Читать книгу Michael Owen - Michael Owen - Страница 9

I was always going to play rugby for Pontypridd and Wales. And be prime minister. And be the next Daley Thompson or Ian Rush. And be a dad. And go to Australia. And be a sports commentator. Well, they were my dreams anyway. Looking back now, at the ripe old age of thirty, it seems ridiculous that not only did I achieve some of these things, but that they would soon seem like distant memories. Many of the people I grew up playing with, guys who I had won the Grand Slam and with whom I had played at the World Cup, are still playing. I watch them from the stands or on the television, but I’m not angry or frustrated. I achieved most of the things that I dreamt of when I was a kid. How many people can say that?

When I was a child, after Wales would play – even when they were playing poorly, which was quite often – I would go out onto the street in Church Village, where I grew up, to play rugby. Sometimes I would be the only one out there. I would imagine scoring the last-minute winning try for Wales. There were never any parents around. We would just play big games of touch rugby. Most of the kids were older than me, which meant that I had to excel to get near them. We would go on bike rides, climb trees, play football or pick up the tennis racquets when Wimbledon was on. That was the best training ever and I absolutely loved it. I had a very enjoyable childhood during which I played as much sport as I could.

Back inside our home, my brother David and I would play rugby, boxing (using cushions as gloves), cricket and football. When we played rugby, it was always Pontypridd against Cardiff and one of us, usually David, would be Ponty’s Jim Scarlett and stamp all over the other. I had to try incredibly hard just to get close to David at anything. Sometimes we would go down to the local playing field, where we would regularly see Neil Jenkins practising his kicking. He would be out there for hours on end … and then I’d watch him on the telly playing for Wales. He had a sponsored car with his name on. He was a huge hero of mine. Seeing Neil and other local players like Andrew Lamerton, Paul John, Greg Prosser and Chris Bridges all play for Wales definitely made me feel that it was something I could achieve.

I developed quicker physically than some of the other kids and played football, rugby and cricket as a child. I was always quite quick while I was at school and that obviously helped with sport but there was also a strong sporting element in my family. One of my cousins is Scott Young, who played football for Cardiff City and for Wales at Under-21 level. His career highlight came when he scored the winning goal for Cardiff in an FA Cup tie against Leeds. Another cousin, Gareth Hopkins, played cricket for Wales as a schoolboy. When I was older, Scott, Gareth and I all received caps for Wales in the same year.

I played cricket as a nine-year-old for my junior school’s Under-11 cricket team and also loved football. My brother David, who I thought could do no wrong, was a big Liverpool fan, so I got into supporting Liverpool too, something that I do to this day. As a young boy, I was captain of my junior school’s football, cricket and rugby teams and we would often play football simply because it was easier to play, but rugby was always going to be my preferred choice because it played such a big part in our family.

My Dad played for Pontypridd and Pontypool and he always used to tell David and I that he was good enough to play for Wales. He didn’t, although he did play for a Welsh President’s XV against Newport – Dad never made a big deal of it but was really proud of his achievement. My grandfather on my Mum’s side played for Cardiff, Neath and Treorchy. His son, David Hopkins, also played for Swansea University and Pontypridd. Dad, who is from Porth, met my mum, who is from Hopkinstown, through playing rugby with my uncle. Dad thinks that I got my rugby ability from him, but my mother thinks differently. As with most things in life she is probably right!

My mother was a primary school teacher and my father an aircraft engineer for British Airways. Dad had been going on great holidays for a few years when my parents got married in 1975. And when David came along and then me, that didn’t change. We used to go on incredible holidays and I have some fantastic memories from them.

The first holiday I ever went on, when I was only eight months old, was to Miami. Every year we went on a big summer holiday to places like South Africa, the United States, Canada, Mauritius, Dubai and Kenya. We even went on Concorde. Because we were going standby, we had to dress smartly and wear suits as we could be seated anywhere on the plane. On one occasion, I was sitting next to a diplomat and it felt pretty surreal.

We had some wonderful times, but as a child you don’t tend to appreciate those things, of course. When you are young you take things for granted – like having your washing done for you all the time. It’s only when you grow up and have a family of your own that you realise just how lucky you have been. Those holidays were a special part of my upbringing. Once I went jet skiing without my contact lenses. The man pointed to the boundaries. I said that I could see them, but ended up needing the rescue boat to come out to pick me up!

We moved to Church Village in 1987 and I moved schools from Llwyncrwn Infants School to Gwauncelyn Junior School, which was a ten-minute walk from where we lived. We had a sports teacher, Gareth Williams, who I really liked and I’m sure the sporting values he impressed on us then have stayed with me throughout my career. He really believed in fair play and that has never left me.

