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He's ready to captain the Lions, but once Warburton dreamed of playing for Spurs
By Alan Fraser
PUBLISHED: 21:57 GMT, 7 June 2013 | UPDATED: 21:57 GMT, 7 June 2013
The front room of Lions captain Sam Warburton’s family home in a fashionable area of Cardiff is dominated by three adjacent pieces of sporting memorabilia.
Centrally positioned, and framed together on the protruding fireplace exterior — at No 8, if you like — are the jersey worn by Warburton on his Wales debut and a Barbarians top donned by his childhood hero, Martyn Williams, the legendary Wales back row.
These treasured rugby shirts are flanked on the left facing wall by a picture of Sam and his twin brother in their Cardiff Schools gear and on the right by another framed jersey bearing the name King and the number 26.
King? Was there a King who played for Wales? King John, of course, the incomparable Barry John no less. But he always wore 10 and was in his pomp long before names appeared on kit. In any case, he would have displayed ‘John’ on his back. This is a puzzle.
A dog brushes past. Gus, by name. Teddy is lying on the decking at the back of the bungalow. Glenn sadly passed away several years ago. Had there been a fourth rough collie in the family, it might well have been called Jurgen.
‘My wife, Carolyn, took a while to work out that I was naming the dogs after my favourite Tottenham Hotspur players,’ Jeremy Warburton, Sam’s father, tells Sportsmail. Cue the patient shrug of a slightly exasperated Mrs Carolyn Warburton.
‘Gus Poyet, Teddy Sheringham and Glenn Hoddle, of course,’ he adds.
And Jurgen Klinsmann, of course.
The Warburton household is a Spurs household, which explains how a Ledley King club shirt comes to occupy a prominent position in an otherwise rugby shrine. ‘He’s our favourite,’ explains Jez, as he is commonly known.
A magic-marker penned greeting, complete with the classic scrawled footballer signature, testifies to the authenticity of a Christmas present acquired by Sam’s old school friend, Gareth Bale. ‘To Sam, Ben and Jez, best wishes, Ledley King,’ it states.
Jez Warburton, London-born, Birmingham-raised and a fireman in Cardiff for the past 30 years, wanted his twins, Sam and Ben, to become professional footballers. Carolyn, as Welsh as a Rhondda outside-half factory, much preferred her boys to be rugby players.
It was touch and go. Dave Bodilly, a former director of rugby at Rhiwbina RFC, the first club of the talented Warburtons, remembers well the day the twins went for a trial with Cardiff City FC.
‘Jez and I took out the foam tender from the fire station,’ recalls Bodilly. ‘We parked on the road above the University playing fields and watched the trial. I thought they did well.’
Not well enough, apparently. Both 14-year-olds were turned down in what Jez regards as something of a seminal moment. ‘They were both playing football and rugby. It was time to focus on one or the other. That really decided it.
‘They realised how ludicrously hard it is to become a professional footballer.’
Eventually, the twin centre-half combination broke up. Ben, the older, a gifted centre threequarter, graduated to semi-professional level at rugby and might have progressed a lot higher but for recurring shoulder problems. He was forced down a backroom route and is now the highly regarded club physiotherapist at the Dragons.
Sam followed a well-worn path of Cardiff Schools, Wales Under 16s, 18s, 19s and 20s, captaining all but the first of those national teams. He turned pro in April 2009 and pretty much four years later was given the Lions captaincy by Warren Gatland. That is what you call meteoric.
And yet Sam had been the reluctant rugby player who failed to turn up for his first game.
Frank Rees, the headmaster at Llanishen Fach Primary School, had been unearthing rugby and cricket players from among his pupils for years when along came young Sam.
‘Sam was a footballer, a mad Spurs fan,’ recalls Rees. ‘But it was clear that with his speed, his natural flair and physical capacity he would make a terrific rugby player. He had this great high-knee style of straight and aggressive running. He possessed something really special.
‘He had shown his ability in training and it was time for a first match. The boys came to me to collect their jerseys. It was not until they were out on the pitch that I noticed Sam was missing. By then it was too late to do anything about it.
‘I later telephoned his parents. They told me he had been very, very nervous and could not cope.’
That was not the complete story, according to Jez. ‘He was nervous but he was not that interested in rugby. He is now!’
His teachers at Llanishen Fach Primary School — Delyth Joel (Miss Jones as was), Raynor Phinnemore, Cheryl Peterson and James Dean — all remember Sam as an extremely shy, quiet and unassuming ‘lovely boy’ who never said much.
‘Not painfully shy,’ his mother insists. ‘He is laid-back, very relaxed and chilled out. I saw him speak publicly for the first time the other night at a charity dinner in front of 300 people. I had previously seen him speak publicly only on television. I was very impressed, I must say.’
Most people who come into contact with Sam Warburton are impressed. They react similarly towards Gareth Bale, the schoolboy Arsenal fan who joined Tottenham before becoming a world superstar.
