Talk of the Toony: The Autobiography of Gregor Townsend. Gregor Townsend
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day’s events flashed by. My mum said it was comical – it looked like everyone else was a foot taller than me. I only received two passes throughout the day, but she said I got a huge cheer both times I touched the ball. We went on to win the tournament and I remember spending the evening taking the trophy round the houses in our ward. And so, in the same weekend that Mount St Helens erupted in North America, my love affair with the game began.
I was brought up in the town of Galashiels (or ‘Gala’ as it is better known locally), which is situated right at the very heart of the Scottish Borders. It is a busy town on the A7 road from Edinburgh to Carlisle and lies in the bottom of the steep-sided valley of the Gala Water, a mile upstream from its confluence with the River Tweed. Other Borderers from rival towns sometimes disparagingly call Gala people ‘pail mercs’. This refers to us being – allegedly – the last town in the Borders to get indoor plumbing, thus leaving ‘pail mercs’ (local dialect for ‘bucket marks’) on the backsides of those using the outside toilets. I have myself been abused as a ‘pail merc’ – (amongst other things) at Mansfield Park in Hawick.
Gala folk much prefer to be known as ‘Braw Lads or Lasses’. The Braw Lads Gathering in late June is one of several summer festivals in the Borders and is the focal point of the local calendar, with hundreds of horse riders marking boundaries around the town. The day also commemorates the town’s history, notably an incident in 1337 when a party of English soldiers, resting nearby after picking and eating wild plums that had made them ill, were surprised and defeated by a band of locals. I’m amazed Mel Gibson hasn’t made the story into a film yet!
Borders history has long been closely tied to the fluctuating fortunes of the textile trade, which used to be far larger than it is today. There has been a steady decline since the Second World War and the many woollen mills that once proliferated in towns like Gala and Hawick have now all but disappeared. The local communities thrived during the nineteenth century, the height of textile boom. In Gala alone there was a population increase from 1,600 in 1825 to 18,000 by 1891 – nearly 4,000 more people than live in the town today.
Efforts at establishing a more balanced economy by introducing electronics factories in the town in the 1960s have also seen a reversal in fortunes over the last ten years, with most employers relocating to Asia. However, the area’s future now seems to be on more of an upward curve. The Waverley Line – the train link from Edinburgh that was lost in 1969 – will be reinstalled in 2011 and the trend for young people to leave the Borders to seek work and opportunities elsewhere in the UK is much less pronounced nowadays. This might be to do with house prices being much lower than in Edinburgh, but it has created a positive vibe about the Borders once again.
I suppose most people would describe their upbringing as ‘normal’. Looking back, there was nothing out of the ordinary with my childhood. Life was constructed around the pillars of family, school, church, work and sport. My personal beliefs come from my family. I believe that I formulated all my values from them. My parents stressed the importance of being humble, modest and never taking things for granted.
My dad has always been my rugby conscience. He will notice a missed tackle or a poor bit of play that others would not have seen and is quick to remind me that I can always make improvements to my game. Only hearing positive things about yourself might seem more pleasant, but avoiding the truth won’t make you a better player. I remember early on in my career that he hadn’t spoken to me about an upcoming international, which I thought was strange. But on match day, when I got my boots out of my bag, I found little notes just saying ‘concentration’.
From my mum I have inherited other qualities: a desire to please and not to let anyone down. She is an eternal optimist and has been incredibly supportive to my brother and me in everything we have done. Whilst I’ve realized that you can’t please everyone, I would still like to aim to reach her standards of being good natured and helpful with everyone she meets. Craig was a talented centre who played a few seasons for Gala and Exeter, although golf has always been his preferred sport. One of my proudest moments came when I caddied for him in the Scottish Amateur Championship, even though he went out in the quarter-finals. He’s also responsible for our family recently having to make the unusual adjustment of supporting the ‘Auld Enemy’ – after spending some time working for the RFU as an Academy Manager, Craig is now the manager of the England Sevens team.
My dad was a print setter for a local paper – The Southern Reporter – before becoming an estimator for a printing firm in Gala. My mum still works today as a library assistant at the Borders campus of Heriot-Watt University, less than 100 yards from Netherdale, home of Gala rugby club and the Border Reivers. Our house was on the west side of the town near the summit of Gala hill, which I’ve recently found out has a tenuous link to the film Braveheart. In 1296 William Wallace pursued the Earl of Dunbar – who had betrayed him to the English – to the top of the hill, where the Earl had taken refuge.
I am descended from rugby stock – my dad played in the centre for Gala and twice for the South. His father, John, was also a centre, but was forced to move from Gala to Melrose in the Thirties due to the presence at the time of Scotland international Doddie Wood in the side. My mum might not have such a direct rugby lineage, but it is impressive all the same. Her second cousin was the late Jock Turner, a classy midfielder for Gala and Scotland in the Sixties, and one of five players from the club to have played for the Lions.
My folks have a strong work ethic – a common trait in Borders people. I suppose I must have inherited some of this, as my paper round was the toughest in Gala, reaching 102 papers a day at one point. On one occasion I was even waiting to pick up my papers before the shop owner had arrived.
As I sat outside the paper shop I saw my dad approach, looking slightly bedraggled.
‘What do you think you’re doing here?’
‘I was going to ask you the same question – I’m waiting for the shop to open.’
‘Have you seen what time it is?’
In my zombie-like state of semi-consciousness, I hadn’t checked my watch that morning. I looked up at the town clock, which loomed large over us. It was 3 a.m. I was four hours early. Fortunately my dad had been awoken by the noise of the door shutting as I’d set out on my very early shift. I made a mental note to check that I set my alarm properly before I went to bed.
I have two images of my young self. The first, prior to enrolling at Galashiels Academy, is of a manic, sports-mad, stubborn, attention-seeking lad prone to a tantrum or three – basically a parent’s nightmare. The second image is of a shy, solitary and curious boy uneasy with handling praise. Later I became more geared to using humour rather than bravado to get people’s attention. I still like to get the last word but this second description is much more in line with my present character.
My parents were a huge influence in helping me get involved in as many sports as I could squeeze into my days. At twelve years old, newly enrolled at Galashiels Academy, I played rugby on Saturday for the school first year team. Then, every Sunday, Mum and Dad ferried me up and down the A7 to play football for Hutchison Vale, a renowned boys club in Edinburgh. John Collins, another Gala lad, also turned out for Hutchie at the same time as me, but for their Under-18 side. He was a much more talented footballer and went on to captain Scotland – in the same month that I captained the Scotland rugby team – during an illustrious playing career. In the summer I shared my time between playing golf and cricket and competing for Melrose Athletics Club. At other times of the year Craig and I would turn to other sports – these ranged from marking out a chalk tennis court on the road outside our house to creating a jumping course (usually when The Horse of the Year Show was on TV) in the woods nearby.
Sometimes I didn’t need anyone else to keep my sporting obsession going. There would be many a night I’d kick a football against a wall beside our garage, or take my misshapen orange Mitre rugby ball and practise drop-kicks and up-and-unders. I must have been happy in my own company as this usually evolved into a match, passing to myself and side-stepping past some imaginary defenders. I became stand-off for Scotland against a world XV, honing my Bill McLaren-from-the-commentary-box impersonation as I scored yet another try. I did the same at golf, often playing the top nine holes at