. Francesca had died when she was just nineteen, the youngest of the fifty-one souls who perished in the Marchioness riverboat disaster on the Thames in 1989. Her body had been found several miles away by Battersea Bridge four days after the pleasure boat, which had been playing host to a private birthday party, sank following a collision with the dredger Bowbelle.

  ‘The night before, we all sat down as a family and had dinner together and talked about the party, which I was also invited to – but I had a headache and decided not to go,’ recalled Dallaglio. ‘The next morning my mum woke me in a terrible panic and said, “Have you heard the news? The Marchioness has sunk and they haven’t found your sister yet.”

  ‘It was an incredibly traumatic few days. It blew me away. And it blew my family apart. It was horrific.

  ‘Losing a member of one’s family is a terrible thing, particularly for us, having been very close-knit. I became quite driven after that. I thought, I now actually need to pull my finger out and do something that’s going to bring everyone together.

  ‘I was a good sportsman at school, but rugby wasn’t my life. I certainly wasn’t destined to play for England. I didn’t even play for the first XV at school. But I became a man on a mission after I lost my sister. Part of that might have just been me growing up. It’s very hard for me to understand. Was I successful as a result of the fact I decided to grow up, or as a result of the fact my sister died?

  ‘If you find the right emotional touch-points, the power of what you can achieve is phenomenal. In every game I’ve ever played, I always thought about my sister at some point.’

  Dallaglio was an immensely patriotic player, who always played with his heart on his sleeve. He was passionately driven by the death of his sister, determined to try to honour her memory and her ambition to be a ballet dancer by achieving success on the rugby field. While his mother campaigned tirelessly to have the disaster investigated as an avoidable accident, Lawrence strove to make the name Dallaglio one that would be on the lips of every rugby fan in the world.

  Now that he was England captain, he knew that if he could lead his team to the success that Woodward envisaged for it, then the name Dallaglio would be known all around the world. He could think of no greater tribute to Francesca than that.

  But first they had to get the team – and the country – over the hangover from the Tour of Hell. They had managed to go some way towards that in the autumn when the senior players came back into the side. ‘Five months after losing so heavily to the Aussies,’ said Dallaglio, ‘we fielded our best side against them at Twickenham and lost 12–11, which was a far more realistic measure of the difference between the teams. A week later we beat South Africa 13–7 and we went into the 1999 Five Nations believing we were good enough to win every game.’

  Dallaglio, his fellow players and the management all knew that the Five Nations was going to be the measuring stick of where they were as a team. Was the Tour of Hell a real indication of where they were in the world standings, or could they build on the win against South Africa and show themselves to be a true global force going into the summer tour of Australia and into the World Cup thereafter? The win over South Africa had ended the Springboks’ incredible record-equalling run of seventeen consecutive Test victories. It had been Woodward’s first win as a coach over a southern hemisphere giant and England’s first since beating Australia in the 1995 World Cup quarter-final. The players felt that this was the real England coming to the fore, but the Five Nations would prove the litmus test.

  *

  In October 1998, Francis Baron was appointed by the RFU management board as the first full-time professional CEO of the union. His appointment introduced a new corporate culture into the union and the way it ran its business. Baron had decided to take up the offer from the RFU after watching the Tour of Hell on TV; he never wanted to see English rugby laid so low again.

  He was the former managing director of WHSmith’s media division and had been headhunted from the travel group First Choice, where he had been chief executive, to address the RFU’s multimillion-pound deficit. In the two years prior to his appointment the RFU had lost more than £10.3 million. It could not continue to lose money at that rate and his first task was to audit the staffing levels within the RFU.

  ‘It was not a good start to the professional era, but it was a major business challenge,’ he said. ‘My wife said I was nuts.’

  His business focus instantly commended him to Woodward and what Baron did brilliantly was to recognise the creative spark that was so fervent in the coach. He gave Woodward the room to express that creativity – while simultaneously keeping a tight rein on how much money he could spend.

  A few months after his appointment, Baron called all the staff in the RFU for a series of review meetings. He had spent his initial time in office examining the structure of the organisation and, with the backing of the management board, set about making sweeping changes. There were thirty-four redundancies – most significantly Roger Uttley and Don Rutherford. Having analysed each position, Baron had concluded that for the RFU and the England team to fully flourish there was no room for part-timers. The organisation had to be for professionals dedicated full-time to instilling a corporate ethos of excellence across every facet of the organisation. There could be no exceptions, no room for anyone whose focus was not entirely fixed on pushing England to the forefront of the world game.

  Rutherford had worked for the RFU since 1969; he was only three years away from retirement and qualification
for a full pension. When Baron gave him the news of his redundancy he instructed him to clear his office with immediate effect. By the time Woodward arrived for his own meeting with Baron – when the latter explained the casualties of the cost-cutting exercise – Rutherford had already left the building. Woodward never contacted him afterwards, instead thanking him in a public statement for all his years of service. Not contacting Rutherford directly was something that Woodward later bitterly regretted.

  Uttley, however, was a slightly different case. As he was a teacher at Harrow and not based at Twickenham, Baron suggested that Woodward break the news to Uttley in person. Baron had typed every redundancy letter himself to ensure that news of the cull did not leak before that fateful morning. He handed Woodward his letter to Uttley and Woodward got straight in his car and drove to Harrow.

  In his autobiography, Woodward glosses over the antagonism that existed between him and Uttley throughout their time working together and takes a magnanimous line in praising his former teammate’s work as England manager. Uttley, however, has always been a lot more candid about their relationship and, while it is always important to bear in mind that the slighted man is likely to lean towards bitterness, his opinions of Woodward are interesting to reflect on.

  ‘He’s a clever, shrewd bloke who’ll try and manipulate all sorts of situations,’ said Uttley in an interview with Alistair Grant in The Sunday Telegraph in 2006. ‘He was extremely hard to work with,’ he said to Alison Kervin for her biography of Woodward, ‘extremely hard to please. I hate to criticise Clive because it seems like sour grapes. It was a very difficult two or three-year period for me – very up and down. He could be a charming man but there were times when he wasn’t charming at all. In fact, there were times when he could be extremely hard work and unpleasant... When Clive had to head home from the Tour of Hell for his father’s funeral, the hotel was a different place without him. There wasn’t this feeling of panic. You weren’t worried all the time that he would burst in with his next demand. The players all looked more relaxed. It reminded me how enjoyable international rugby can be.’