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After Steve Thompson won the 2003 World Cup, he participated in the victory parade through London’s West End, was chosen as one of the three best players in the world and went to Buckingham Palace, where he was awarded an MBE. Thompson also won a Grand Slam, as well as a European Cup with Northampton Saints, and played for the British & Irish Lions. Now, at the age of 42, he has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia and probable chronic traumatic encephalopathy. “It’s rugby that has put me through this,” he says. And that’s why, if I could, I would undo it all. “Some people prefer big lights, while I don’t want that. I never wanted that. I would rather have had a normal life. “
Thompson was working in Kendal not long ago, living away from home while repairing a burst water pipe. While there, they showed some of England’s 2003 World Cup games on television. I’ve never seen them before, except for little snippets when they were doing their post-match analysis during the tournament. But it did now. “And it was like he was watching England play now. Except I was there. But I don’t remember ever being there at all. Honestly, I don’t know the scores for any of the games. “Much of his career is like this, patchy and full of gaps. He used to take pride in his memory and had a head full of complicated calls to the lineout.” If you put them now , there is no chance. No way. “
These days, you forget. Forget directions, what parts of a book you have read, and what TV shows you have watched. Sometimes he even forgets his wife’s name. “Sometimes I could look at Steph. And she says it’s like she’s completely blank. And she would say, ‘I’m Steph.’ The name is gone. Gone. “He also suffers from anxiety and has started having panic attacks. Sometimes he finds that he becomes aggressive for no good reason.” It’s weird. It’s a bit of an out-of-body experience, to be honest, and it happens a lot more now. “
Steve Thompson in action for England at Lansdowne Road in 2003. Photo: Billy Stickland / Inpho
And he wonders what the meaning of all this was, why did he spend all those years playing a game that, according to him, has brought him here. “I ended up with nothing really in the end.” Not even memories. “I can not remember it. I have no memories. I have no feelings about it. You see us lifting the World Cup and I can see myself jumping there. But I can’t remember. “The money is gone too.” No one could say I’m money oriented, because that’s the only thing I’m not. I just wanted a simple life. I wish I could work outside and use my body and my mind. That’s not going to happen now. “
Guilt
What you have is guilt. Steph is younger than him – “and I’m thinking, what have I done to him? She doesn’t deserve this. “She has taken the diagnosis in stride.” She just said, ‘I’ll have to take care of you, won’t I?’ “But he’s worried about how she’ll cope.” I’m not a little guy, already. You know, I’m 6 foot 3 inches, 120 kilos. So if you have to take care of me, that’s quite a bit of meat to go. “
Thompson started playing when he was 15 years old. “Was he the great love of my life? No, no, not really. But it was a job. It turned out that he was good at it in those days. I enjoyed the company of the boys and things like that. But then would I do it again? No, I wouldn’t. “He has four children, the youngest being a one-year-old boy. They still go down to the local rugby club, on the social side.” But I really don’t want my son to play rugby, like he is in this moment. “He watches the players” beat each other like hell “and worries.” You know, when you’re younger, you feel a little macho and you feel like you can’t break down. “
That’s how he was. Thompson was one of the first generation of professional gamers. When he started, he was training two nights a week. Remember the switch to full-time training. “It was like, ‘So what do we do now?’ It felt like the coaches were thinking, ‘We will just hit each other. That’s what we’ll do. ‘ And we did. “It was worse when he was called up to play for England.” It was so brutal during the week that you came home on Thursday for your day off and I just said, ‘I don’t think I can play, I feel completely abused.’ .
Steve Thompson became acquainted with Gordon D’Arcy in 2011. Photo: James Crombie / Inpho
Gambling in those early professional years had a brutal culture, says Thompson. “They had us for that Six Nations period and the Fall Internationals, and they literally scold you until you broke down.” They returned to training two days after winning the World Cup. Many of them played for their clubs the next weekend. It made him feel like “a little meat”. But he was so eager to be dropped that he kept going.
It assumes that many players from that era may end up having similar problems. “I can see the numbers are high, especially for the first players to arrive, from 96 to 97 until the mid-2000s, actually. He could see that attitudes were changing at the end of his career. “The 2011 World Cup camp was completely different from the 2003 World Cup camp. In 2011 it was much more technical, whereas in 2003 you just had to give yourself a beast.”
Regulation
He didn’t worry about it, because he thought he didn’t have to. “I don’t service my own car. Someone else does that, because that’s what they do. I was there to play rugby. And then you have people who take care of you. “But the players, in that culture, with the absence of regulation, were not protected.” You think about how many specialists were out there watching that and not saying anything, “he says.” They knew it. what was going on. And nothing was done about it. People were getting hit in the head and it wasn’t being recorded. I’m knocked out in training and it was always, ‘It’s just a hit to the head, it’ll be fine.’
“In the old days it was kind of funny. If someone got hit on the head, it was, ‘Oh look at him, he had a belt! He’ll be up in a minute. ” One of his doctors asked him how many concussions he had had. Thompson asked what counted as a concussion. “Is it when you are not totally unconscious? And he said, ‘No, that’s not true anymore.’ And I said, ‘Well, I was doing it every training session then, really, when you look at it.
Steve Thompson in Lions service prior to the 2005 Lions tour. Photo: Billy Stickland / Inpho
“The amount of head hits I had in training. I was known for it. ‘Oh, he’s sleeping a bit, he’ll be up in a minute.’ Remember all the grueling sessions at the scrum machines. “There is a lot of pressure. They don’t move, they have pegs, they have people standing and you drive towards it, with all that weight. “It would push to the point where his head starts to move.” And suddenly, when the pressure goes away, you start to see the light, the little white dots and you don’t know where you are for a few seconds. “
He is angry at the clubs, who believe they have not provided proper aftercare, angry at the Rugby Football Union, and angry at the Rugby Players Association, who believe they should fight harder for the players. “I don’t want to kill the game. I want it regulated. “
He thinks that professional players should be allowed to play only if they have a brain scan at the beginning of each season. “Every year you drive your car you get a technical inspection. The body is exactly the same. If it doesn’t work, it shouldn’t be doing its job. It sounds horrible, because the guys are going to have to retire at 22 or 23. But believe me, it is better to finish than to be where I am now ”. – Guardian
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