What jobs the 1995 England World Cup team worked full-time
21 February 2018
Association football was made professional back in 1885 and it was 110 years later that Rugby Union became professional, following on from the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa. The England squad at the time were forced to work in other professions full time, which ranged from the armed forces to carpentry.
England are the current favourites in sports betting to win the 2018 Six Nations, although they face tough competition from Ireland. With the two playing each other in the final round of matches on 17th March, any slip ups from either side in the meantime could be costly.
Jason Leonard played for Harlequins and Saracens between 1989 and 2004, however the England international did not always play rugby for a living. Despite his fifteen year career spanning across both amateur and professional eras of rugby, it was during the amateur era that he was working as a carpenter. Since retiring, Leonard has worked in the construction industry and is the current president of the Rugby Football Union, having been in that post since 2015.
A few of the players involved in the 1995 World Cup with England had previously been working in the police force, with Martin Bayfield and Dean Richards being the most notable two. Richards worked as a police constable between the 1980s and 1990s for the Leicestershire Constabulary, while Bayfield worked for both the Metropolitan Police and the Bedfordshire police, the former he worked for from the mid to late 80s. While Richards remained in rugby after retiring, Richards, who was forced to retire in 1998 following a neck injury, moved into films and appeared in all of the Harry Potter films, playing the stunt double for Rubeus Hagrid, played by Robbie Coltrane.
Three members of that World Cup squad worked in the armed forces prior to playing professional rugby. Rory Underwood was one such player and was part of the Royal Air Force, serving as Flying Office and actually remained in the armed forces until 1999, even after the sport turned professional. Tim Rodber and Will Carling both served in the army before making professional rugby their full time career. Carling joined the army and rose to the position of Second Lieutenant, before then having to decide on a military career or sports career, he of course chose the latter. Rodber on the other hand spent his time in the army working as a physical education instructor for the Green Howards Regiment.
In a similar role to Rodber, however not in the army, England’s Jon Callard worked as a physical education and sports teacher at Downside School in Somerset. He worked at the school from the early to mid-90s while he also played rugby for Bath Rugby from 1989 to 1999 and also for the England national team, from 1993 to 1995.
Jeremy Guscott was the busiest of the 1995 World Cup squad, having many different jobs prior to the sport’s change to becoming a professional sport. He started out as a bricklayer before moving on to drive buses for Badgerline in Bath. He would then work in a public-relations job for British Gas until rugby union finally turned professional. In retirement he has become a pundit for BBC sport and was inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame in 2016.