Gwyn Morris, the head of physical education at Whitchurch High School in Cardiff, must have been pinching himself on discovering that the 2000 intake included not only the Warburton twins and Bale but Elliot Kear, now of the Bradford Bulls rugby league side, and Geraint Thomas, world champion and Olympic gold medal cyclist.
‘It was a very, very talented year group who pushed each other on to be the best they could be,’ Morris tells Sportsmail. ‘The pupils at Whitchurch nowadays do not have to look very far for role models.
‘And they all participated in a variety of sports. Sam was a very powerful young man, a tremendous athletic specimen.
‘That’s very much what you have to be to play rugby these days. He did a lot of running and he was a bit of a high jumper.
Copyright image removed. Again.
‘Gareth, of course, was attached to Southampton and committed to football. But the club had no problems about him trying other sports. He was a good runner. He even volunteered to play for the Year 11 B rugby team. He turned out at full back and, as you might expect, showed a lot of pace and agility. He might have been a rugby player. You never know. But he was not very big.’
For his own role model, Sam has never looked further than his twin. Despite being three to four inches taller and about three stone heavier, Sam very much looks up to Ben.
‘They are very close, always looking out for each other,’ Jez says. ‘It would not be unusual for Ben to point out something Sam did wrong in a game or another option he might have taken in certain circumstances. Sam would accept the comment without a hint of resentment and usually agree.’
The aforementioned Morris is in no doubt about the importance of Ben in his brother’s development: ‘I do not think Sam would have got where he has without his brother. They were very close, very competitive, very sympathetic to each other with a relationship that spurred each other on.’
There is always a fair chance that when visiting Sam’s parents you will bump into Sam himself. He pops in just about every day when in Cardiff. That allows Rachel, his childhood sweetheart and now fiancee, to visit her mother and father. Sam and Rachel attended the same school and lived four doors apart or ‘about 70 feet away’, as Jez put it.
The term ‘grounded’ is often associated with Sam Warburton. Airs and graces and the ego that tends to accompany sporting achievement are all conspicuous by their absence.
One example from a proud father: ‘Sam was very uncomfortable with being given a room of his own as is the norm for the Welsh captain. So, he would spend much of the night before a match with his good mate Dan Lydiate. The Lions captain also gets a room of his own. But Warren Gatland promised Sam that he could share with Dan.’
You simply will not find anyone to say a bad word about Sam Warburton. Until now. The sledging Aussies will try to come up with something.
By Alan Fraser
PUBLISHED: 21:57 GMT, 7 June 2013 | UPDATED: 21:57 GMT, 7 June 2013
The front room of Lions captain Sam Warburton’s family home in a fashionable area of Cardiff is dominated by three adjacent pieces of sporting memorabilia.
Centrally positioned, and framed together on the protruding fireplace exterior — at No 8, if you like — are the jersey worn by Warburton on his Wales debut and a Barbarians top donned by his childhood hero, Martyn Williams, the legendary Wales back row.
These treasured rugby shirts are flanked on the left facing wall by a picture of Sam and his twin brother in their Cardiff Schools gear and on the right by another framed jersey bearing the name King and the number 26.
King? Was there a King who played for Wales? King John, of course, the incomparable Barry John no less. But he always wore 10 and was in his pomp long before names appeared on kit. In any case, he would have displayed ‘John’ on his back. This is a puzzle.
A dog brushes past. Gus, by name. Teddy is lying on the decking at the back of the bungalow. Glenn sadly passed away several years ago. Had there been a fourth rough collie in the family, it might well have been called Jurgen.
‘My wife, Carolyn, took a while to work out that I was naming the dogs after my favourite Tottenham Hotspur players,’ Jeremy Warburton, Sam’s father, tells Sportsmail. Cue the patient shrug of a slightly exasperated Mrs Carolyn Warburton.
‘Gus Poyet, Teddy Sheringham and Glenn Hoddle, of course,’ he adds.
And Jurgen Klinsmann, of course.
The Warburton household is a Spurs household, which explains how a Ledley King club shirt comes to occupy a prominent position in an otherwise rugby shrine. ‘He’s our favourite,’ explains Jez, as he is commonly known.
A magic-marker penned greeting, complete with the classic scrawled footballer signature, testifies to the authenticity of a Christmas present acquired by Sam’s old school friend, Gareth Bale. ‘To Sam, Ben and Jez, best wishes, Ledley King,’ it states.
Jez Warburton, London-born, Birmingham-raised and a fireman in Cardiff for the past 30 years, wanted his twins, Sam and Ben, to become professional footballers. Carolyn, as Welsh as a Rhondda outside-half factory, much preferred her boys to be rugby players.
It was touch and go. Dave Bodilly, a former director of rugby at Rhiwbina RFC, the first club of the talented Warburtons, remembers well the day the twins went for a trial with Cardiff City FC.