By the time we moved to Church Village, I had begun playing for Beddau in the mini section. We had lived there previously and my brother had played there too. Joining Beddau was natural. I also played football for Llantwit Fardre and, when I was ten, because I enjoyed it so much, briefly stopped playing rugby for Beddau. When I started playing rugby at Under-8 level the game was full contact, but we would play ten a side and only across the 22. Even then, I pretty much always played at number eight.

David also played for Beddau – plus Glamorgan Wanderers, Llantrisant and Taffs Well – and was a very good player before he suffered a bad ankle break. He had to have it fused and has since had all sorts of trouble with it. It brought a halt to any rugby dreams that he had. David was a massive influence on me; then and now. When I was young, he would come and watch me play. I was always one of the best players and if I wasn’t playing well, David would let me know what I should do differently. He’d always challenge me to play better, making me ask myself questions about what I could do and never to blame outside influences. That attitude stayed with me as I went forward in my career and shaped what I would do on the field. He was my first coach and one of my best.

In 1990, I went to the Arms Park to watch the Schweppes Cup final because Chris Bridges was playing for Neath, who beat Bridgend 16–10. It was an awesome atmosphere … and one I would soon get another taste of. When I was eleven, I played for the Pontypridd District XV and we reached the final of the Under-11 Welsh Cup – the DC Thomas Cup – against Newport. The game was a curtain raiser for the Schweppes Cup at the Arms Park (the National Stadium) and we drew 4–4 – there was no time for extra-time because of the Schweppes Cup – it was awesome. My Dad was so proud at the time and as a parent now, I can understand just how much it would mean to see your child doing something like that.

Even when I was young, I can recall people saying that I would play for Wales but it always seemed more of a dream than a destiny. Every Boxing Day, the Pontypridd and Cardiff Under-11 teams would play each other as a curtain raiser at the Arms Park for the Les Spence trophy. Over the years, players like Scott Gibbs, Neil Jenkins, Adrian Davies, Garin Jenkins and Paul John had played for Pontypridd in that fixture. When I played, I scored a try in a 16–0 win and Neil Jenkins presented the trophy to the Pontypridd team afterwards. I always loved playing at the Arms Park and that game was the start. When I was a kid I couldn’t wait for rugby to start. I used to really look forward to games in any sport. I would watch Match of the Day on a Saturday night and would want to go and play sport there and then. And then, on a Sunday, I’d wake up early and go out on my bike for a couple of hours. It used to take an age for 10am to come and for the rugby to start.

I loved being captain of the teams I played in. It seemed natural and I was, according to my Mum, a very ‘chatty’ boy. I’m sure anyone who has played with me might recognise that description of me on the field. When I ran onto the field, vocalising and imparting my views came naturally to me. At junior school, I was always one of the bigger, more gregarious kids and I was good academically as well as being talented at sports. At secondary school I settled in pretty quickly and really enjoyed my time at Bryn Celynnog. I wish I had made even more of my time in school.

Outside of school I was always on the go. If I wasn’t going on bike rides or playing on the building sites that were popping up where we lived, I was playing sport. That’s all I wanted to do. Rugby Saturday mornings, rugby Sunday mornings, football Sunday afternoons. Like most children that age, I rarely thought about what I would do for a living. I just wanted to play rugby, football and cricket. Looking back, I think my cricket probably peaked when I was eleven or twelve; I made the Mid Glamorgan county team and played for local sides Llantwit Fardre and Hopkinstown. I fancied my chances as an all-rounder and wanted to be Ian Botham, although I was probably more of a Derek Pringle. My parents recall me trying to score a six off every ball, which I managed sometimes, but not always and apparently I was heartbroken if I got out for a duck. At Hopkinstown, I played with my cousin Gareth Hopkins and also Ceri Sweeney. I used to love spending time in Hopkinstown as all the kids would be out playing cricket and there were some exceptional cricketers at the club, such as Jonathan Hughes, who went on to play county cricket for Glamorgan. Hopkinstown was cricket mad; it was like being in the Caribbean.

On the football pitch, when I was playing for Llantwit Fardre and Pontyclun, I played against Robert Earnshaw a few times and even then he had a distinctive goal celebration. I was always confident in my ability at sport, especially rugby, and I desperately wanted to play at the top level like my heroes.

My secondary school, Bryn Celynnog, was one of the best around when it came to its track record of producing top-level players. In particular, it had a real tradition of producing top Welsh rugby players: Neil Jenkins, Paul John, Greg Prosser, Andrew Lamerton and Chris Bridges all went there and I couldn’t wait to get started. My brother had told me that we would have to do a gym test in our first PE lesson, so I trained beforehand to get the best result I could. We were really lucky because the sport department laid on plenty of sport, and the teachers were great at giving their time. In our first PE lesson, my teacher, Mike McCarthy, gave a great talk to us about the sporting heritage of the school and how many internationals they had produced in many sports. It was hugely exciting and being a bit of a sports anorak I knew all the answers about who had been capped from the school so it was a great start for me.

