Too High A Price For ‘Fame' But It's Not The Game's Fault

A front row view of the game.

- Jeff Probyn

Writing this article every week often makes me think and reflect over my time playing, coaching, administrating and also watching the game. Sometimes it’s fun to look back to the good times as a player, remembering what was for me a 32-year-career in the adult game. Although occasionally when looking back, a darker side of the game I loved and lived comes to life.

When I started playing in the adult game as a 16-year-old prop, nobody cared about how heavy or tall I was, all that mattered was that I could do the job that my position (loose-head) required.

Unlike now, there were no age restrictions on when you could join a senior team or the number of games in a day, so I would play for my school in the morning and club in the afternoon.

Fortunately, I had a number of vastly experienced players helping me to make the transition from schools rugby to Old Albanians first team, before moving through various clubs, counties and divisions to finally getting the call to play for England.

For young players now, size is everything and the use of legal supplements like creatine is common but there is an unseen price to pay for fame and fortune as a number of untimely deaths have shown over the past few weeks.

For me, just as now, playing international rugby made you a star; although then, only within the rugby community as the game had yet to have the spike in profile the World Cup would bring.