‘Jez and I took out the foam tender from the fire station,’ recalls Bodilly. ‘We parked on the road above the University playing fields and watched the trial. I thought they did well.’
Not well enough, apparently. Both 14-year-olds were turned down in what Jez regards as something of a seminal moment. ‘They were both playing football and rugby. It was time to focus on one or the other. That really decided it.
‘They realised how ludicrously hard it is to become a professional footballer.’
Eventually, the twin centre-half combination broke up. Ben, the older, a gifted centre threequarter, graduated to semi-professional level at rugby and might have progressed a lot higher but for recurring shoulder problems. He was forced down a backroom route and is now the highly regarded club physiotherapist at the Dragons.
Sam followed a well-worn path of Cardiff Schools, Wales Under 16s, 18s, 19s and 20s, captaining all but the first of those national teams. He turned pro in April 2009 and pretty much four years later was given the Lions captaincy by Warren Gatland. That is what you call meteoric.
And yet Sam had been the reluctant rugby player who failed to turn up for his first game.
Frank Rees, the headmaster at Llanishen Fach Primary School, had been unearthing rugby and cricket players from among his pupils for years when along came young Sam.
‘Sam was a footballer, a mad Spurs fan,’ recalls Rees. ‘But it was clear that with his speed, his natural flair and physical capacity he would make a terrific rugby player. He had this great high-knee style of straight and aggressive running. He possessed something really special.
‘He had shown his ability in training and it was time for a first match. The boys came to me to collect their jerseys. It was not until they were out on the pitch that I noticed Sam was missing. By then it was too late to do anything about it.
‘I later telephoned his parents. They told me he had been very, very nervous and could not cope.’
That was not the complete story, according to Jez. ‘He was nervous but he was not that interested in rugby. He is now!’
His teachers at Llanishen Fach Primary School — Delyth Joel (Miss Jones as was), Raynor Phinnemore, Cheryl Peterson and James Dean — all remember Sam as an extremely shy, quiet and unassuming ‘lovely boy’ who never said much.
‘Not painfully shy,’ his mother insists. ‘He is laid-back, very relaxed and chilled out. I saw him speak publicly for the first time the other night at a charity dinner in front of 300 people. I had previously seen him speak publicly only on television. I was very impressed, I must say.’
Most people who come into contact with Sam Warburton are impressed. They react similarly towards Gareth Bale, the schoolboy Arsenal fan who joined Tottenham before becoming a world superstar.
Gwyn Morris, the head of physical education at Whitchurch High School in Cardiff, must have been pinching himself on discovering that the 2000 intake included not only the Warburton twins and Bale but Elliot Kear, now of the Bradford Bulls rugby league side, and Geraint Thomas, world champion and Olympic gold medal cyclist.
‘It was a very, very talented year group who pushed each other on to be the best they could be,’ Morris tells Sportsmail. ‘The pupils at Whitchurch nowadays do not have to look very far for role models.
‘And they all participated in a variety of sports. Sam was a very powerful young man, a tremendous athletic specimen.
‘That’s very much what you have to be to play rugby these days. He did a lot of running and he was a bit of a high jumper.
Copyright image removed. Again.
‘Gareth, of course, was attached to Southampton and committed to football. But the club had no problems about him trying other sports. He was a good runner. He even volunteered to play for the Year 11 B rugby team. He turned out at full back and, as you might expect, showed a lot of pace and agility. He might have been a rugby player. You never know. But he was not very big.’
For his own role model, Sam has never looked further than his twin. Despite being three to four inches taller and about three stone heavier, Sam very much looks up to Ben.
‘They are very close, always looking out for each other,’ Jez says. ‘It would not be unusual for Ben to point out something Sam did wrong in a game or another option he might have taken in certain circumstances. Sam would accept the comment without a hint of resentment and usually agree.’
The aforementioned Morris is in no doubt about the importance of Ben in his brother’s development: ‘I do not think Sam would have got where he has without his brother. They were very close, very competitive, very sympathetic to each other with a relationship that spurred each other on.’
There is always a fair chance that when visiting Sam’s parents you will bump into Sam himself. He pops in just about every day when in Cardiff. That allows Rachel, his childhood sweetheart and now fiancee, to visit her mother and father. Sam and Rachel attended the same school and lived four doors apart or ‘about 70 feet away’, as Jez put it.
The term ‘grounded’ is often associated with Sam Warburton. Airs and graces and the ego that tends to accompany sporting achievement are all conspicuous by their absence.
One example from a proud father: ‘Sam was very uncomfortable with being given a room of his own as is the norm for the Welsh captain. So, he would spend much of the night before a match with his good mate Dan Lydiate. The Lions captain also gets a room of his own. But Warren Gatland promised Sam that he could share with Dan.’
You simply will not find anyone to say a bad word about Sam Warburton. Until now. The sledging Aussies will try to come up with something.
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