I loved training and playing to try and get better. Martin Sallam, our other PE teacher, had a rule that you could only kick the ball in rugby inside your own 22. It was great for skill development and it made us play the ball. Just as had been the case with Gareth Williams at my junior school, I’m sure that had an impact on my game. We played the local Welsh language school, Llanhari, who had a really good team, and were well beaten, but David Evans, a maths teacher and a huge Pontypridd fan, came up to me afterwards and told me that I had played particularly well because I had never given up. At that age, that was as important to me as Gareth Williams’ advice on fair play or Martin Salaam insisting we only kick in the 22. I always had total belief in my ability but, just like anyone else, I needed some encouragement. The other coaches I had as a kid were at Beddau RFC. Wayne Yoxall and Gareth Morris put in so much work on our behalf organising games and training and giving up their time. The club put on some great tours and fixtures.

Llanhari were the best school in the district and it was always a good derby against them. In our game against them the following year, all the boys were really up for the game, but we found ourselves twenty points down at half-time and I was determined to do all I could to get us back into the game. Ten minutes into the second half, one of their best players got hold of the ball. I lined him up to put in the big tackle that I hoped would galvanise our team and smashed into him, landing my shoulder into his hipbone. I knew I had hurt my shoulder straight away, but I was determined not to go off and played on until the final whistle. We lost heavily. My shoulder was still giving me trouble the next day, so I went to the doctor with my Dad and the X-ray showed that I had suffered a fractured shoulder, which meant I was out of sport for ten weeks…

One disappointing thing at comprehensive school was that there was no district rugby team until Under-14 and even when I got to that age group, we only played a couple of matches a year. I wanted more, but would have to wait until I reached the Under-15s, which was the really big year for rugby. Although I was the school captain, I didn’t captain the district team, but was pack leader. I was quite a prolific try scorer – I scored a hat trick of tries in a Pontypridd Under-14 game against Bristol. There was a combined district team for players who were born in 1980 or later and we were taken to a tournament in Orthez, France. I went two years in a row and we reached the semi-finals of the tournament, in which each match lasted twenty minutes, ten minutes each way. The refereeing was poor and in the semi-final we got three players sin-binned. There was a big crowd watching and the supporters became really aggressive, began to chant ‘noir, noir’ (because we played in black) and started to throw oranges at us. Looking back, the supporters were really rowdy, but it was a great experience and on reflection, really funny.

My one overriding feeling at this time was one of desperation: I was desperate not to miss out on any games. Each match usually had a bigger meaning in terms of selection for higher honours, and the Under-15s the next year represented the beginning of the chance to play for Wales Under-16s. On the second tour, me and my friend Blaidd Jenkins, got jumped by a group of French kids on our way back from the town, it was about ten against two in terms of numbers and they hit us with their belts and fists. We had a bit of a scuffle and then ran in opposite directions, but it all turned out okay in the end. My rugby trips to France have always been quite eventful.

The next year saw the seven school teams from the district enter into trials for Pontypridd Under-15 schools’ side. Going to the trials I remember looking around trying to size up the competition in my position and feeling desperate to show how good I was and that I deserved a place in the team. I performed strongly in the trials and was selected for the schools side. We had an excellent team and showed everyone what we were capable of when we thrashed Cardiff 87–0. It was around this time that I started to get regular mentions in the newspapers. After Pontypridd Under-15s had thrashed Newport 53–7, one local paper praised my ‘non-stop performance and high work-rate.’ I scored two tries in a 24–12 victory over Swansea in the semi-final of the Dewar Shield, which we went on to win, beating Pontypool in the final. After the semi-final, one Swansea supporter told a local newspaper that I was better than Mervyn Davies. I won Player of the Year for Pontypridd Schools and there were some great names on that trophy. It felt natural to be involved in these teams; it felt like the next step towards my overall aim of playing for Wales. I was always really pleased to be selected, but to a large extent I didn’t appreciate it because I was always looking forward to the next goal. My mother, however, was incredibly proud and kept all the cuttings from anything that was reported in the papers and magazines.

When you go to comprehensive school, you don’t always make friends for life, but when I was fifteen, I walked into my French class and met my future wife, Lucy. Our French class had been moved to a new room and we happened to sit next to each other. I had already seen her once before, walking with her friends to a school disco when I was being driven to training. I thought then that I would like to get to know her! When we got chatting I found I really loved being in her company; she has such a vibrant personality and I thought she was beautiful inside and out. We became good friends and two friends of ours, Ross Maisey and Cerys Evans, acted as go-betweens to set us up on a date. That was fifteen years ago and we have been pretty much inseparable ever since.

