Racing defeat left me crying at kitchen table

THE FORMER LEEDS, NEWCASTLE, LEICESTER, LA ROCHELLE AND NORTHAMPTON LOCK

- DOM BARROW

WATCHING the Euros I couldn’t help but think back to my early days in football. I was once a team-mate of Harry Maguire’s in Barnsley’s academy, having previously been at Manchester United until a broken leg effectively ended my days there. I played in goal and Harry was in front of me. You could tell then he would go on and make it.

Around 11/12 years old, football was getting intensive; you’d travelling the length and breadth of the country but only playing one half of football. I wasn’t enjoying it anymore and wanted to leave but the club wouldn’t release me from my contract. I wasn’t allowed to play football for any other team, not even Sunday League, so I quit football altogether and took up rugby, at Stocksbridge RUFC.

Stocksbridge is in north Sheffield. You’ve got a big steelworks at the bottom of the valley and the pitches are two miles up the road from the clubhouse, which is like a working men’s club, on top of a big hill. It’s cold and the wind batters the pitches; it toughens you up. From there, I moved to Barnsley and some of the coaches were involved with the Yorkshire pathway and that helped develop my game to the point where Leeds Carnegie invited me to their academy.

My Leeds debut was a baptism of fire, down at Scarlets, in the LV= Cup. I was still at school and a young George North got a hat-trick against us. We got absolutely battered. At the end of that season, Leeds went down and Diccon Edwards, the new coach, promoted a lot of players from the academy into the first team and we struggled early on. All of a sudden, this team that had just been relegated from the Premiership was one win from four and had just had 50 points put on them by Pirates. A few alarm bells were ringing! We managed to get into the play-offs but that’s as far as we got.