Matt Dawson - Matt Dawson - Nine Lives

MATT DAWSON

nine lives

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

with ALEX SPINK

To my late Grandad Sam. I know you’ve been watching Grandad, and I hope I’ve made you as proud as the rest of the Dawson–Thompson clan. We never did find that eight iron!!!

Cover

Title Page MATT DAWSON nine lives THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY with ALEX SPINK

Prologue

1 Growing Up

2 Losing Ground

3 Return of the Artful Dodger

4 Heaven and Hell

(i) Lion Cub to King of the Pride

(ii) The Making of a Captain

5 Misunderstood

(i) Hate Mail, Hated Male

(ii) Striking Progress, Strike in Progress

6 Foot in Mouth

7 Going Off the Rails

8 Headstrong to Humble

(i) Bashed by the Boks

(ii) Grand Slam at Last

9 Shooting for the Pot

(i) History Lesson Down under

(ii) The Greatest Day of All

10 Celebration Time

11 A Step into the Unknown

Plate Section

Career Statistics

Index

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

Kick it to the shit-house …

That was the last thing I remember saying before the whistle blew, before I dropped to my knees, before my life changed forever.

There was no time left on the clock inside the Olympic Stadium, my very own theatre of dreams. Extra time had come and was now gone. We just had to get the ball out of play. It came to me and I flung it to Mike Catt: the ball and that less than eloquent line.

Paul Grayson, my best pal, got to me first. We shouted and screamed at each other as the raw emotion of the moment took over. I looked up into the stand to where I knew Mum, Dad and my girlfriend Joanne were sharing our joy. For a moment I was overwhelmed. It had been a long journey to the summit and the realisation that I had finally arrived stole my breath away. Almost exactly a year ago to the day I had been told my career was over due to a neck injury. Yet here I was on top of the world.

If there really is a place called Heaven on earth then I was there. I floated over to the end of the stadium occupied by the thousands upon thousands of England fans. They were singing my song, Wonderwall by Oasis. Well, of course they were. I was in dreamland. I stood in front of the bank of white shirts conducting the singing and mouthing the words along with them. ‘Sing my tune, baby,’ I yelled, as though I was on stage at Knebworth. I could see nobody I knew but I was picking people out – watching them cry, watching them hug each other – and revelling in their joy.

‘Suck it all in,’ I told myself. ‘Remember what you are seeing, remember what you are hearing. Lock away these images forever.’ It was awesome, simply awesome. It also seemed too good to be true. Because for as long as I could recall, my rugby life hadn’t been like this. For me, and those who care for me, there had been a lot of rough to go with the smooth.

I have won two World Cups and a host of titles with England but am still remembered for being captain of the side which ‘snubbed the Princess Royal’ when we didn’t go up to collect the Six Nations Cup after we had lost at Murrayfield in 2000.

I have not only won a series with the British Lions but scored the try which some say was the defining moment of our triumph over South Africa in 1997. Yet it sometimes seems I am as well known for the Lions diary I wrote in the Daily Telegraph four years later in Australia.

I have spent 13 years with Northampton, helping them to four cup finals, yet was never offered the captaincy and was instead rewarded for my loyalty by being hauled in front of an internal disciplinary committee after a nothing incident in the 2002 Powergen Final, and then effectively forced out of the club in the summer of 2004.

Through it all I have never given anything but my best, and yet it feels my motives and I have often been misunderstood. I have been called arrogant and worse. I have been upset by it, I have come close to chucking it all in. But I have also learned from it and, I think, become a better person for it.

‘Gradually,’ my mother said recently, ‘people are realising that Matthew is not the arrogant sod he appears on the pitch.’ Thanks for that, Mum. Seriously though, it has taken a lot of effort. And I admit that I have not always helped myself because I have not always let people in.

About 18 months before the World Cup I decided to do something about it. Fined by the Lions, dropped by England, in the doghouse at Northampton and out of love in my personal life, I was pretty close to rock bottom. I was completely miserable. Inspired by Wayne Smith, the new head coach at Saints, I arrived at the conclusion that if people didn’t understand me I would work harder to help them get to know me. Smithy told me that while it probably was no more my fault than that of other people, I needed to be the one who went out and made more of an effort.

A team-mate had described me as a lost soul who seemed happier away from people. Goodness knows what others were thinking. I had been neglecting my family, to the point where I could not be bothered to pick up the phone and speak to Mum and Dad and see how they were, or to tell them when I was injured. My attitude was that they would find out soon enough on teletext.

I like people to be comfortable, but I hadn’t made the effort to make those around me feel that way. Fortunately I realised before it was too late. Fortunately those around me stuck by me: my family, my friends – particularly Paul Grayson and Nick Beal – and my girlfriend Joanne. Which is why as I stood in the middle of the pitch inside the Olympic Stadium, my thoughts were not for me and for what I had achieved. The medal around my neck was for all those who had contributed to getting me there.

My story is a tale of ups and downs, of triumph and despair, of happiness and sadness, of being revered and reviled. Looking back it feels like I have lived nine lives, rather than just the one. But I wouldn’t swap it for the world; nor the people around me.

They didn’t hear the first knock. The radio was on and Dad was up a ladder. Mum was up to her arms in wallpaper paste, her stare locked on the pattern taking shape before her eyes in the upstairs bedroom.

It came again. More urgent this time. Ra-ta-tat-tat. Dad looked at Mum for a clue as to who it could be. We had only been in the house a week. We didn’t know anyone. Mum crept to the window and peered down. All of a sudden she froze.

‘Oh my God, Ron. It’s Matthew.’

Dad shot down the stairs to the hall where packing cases stood piled on top of one another, still half full after the move south from Birkenhead to Blackfield in Hampshire, where Dad’s new job had brought us. He opened the front door, and there, standing on the doorstep in front of him, was a lad wearing a motorcycle helmet. But this was no pizza delivery; in his arms was a distraught five-year-old. Me.

Our new home was at the end of a little lane on the edge of the New Forest. The day was warm and bright, and my sister Emma and I had been playing on our pushbikes up and down the leafy lane. You could not imagine a safer place to be. At least until the scooter hit me.

The shaken rider handed me over to Dad. I had a broken collarbone and a gashed head. He was all apologies, insisting I had come out of nowhere and he’d had no time to react.