Ben Cohen knows it is almost time but he can’t get excited. Friday marks 21 years since he lifted the Rugby World Cup. The thought leaves him a little cold.
“Part of me wishes I’d never played rugby,” he says. “Why on earth did I go down that road? Why didn’t I go and get a s𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁set? Tell me how those great times earn me a living now.”
22 November 2003 is THE most celebrated date in English rugby history. Only not all of those responsible for beating Australia that glorious night look back so fondly.
When they re-assembled last year for the 20th anniversary it was clear a number of Martin Johnson’s 31-man squad were struggling. Some mentally, some physically, others emotionally and financially.
Question for teammates
A few days later a message pinged onto the WhatsApp group that had been set up to co-ordinate the reunion. It was from Cohen. He had a question he wanted to ask.
“Essentially, I did a video, put myself out there,” he explains. “I said, ‘Hey, do you know what guys, I’ve had my struggles, I quite often have struggles. Anybody else having them?’
“The response was overwhelming.”
This was the moment the idea was 𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐧. To get the band back together, tap into the collective strength that once conquered the rugby world and use it to support each other.
To share contacts and develop a network of support and benevolence for those members of the squad in need, whilst also creating a charity to help other athletes struggling with life after professional sport.
Until that night Cohen, England’s third-highest try scorer of all time with 31 in 57 appearances, assumed the daily challenges he faced were unique to him.
“I just wasn’t aware others were struggling,” he says. “I was like ‘My god, you’ve got what I’ve got’. How did I recognise it? People were wearing it on their faces.”
Cohen’s antenna is sharper than most. He describes himself as “profoundly” deaf, with only 40 per cent hearing. He lip-reads and uses facial expressions to help piece words together and communicate.
“Eye movements, twitches, facial expressions, I get it all,” he adds. “Talking to the lads I found it a relief, I’m not going to lie to you, to see my behaviours in others. To know I was not the only one.”
It was only then the penny dropped and he thought of his late uncle.
George Cohen was also a World Cup winner, one of the Boys of ’66 that gave English football its finest hour. He played every minute of that campaign at right-back and was vice-captain in the final.
Rather than set him up for life afterwards, he had to go outside football and find himself a job. He ended up selling his World Cup medal out of financial necessity. He didn’t get so much as an MBE until 2000.
Nephew Ben did not join the dots until faced with a similar set of circumstances; until it dawned on him “I had not grown any part of my life in rugby” and “outside of the sport I was not fit for purpose”.
It was only then he learned the reality that faced George and his legendary pals; Gordon Banks having to sell raffle tickets to the public at a local supermarket because he needed the money. Ray Wilson becoming an undertaker, Martin Peters and Sir Geoff Hurst working in insurance.
Hurst, the only member of the 1966 team still alive, tells the story of a chat he had with his three daughters, a good few years ago now, about “things of ours they would like to have” after he passes.
“My eldest daughter said, ‘that settee in the living room, I’d really love that’,” he told the Telegraph. “No mention of the World Cup medal! It shows you how non-celebrity we are.”
Many of England’s World Cup-winning rugby team, it transpires, can empathise with that.
“In a team about to go into battle on the pitch you’re one of a group, you feel empowered, you feel supported, you feel fully armed for that moment,” says Cohen.
“You then go from the noise, the stadium, the acclaim, the bright lights to looking out on a remote lake. Peace, tranquility, on your own… you might think that’s bliss, but the reality is different. The loneliness is terrifying. It’s a black void you keep going back to.
“You don’t show weakness on your journey as a player. ‘Me? No, life is great, mate’. But reality is nothing like the outside perception.
“All of a sudden you’re faced with ‘who am I outside of rugby?’ You can’t just keep reliving the same old stories about your playing days to stay in that bubble, because that will f**k you up.
“So how do you progress, make that step forward?”
‘Championing Champions’
The answer, in this case, is in the creation of Championing Champions, a social/commercial brand intended to help with players with the transition into civvy street.
It is the brain𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥 of Cohen, along with founder group Matt Dawson, Mike Tindall, Phil Vickery and Ben Kay.
“Twenty one years on we’re different men. We’ve grown up, we’ve got issues, we’ve got whatever going on. But what I love about our squad is it’s got a lovely underbelly. They’re really nice people I want to get to know again.”
Cohen’s life changed forever in 2000 when his father was fatally injured protecting an attack victim at the nightclub he managed in Northampton. He died a month later.
“Basically my family got ripped apart when I was 21,” he says. “This England rugby team became my family. And now I want to help that family.
“I don’t want anything in return. I want to help mates, I want to make a difference to them.”
A TNT documentary ‘Unbreakable’: England 2003′, charts the highs and ‘untold lows’ of England’s greatest rugby generation and will be screened on 29 November.