Out on the pitch, a familiar face started attending rugby sessions. Gethin Jenkins and I had been at infants’ school together and, at the time, he was not your typical rugby player. He was a painfully quiet kid. Because Gethin was so quiet I could do all the talking and he didn’t appear to be doing much playing either out on the pitch. He was a flanker at that point, but just seemed to walk about and never looked like a future Welsh captain. Then, one day, we played against Llantwit Major for Beddau in a big game against the South Glamorgan champions and I realised that Gethin had just been watching all the other games, working out what he needed to do. This time, Gethin did get involved and he was absolutely amazing. That was obviously what a diet of four Mars Bars a day could do for you!

Gethin and I, along with Scot Yoxall from our school, played at Under-15 level for Mid Glamorgan, which was another part of the process towards selecting an Under-16 Wales’ team at the end of the following season. The Mid Glamorgan squad went to the Ogmore residential centre for a course that was notoriously hard. Gethin was there and so was the hooker Matthew Rees, but I had flu. I felt rotten, but made myself go. I did everything, but particularly remember that in one of the last games I let out all the frustration that had built up at my being ill. I was in the centre of everything, tackling non-stop and had a brilliant game. One of the coaches on the course was the Pontypridd winger Geraint Lewis. After that game, Geraint came up to me and asked my name and I was really chuffed. Amazingly, within three or four years I would be playing alongside him for Pontypridd’s senior team. Another coach on that course was Gareth Thomas, who was doing some community work for Bridgend RFC. After matches against the other county XVs in South Wales, the boys were narrowed down to sixty players each from East and West Wales for summer camps.

The Wales Under-16 course, at the National Sports Centre in Sophia Gardens in Cardiff, was another chance to try and impress. When we got there, I was pleased with the running I’d done with my dad as a young boy because this course was all about fitness. He used to take me on five-mile runs around Penycoedcae. I had seen him doing these during his training for the New York Marathon and wanted to emulate him. He completed the marathon in just under four hours. Dad tells everyone that you haven’t really run a marathon unless it is under four hours – I wonder if that is selective. I have a sneaking suspicion that if he had ran it in four hours and nine minutes that Dad would say: ‘You haven’t really run a marathon unless you do it under four hours ten!’

All the shuttle runs and tests at the Sophia Gardens course were a massive shock for everyone. It was really demanding and very intense. I think it was a shock to everyone. At the end of the course the head coach Roger Goode took me to one side and told me I was the best player there. It was another David Evans-type moment. I’ve always felt that when someone believes in you, it makes you play better. Having Roger Goode believe in me was a huge boost.

After that course, the squad was whittled down yet again and we played trial games once a month building up towards two end-of-season Under-16 schoolboy internationals against Portugal and England. Players dropped by the wayside, including Gethin and Matthew Rees, although Dwayne Peel, who I would later play with at senior level, did make the final XV.

During the trials, I had been getting letters from the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) about training weekends and trials. It was really exciting opening the letter and seeing those three feathers, but when I got the letter telling me that I had made the team for the first match in Lisbon, I was at home alone. I was about to go to school and Mum and Dad were at work. No one had a mobile and I had to wait all day until they got home before I could tell them. I’d done it. I was going to play for Wales.

Lisbon: By 1996, Wales had already played Portugal a few times at schools level and we knew that we would be in for a tough game. The Portuguese players were good tacklers and they tried to attack when they had the ball, although our pack was generally too strong for them. Even though I was only sixteen, I weighed over 14 stone. I was also 6ft 4in tall – and not even the heaviest from the Ponty schools team. Owain Ford, who was the loose-head prop, was 15 stone 3 pounds. I was number eight and Dwayne Peel was at scrum half and the score was 23–5 until, at the very end, a Portuguese centre intercepted and ran the length of the pitch to score. I had played really well and it was great that Mum and Dad were there, too. One newspaper described me as ‘majestic.’ It was just brilliant to be a Welsh International, to have the cap and jersey. I loved looking in the paper to see if I was mentioned.

On 5 April 1997, the final schools game against England was at the Brewery Field in Bridgend. As always, this was a big one. There were four players from Beddau: me, Jason Simpson, Nathan Hopkins and Scott Yoxall who was coming back from a broken wrist to get a well-deserved cap. England had a big pack, but we coped really well. We got our own long-distance try this time, Geraint Cooke from Tonyrefail scoring an amazing effort from 70 yards beating about five players. I played the whole game and we won by virtually the same score as Lisbon – 23–11 – and outscored England by four tries to one. It was a brilliant way to finish the season. It felt like the journey towards achieving my ultimate goal of playing for Wales was underway.