Archive for November, 2004

World Cup winner Jason Leonard has hung up his boots and dusted off his hard hat. He tells Rupert Bates that it feels like going home

One year on from England’s epic triumph over Australia in the Rugby World Cup final, captain Martin Johnson, now retired from the international game, is holding court at a lavish testimonial dinner in Bermuda.

Match winner Jonny Wilkinson, nursing a sore arm, looks dapper for his tweedy clothing sponsor. And Jason Leonard? The world’s most capped player is squeezed into a Portaloo on a building site in Plumstead, south-east London.

Today, England play Australia at Twickenham, 12 months on from that unforgettable night in Sydney. Leonard, who has propped for England 114 times and been part of the Twickenham furniture for 14 years, would have woken up this morning missing international rugby like hell.

But, having hung up his England and Harlequins boots and with a World Cup winner’s medal in his locker alongside an MBE and an OBE, Leonard has pulled on his old builder’s boots.

Leonard had to go in and out of the Portaloo almost as many times as he has packed down for England and the Lions. It was nothing to do with too much canteen curry, but as part of a film highlighting skills shortages in the house-building industry. According to a report from the Construction Industry Training Board, more than 400,000 new construction recruits are needed over the next five years, with carpenters, joiners and bricklayers in most demand.

The film was shown at The Telegraph What House? Magazine Awards last week, with Leonard presenting the awards to UK house-builders across 18 categories.

Leonard, who started helping his carpenter father, Frank, when he was just 12, is back in the construction game. Despite being given a less-than-perfect saw - you tell him a bad workman always blames his tools - the chippie cut the wood perfectly during filming. The artisan on the rugby field remains a skilled craftsman off it.

“I was quite clever on the building sites, making sure I was on the roofs in the summer and doing doors and inside work during the winter. I also did a lot of demolition,” he says. “I worked everywhere around London and the M25 and also overseas, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet style, on one-off villas in France and Spain. Chippies, brickies, sparkies, plumbers - I have worked across the trades with numerous construction companies.”

The Barking boy never lost his love of building and is now back in the business, helping to provide construction services and remedial work, supplying teams of tradesmen to hundreds of projects across the country.

This is no promotional gimmick. Leonard, although retaining a healthy appetite and ever willing with an autograph - unless you intend to flog it on ebay - and an anecdote, has just about had his fill of the rubber chicken dinner circuit. He is back getting his hands dirty, with operational duties on site, meeting clients and liaising with tradesmen, in a new senior management role with a construction company, covering all aspects of the business.

“Construction is a great industry to be in. People always need homes and thousands more are needed. You learn a great set of skills, earn a healthy wage and get a tremendous amount of job satisfaction.”

With talk of anything between an additional 70,000 and 120,000 new homes needed a year to meet demand, Leonard is delighted to champion his first love, encouraging building apprenticeships and luring teenagers away from the computer comforts of more sedentary pursuits.

“I am generally impressed with the work of housebuilders, who have helped transform derelict areas, driving urban regeneration. It is important to provide homes for key-workers as well as trendy City pads.” There is still a long way to go, with a recent report by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment saying the vast majority of homes being built in Britain are “bland” and “mediocre”.

Before rugby turned professional, Leonard was in the gym at 7am and on site at 8.30am, often working through his lunch hour to make up time. Then it was training with his club in the evening, before collapsing into bed around midnight. When he broke into the England side - he won his first cap in 1990 - he had to take the flak in the canteen on Monday mornings if England had lost.

“Sometimes I would play an international at Twickenham on Saturday, have a big night out and then get a call on Sunday morning to get to a building site because a pipe had blown.”

Being an England player in the amateur days bought him no favours, either. When Twickenham’s West Stand was demolished, Leonard coveted one of the huge, cast-iron baths in the changing rooms. “I turned up at Twickenham in the van and asked a couple of lads working on the demolition if they could help me load a bath from the lock-up. They knew who I was and were happy to oblige.”

With the bath safely in the van, Don Rutherford, then England’s Director of Rugby, arrived to catch Leonard red-handed. “Nice try, Jase,” he said. (Words not often heard in connection with Leonard - he scored only one try in his international career, when he captained England against Argentina in 1996.)

“People are a little bit surprised to see me back in construction. But emotionally I never left it, always catching up with old mates and asking about the business. I am enjoying every minute of being involved again.”

In a final visit to the Portaloo, it was off with the hard hat, “hi-vis” jacket and tool belt, and a quick spruce-up for The Telegraph What House? Magazine Awards at the Grosvenor House Hotel.

On stage, alongside former Conservative leader William Hague and television presenter Kirstie Allsopp, Leonard shook the hands of Britain’s best house-builders.

There will be little remedial work for Leonard if their award-winning homes prove as durable as the former England prop.

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