Phil Vickery Heavy Duty Maxim tackles England captain and Wasps star Phil Vickery - and discovers it's never too late to pick up the oval ball There's someone running at me. He's actually going quite fast and he doesn't look as if he's about to stop. My protective shield looks flimsier than it did when I picked it up a couple of minutes ago and my ribs are clacking together out of pure fear.
OK, let me rephrase that first line. Phil Vickery, England rugby union captain and European Cup winner with London Wasps, is running through me. Did you see that? No, neither did I, because my eyeballs are still six feet in front of me. They catch up eventually, but they're at all sorts of crazy angles and it takes a good few seconds for them to settle back to pointing forwards out of my head. 'Why am I here?' says one eyeball. 'Dunno,' says the other. 'But it beats being over there. It's chuffing cold and there's loads of huge men running into each other.'
So why is the rest of me here? English rugby is booming again, thanks to the fact that, after a few duff years since winning the 2003 World Cup by beating Australia in Australia (yes, it really did happen), England made it all the way to last year's final and came close to retaining the trophy. England beat Australia again on the way, too. Ha!
Four years ago the RFU estimated that 10,000 youngsters had been attracted to the sport in the wake of England's victory, and this time round the figures aren't far behind. Given that not a single home nation made it through to Euro 2008 and that most Premiership footballers fall over if you sneeze on their shadows, we thought we would try a sport for real men.
So that's why we're here, on the training ground at Wasps' west London headquarters, to do battle with a 2003 World Cup winner whose nickname - which also adorns his own rugby clothing range - is Raging Bull. As he approaches, it suddenly doesn't seem like such a good idea. He is covered in the scars of battle and sports a sizeable nose wound, while his ears look like they've been pulled off, thrown in a washing machine and stuck back on before they've had time to dry. 'For anyone who doesn't understand the game,' Phil says, by way of explanation for his battered visage, 'I play in the front row, number three, tight-head prop. I'm at the coalface of the game.' Which basically means? 'Stopping people. Whatever it takes.'
We start with some gentle stuff - passing the ball. At least, it's gentle until Phil gets warmed up and starts putting some pace on it. We're stood about 10 metres apart and I'm sure that in his mind he's taking it easy. For me, it's like trying to catch a rocket. How the hell do you get into a crazy sport like this?
'For me it started at secondary school in Cornwall,' he says. 'We used to play all sports but I picked up rugby quite quickly, and once you get the bug for something it never leaves you. I played for Bude, then Redruth, and was up against grown men at a very early age. It was a pretty steep learning curve, but it was fantastic for me to learn my trade in a difficult environment. I moved to Gloucester when I was 19.'
It's a steep learning curve for me, too - we've moved onto tackling. I pick up the protective shield so Phil can talk me through the technique. Then the fun starts. 'I'll go easy on you,' he says reassuringly, before smacking into me as if he's the tractor mysteriously parked in a rickety shed to one side of the training ground. I bare up quite well, until the photographer insists my flailing limbs aren't quite flailing enough. He instructs me to run at Phil and instructs Phil to hit me harder. Phil obliges.
It's a new challenge for me, as it was for Vickery when he wrenched himself away from Gloucester to join Wasps in 2006. It was worth it, though. 'I spent 11 great years at Gloucester. I met my wife there and although there were hard times as well as good times, I made a lot of friends. But to have won the Heineken Cup last year with Wasps was a huge thing for me,and it will live in my memory for the rest of my life. It was a day I thought I'd never get the opportunity to be part of.'
Then, there was the World Cup. 'Being captain of England was a huge honour, of course. There was a lot of pressure as defending champions, and a lot of emotion, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Although it was very tough - not just physically, but mentally as well.'
England lost, though. 'It's something you have to live with for the rest of your life,' says Vickery.' There are times when you look back and think should we have done this or that, but I've got no regrets. Everyone to a man can hold their hands on their hearts and say they gave their all. We did give our all.'
And the public did recognise that. Gutsy victories over Australia and France raised expectations, but there was still a sense of pride in the team's achievements.' We tapped into people's emotions in a different way [to 2003, when England were ranked No.1 in the world] because nothing was expected of us. People had completely written us off, but I think we as a group and as a team - including the management - thought, "We're going to fight for this and give it everything we've got." It roused emotions that sometimes people are afraid to express, and we made everyone very proud.'
That's sort of how I feel as we leave the pitch and the England captain shakes my hand. 'You did well,' he tells me. No shit. I'm still alive, for starters. And despite what you may think - that you have to be an undergraduate with a posh name and more muscle than sense to get into rugby - Vickery says it's never too late to start.
'Find a good local rugby club, because there are lots of guys who play in senior teams, and remember it's about taking part,' he says. 'The sole reason I started playing was because of the social side of the game. I came to Wasps yesterday and there were literally hundreds of kids, of all shapes and sizes, playing mini tag rugby. But you're never too old to take up the game.'
And as Vickery's Wasps and England teammate Josh Lewsey tells us at the training ground, 'People play rugby up to the age of 80. The sport we play is massively professional, but at club level rugby is very social. You have some beers after the game and it's all part of the craic. You can take it as seriously as you want to.'
The only crack I feel at the moment is coming from my skeleton and I'm taking that very seriously - the only way I'm going to make it to the bar is in a wheelchair. Despite that, it's been an exhilarating day. Rugby is a complex game, certainly - that's why so many supporters tune in to radio commentary, so they can follow the nuances of the game and work out precisely why the referee has stopped play, but there's a purity to it matched only by boxing. It's men going into battle, holding nothing back, prepared to suffer immense pain for the cause, whether it's their country in a crunch World Cup match or a crucial club game.
'Playing sport,' says Vickery, 'isn't always about trying to be the very best - it's about enjoying being part of a team and a club.' I'm sold. The following morning I will ache in places I didn't know I had, but this is real sport.
|
MORE SPORT
Bookmark this post with: