‘I was fat and in my 30s, then I discovered rugby and it changed my life’ – iNews

For most people, rugby is all about the professional and international game; huge, exquisitely toned lumps of muscle colliding at pace in front of packed crowds at Twickenham in the Six Nations Tournament.

There is another sort of rugby. Its the sort played at around 1,000 clubs in England by something close to two million people. It is just as much of an international phenomenon. Around the world, in another 120 countries, more than eight million people play. When you get to those sorts of numbers, the participants cant all be elite athletes. Ive met some of them, and elite was definitely not the first word that sprang to mind. Athlete didnt get much of a look in either. The sort of rugby I play is not the sort that fills stadiums, attracts sponsorship or secures lucrative global media deals.

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It doesnt fill the back pages of national newspapers or launch celebrity TV careers. Its not the sort of rugby that gets talked about a great deal. But its the sort of rugby that changed my life. It is also the sort of rugby I wanted to share and see a bit more of, especially when were allowed to play again. I want to encourage more people to try out a sport that has brought me so much joy and seen me safely through some tricky patches in my life something that is only going to be more necessary after the pandemic. I didnt discover rugby until I was in my mid-thirties and it did me a world of good.

I am now a little further away from the mild mid-life crisis that I was having as I took up rugby for the first time. I can see now even more clearly the huge importance that rough-and-ready, grass-roots rugby played in my life and general well-being. I can definitely see now how playing a very physical game has had benefits that have nothing to do with physical strength and fitness. It has given me an emotional resilience that has definitely come in handy.

The only lasting physical side effect of spending my middle age in the middle of a rugby scrum is that my neck is now inappropriately thick for my little body. Finding a shirt that fits is challenging, but everything else is fine, thanks to the time spent on rugby pitches.

Michael Argyle, the late Oxford psychology professor, said that the happiest people in the world were those who were either active members of a religious group or those who took part in team sports. So it was that at the age of 35, as a miserable atheist, I took up playing rugby. I hadnt played any rugby since I was about 13, and that was at school.

I cant think of many other situations where a middle-aged fat bloke can interact socially with hoody-wearing teenagers. Probably the only other time it happens is when youre being mugged.

One of the things that have impressed me about club rugby is that I cant think of many other situations where a middle-aged fat bloke can interact socially with hoody-wearing teenagers. Probably the only other time it happens is when youre being mugged. Talking to teenagers is normally unbearably painful. Add a rugby ball into the equation, however, and suddenly it seems to work. It turns out that they can actually be quite pleasant. The young man who looked after me at my first session on the playing fields of my local rugby club did a great job and Ive never looked back.

In lower league rugby, and I suspect in much of the rest of life, you dont have to be great to get on, you just have to be there. In my first few years as a more mature student of rugby, the secret of my success was an ability to read the club circular, get to the club on time and, if we were playing away, to make sure I knew where we were going. This gave me a distinct advantage over other players who might have been much better at rugby than me but couldnt organise themselves out from under a duvet on a Saturday morning.

Michael Agyle, the late Oxford psychology professor, said that the happiest people in the world were those who were either activ members of a religious group or those who took part in team sports. So it was that at the age of 35, as a miserable atheist, I took up playing rugby

The fact was that I was beginning to depend on my regular Saturday afternoon expeditions on a rugby pitch to keep me sane. Life was getting complicated personally and professionally. I had two delightful children who were turning into slightly disorientating teenagers and I was struggling to cope with the additional pressure that had come with a promotion at work. I discovered that, no matter how stressed I was and how many complications I was mulling over in my mind, there was nothing that cleared the head better than a game of rugby. It is simply impossible to think about a difficult appraisal, a budget reforecast or another pointless PowerPoint presentation when a six-foot, 20-stone prop is running at you with a rugby ball in one hand and a clenched fist in the other.

Actually I can still picture the player who helped me to realise the therapeutic power of rolling around on a rugby pitch in the mud with a load of fat blokes. A local side had one particular prop who has helped to clear my mind at least twice a season. With a shaved head, a thickset muscular form and a slightly evil-looking goatee beard, he looks like Ming the Merciless on steroids. Locking horns with him in the front row for every scrum is unsettling enough, but once he gets the ball in his hand and a little speed on him, you really dont want to get in his way. The fear I felt coming up against him certainly did put petty office politics into perspective.

So, more and more I needed rugby and, fortunately, it needed me. A succession of captains of the lower sides knew that when their preferred teenage front-row star couldnt be found anywhere after a Friday night out in Croydon, I would be at the clubhouse regardless, clutching a printed-out set of AA Route Map directions to whichever rugby club was playing host to us that weekend.

In almost every living room and on almost every sofa in the country there is a fat bloke who could, and perhaps should, make himself available to his local rugby club. Somewhere there is a captain with fourteen names on his team sheet waiting for a call from a random stranger who wants to give rugby a go. Sedentary sofa man may be useless but he will get a game and no one will mind if he drops the ball or throws it the wrong way, as long as he buys a round afterwards and comes back the following week.

When all this is over, and we can enjoy sport not just on our TV screens but also in person, I hope to meet him out on the pitch. As well as at the bar

Mud, Sweat and Beers: How Rugby Changed My Life by Steven Gauge (Summersdale, 9.99) is out now

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'I was fat and in my 30s, then I discovered rugby and it changed my life' - iNews