James Haskell - What a Flanker

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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

FIRST EDITION

James Haskell 2020

Cover layout design by Sim Greenaway HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

Jacket photography Jay Brooks

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

James Haskell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008403683

Ebook Edition October 2020 ISBN: 9780008403713

Version: 2020-08-24

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The best revenge is living well.

When news broke that I was writing a book about my career, I felt a great disturbance in the rugby community, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror. But do not fear, I wont be throwing anyone under the bus in the coming pages. Well, maybe a couple of people. But if this book fails and hundreds of unsold copies are pulped, I will atone by having the resulting porridge reconstituted as a trestle table in a home for battered rugby players.

What follows is not a blow-by-blow account of my life. You wont find out where I was born (Windsor), the name of my first pet (Jet, as in Jet from TVs Gladiators) or the name of my first school (Papplewick). But you will find out which bastard always skimmed the top off the fruit crumble before Wasps games, why props are still so fat (Ive no idea to be honest, unacceptable) and what the hell went wrong at the 2015 World Cup. Thats right, there is some serious stuff as well.

I am well aware that Ive always been marmite (Oh, for Gods sake, why him? Not my words but those of Ireland legend Rory Best on hearing that Id been picked for the Lions). But I hope this book shows that I always gave my all for club and country, and just wanted to have a bit of fun on the side. I do hope you enjoy. And to the man who stuck a bottle of beer up his arse and did a handstand on a boat: thank your lucky stars I didnt name you.

P.S. Yes, I know I spelt foreword wrong at the top of the previous page. Needless to say, I will have the last laugh.

The Boat Trip, Pt I

Theres no getting away from it: shes lost control. Like that old Joy Division song: Confusion in her eyes that says it all. Shes lost control. And shes clinging to the nearest passer-by. When I say she, I mean me. Because Im standing on a boat in a wig and a dress, a woman for the day. A skipper in drag witnessing a full-blown mutiny. And when I say skipper, I dont mean skipper of the boat. Hes the 60-year-old bloke cowering behind the DJ decks, whose jam-jar glasses cant hide the terror in his eyes. I mean skipper of Wasps, one of the proudest rugby union teams in England. So, in truth, Ive got no passers-by to cling to. Im meant to be the boss. The guvnor. The rock. People are supposed to be clinging to me. Fat chance. Weve only been drinking for a couple of hours and already Im thinking, Youre Captain Bligh and that bloke over there with his pants around his ankles doing a handstand on a chair with a bottle of lager up his arse is Fletcher Christian. This is going to get ugly.

Thats the problem with academy kids. They always get giddy and feel the need to impress their team-mates. There might have been a time (doubtful) when a young kid wanting to impress his team-mates quoted an inspiring passage from Shakespeare Once more unto the breach, dear friends! but not nowadays. Instead, they do handstands with bottles of lager up their arses. A week in Hell, with the Devils little All Black imps stamping all over my testicles, could not have prepared me for what happens next

The academy kid flips off the chair and back onto his feet. The bottle of lager exits his arse like a bat out of hell. Closely followed by its former contents. Closely followed by a jet of excrement. The bar ladies below deck have a particularly good view of this literal shit show. Theyre screaming and saucer-eyed and clinging to each other as if were 10 miles out at sea and under attack from the dreadful spindly killer fish. The vessels skipper is open-mouthed. I think I can detect a solitary tear running down his cheek. If this were a scene in a movie, hed rip the needle off the record and silence would ensue. Instead, people are running in all directions and retching over the side of the boat.

Time to muster as much gravitas as a 6 ft 3 in, 19-stone man can while wearing a wig and a dress. I chuck several fucks into the arse-lager-shit magician and tell him to clean up his mess, before rushing below deck, apologising profusely to the bar ladies and grabbing a bucket, sponge and some Jif. As the academy kid is on his knees, scrubbing the deck clean of poo that should, by rights, still be up his backside, I think to myself, What a tragic episode. But we must carry on.

An essential release

I know what youre thinking: how can professional sportsmen be so unprofessional? How can an England international allow such shenanigans to go on in his midst? I sometimes think the same. Then again, you try keeping control of a squad of professional rugby players let off the leash after a long, hard season. And, lets face it, young men are known to be quite daft. Groups of young men even dafter. And groups of young sportsmen dafter still.

But perhaps a more compelling explanation for professional sportsmens occasional lapses in professionalism is because they spend so much time being professional. Being a professional rugby player is bloody hard work. It involves a lot of sacrifices. Getting battered and bruised in training and on match days. Repeated blows to the head, snapped and twisted muscles and broken bones. Eating the right things, drinking the right things, keeping strictly to the rota. Going to bed early and hardly ever going out. Its not like working down a mine we love it and we get paid well but it takes its toll, physically and mentally. So the odd team social serves a purpose. Its an essential release and bonding experience, not much different to a miner having a few pints in the pub with his mates on a Friday night.

There are two main ways a team bonds: by suffering on the field together, in training and on match days, and by sharing nights out together. I look at team socials as like a play or a film. Not that anyone else would want to watch it, but they are little pieces of human drama for those that take part. Team socials have their heroes (the team-mate normally Danny Cipriani who walks off with the most beautiful woman anyone has ever laid eyes on), their anti-heroes (the team-mate who sticks a bottle of lager up his arse, does a handstand and shits himself) and their villains (the team-mate who punches someone for no good reason). There are the jokers (the team-mate who can destroy a man with a single quip, while reducing the rest of his pals to eye-watering, stitch-inducing laughter), the fools (the team-mate who gets drunk, falls over and suffers a comedy injury), the foils (the team-mate who kneels behind a man who then gets pushed over, preferably into someones garden), the eternal victims (the team-mate who spends all night chatting up a woman only to get custard-pied again), the stock characters and bit-part players (the team-mate who passes out in the toilets after a couple of tequilas or is found curled up under a table, mumbling about mummy). A great team social has comedy, farce, absurdity, cruelty and tragedy. And preferably some singing.