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Stuart Abbott played at the 2003 World Cup for England, but not in the final - Getty Images/Nick Laham
When Stuart Abbott recalls his memories of the immediate aftermath of England’s 2003 World Cup victory, it sounds something like a fever dream.
There was meeting the Pope at the Vatican, popping into 10 Downing Street, a parade in front of an estimated one million supporters and sharing a bottle of Jack Daniel’s with Wasps hooker Trevor Leota on the bus back from Kingston Park. “When Trevor says drink, you drink,” Abbott recalls with a hearty chuckle on the phone from Cape Town. This was part of what Abbott terms the “amazing high” which preceded a descent into a “deep hole”.
By his own admission, Abbott is likely to be the Pointless answer among England’s 2003 World Cup winners. He was among eight players (alongside Mark Regan, Julian White, Simon Shaw, Joe Worsley, Andy Gomarsall, Paul Grayson and Dan Luger) who did not make the match-day 22 for the final against Australia. Abbott was always realistic about his prospects of playing a starring role in Australia.
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Abbott (circled) celebrates winning the 2003 World Cup with England, having played two pool games and the quarter-final - Adam Butler/AP Photo
Will Greenwood and Mike Tindall were Sir Clive Woodward’s established centre pairing and Mike Catt offered greater versatility and experience. While Abbott played in two pool games and the quarter-final victory against Wales, he knew he was likely to find himself the odd man out, but Woodward’s management style meant he still had Abbott’s full buy-in. “Clive was amazing at challenging us to play our part after that,” Abbott said. “Of course we were disappointed not to be playing, but he told us we had a bigger job than the guys who were actually playing by preparing them and playing the part of the Wallabies. He was brilliant at knowing how to get the most out of all of us.”
Coming out of the tournament, Abbott was aged 25 and a potential heir to Greenwood’s No 12 shirt, whom England are still struggling to locate more than 20 years later. Abbott was born and raised in South Africa to an English mother and combined a playmaking ability with a toughness that came from an upbringing in which he attended a school where caning was still commonplace. A starting place at the 2007 World Cup seemed like a logical progression point.
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Stuart Abbott, who combined toughness with creativity, leads an attack for England in 2003 - Getty Images/Shaun Botterill
Yet rugby does not always follow logical patterns. Player welfare was barely a concept yet alone a concrete set of practices and so Abbott was off to Newcastle the moment he got back to Wasps. “Gats [Warren Gatland] says to myself, Worsley and Simon Shaw, you are playing against Newcastle away,” Abbott said. “The main thing I remember was sharing a bottle of Jack Daniel’s with Trevor Leota on the way home.”
Just a month after getting back, Abbott was representing England again in a fixture against New Zealand Barbarians in which he injured his ankle. He returned for the ill-fated 2004 tour of New Zealand, only to suffer a shoulder injury. After a lengthy lay-off, he suffered a horrific broken leg, the result of a trip by French flanker Serge Betsen in a Heineken Cup game in January 2005. That ruled him out of the rest of the season. Hoping for a change in fortunes he moved to Harlequins in 2006 but played through a knee injury all season and by the time he did his shoulder again, Abbott had reached the end of the road. On October 24, 2007, just four days after England had lost in the World Cup final to South Africa, Abbott retired, aged just 29.
“At that point, I could not play anymore but it was actually quite a relief because I was playing with so much pain,” Abbott said. “That last season, I was playing at 50-60 per cent. You strap it up and do what you think is right for the team, but actually I should have just got it [the knee] sorted at the time. That was a tough year. When it came to an end, I wasn’t unhappy because I had not been playing well for so long. I was not able to compete like I wanted to.”
Abbott had no idea what he was going to do next. He dabbled with coaching at Rosslyn Park, being an agent and digital marketing. “I think everyone thinks they are going to start their plan B when they are playing, but the reality is only about five per cent actually do,” Abbott said. “I definitely didn’t. I was lucky enough to meet a mate who I started a business with.
“I know a lot of guys are involved in rugby, but some of us have to find other things. I think it has been tough for a lot of guys. It has been tough for me at times. Starting a business from scratch is not easy. You don’t have that work experience to fall back on. It is make or break. The buck stops with you.”
Abbott eventually returned to Cape Town in 2010 and now runs a successful business as a fuel wholesaler. Yet the accomplishment that Abbott seems proudest of is his involvement in Vusa rugby, a charity dedicated to providing educational and sporting opportunities to children from the Langa township in Cape Town. “Ultimately it is about giving children the chance to play and experience things we take for granted,” Abbott said. “I think we have had 300 kids and we have raised one million rand (£40,000) which is just fantastic.”
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Abbott, who is pictured here visiting his old school coach Paul Murray in Cape Town, now works as a fuel wholesaler in the city
Abbott has been involved in several of the recent reunions for the 2003 World Cup winners. Via the power of WhatsApp groups there is a lot more communication and a collective willingness to be vulnerable about personal struggles, which Abbott says simply did not exist 20 years ago.
“There is no greater feat than playing for your country and winning the World Cup,” Abbott said. “No one has regrets about that, but it is post-World Cup and dealing with the changes. We just weren’t ready for that. There was so much hype and feel-good, but then you feel quite isolated at the same time.
“It was not really something we talked about. In our day you would not even put ‘mental’ and ‘health’ together in the same sentence. We weren’t being bad blokes, but it just wasn’t something you talked about. It wasn’t a thing. It is quite sad looking back that there were guys who were clearly struggling. We knew the risks, but you look at someone like Steve Thompson now and it is heartbreaking what you are going through.
“Go through the whole squad, you see a lot of the same stories happening over and over again. That is part of being a professional player: on the outside it looks really glamorous, but the reality is that it is a lot of hard work and sacrifice that can take you to an amazing high, but can leave you in a deep hole.”
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