Mark Ring

Gareth Davies earned £700 for wearing Patrick boots, Mark Ring hoped for the same, but instead, was handed a ‘Geoff Hunt’ squash racquet. He doesn’t play squash. Something wasn’t right, and he was going to do something about it.

The salary of a clerical assistant in the civil service back in the early 80s, was not one that was likely to bring Mark Ring a taste of the good life, or even a taste of anything that wasn’t heavily watered down. Perhaps the only plus point of his job at Companies House in Cardiff was its proximity to a sports stadium, and the loopholes in their clocking in and out system that allowed him to steal an hour and a half extra training time during work hours.

But, while his day job was the epitome of dreary, his weekend work was pretty spectacular playing for an all-conquering Cardiff team. He made his club debut on tour to the south of France as an eighteen-year-old and Wales didn’t even wait for his 21st birthday to give him his first cap, against England in the Five Nations. 

As a centre, he was always one to try something different, like his hero. “My idol was Barry John,” he explains. “I loved the gay abandon he played with, the way he entertained the crowd as much as anything. Then you’d see him up in London hanging out with George Best and rubbing shoulders with those kind of people.

“I wanted to be like him,” says Mark. “A free spirit and always entertaining.

“I was highly competitive, I always wanted to win,” he continues, “but if a game was won, and there was an opportunity to turn on a little bit of magic ... it was always in the back of my mind to try something. 

“As long it didn’t affect the team of course,” he adds. 

Aware of his value to the Cardiff side, and also not being unaware of those numbers piling in to watch the side play, Mark wanted in on the action. “The money was all hush-hush,” he says. “I can say now, but back in the day, those guys didn’t tell anyone, even their team-mates. And I started to see a lot of things adding up: someone being given a flat, someone getting a car, another player getting this, backhanders here and there. And I wasn’t getting anything.

“I was on very little money with the civil service,” he explains, “I was the lowest down the ladder. 

“I remember when I played for Wales and Alan Phillips was trying to get me to wear Adidas boots, so I thought, ‘well, what were Terry Holmes and Gareth Davies wearing? Patrick, right I’ll wear them’. So I went and got the Patrick boots, Terry and Gareth had been paid £700 each for wearing them by Patrick, but I ended up with a ‘Geoff Hunt’ squash racquet!”

Did you play squash? “No.”

Which led him to finally up sticks and move, with London Welsh his first port of call. Always well-placed on the job front, the south-west London club sat him down with their career advisor to see what work could be found. “I sat down with the guy who asked me a load of questions, he fed it through this computer and they came up with a category called ‘social’, and weirdly – albeit a lot later – that’s what I’ve ended up doing.”

When we meet him in Cardiff, he’s just finished his shift as a care worker. “I’m a support worker really,” he says, “I’m not hands-on, I don’t do the dirty work.

“It’s just my job to provide support, so for instance there’s a guy this morning, he’s eighty and born in bred in Penarth, and I just had to get him out of the house for a couple of hours so his wife can do some shopping. 

“There was a lad I used to see every day who’s got autism,” continues Mark. “He’s 26 and he used to love going to the gym, swimming, he would have good weeks until covid took hold, then his mother had to move him, as he was overly reliant, into a shared house but with 24-hour care.”

Mark’s playing days took him from Cardiff to Pontypool [and back, once or twice], and to two Rugby World Cups with Wales [he won 32 caps]. 

The coaching chapter is still being written. Having started as player-coach at West Hartlepool in the mid-90s, it’s also taken in Cornwall, Cardiff, Caerphilly and Cross Keys, and his local clubs St Peters and St Albans. “Weirdly, coaching is similar,” he says, comparing it to social work, “I’m not a coach that’s all about earning masses of money and climbing your way to the top, I’m more into developing the person as best I can, putting them and the team first, I think there are a lot of coaches who put themselves first. I’ve got to find out what makes a person tick, find out what makes them happy.”

Despite the advice of the 1980s career advisor, when Mark returned to Cardiff from his visit to London Welsh, word had spread. “It hit the press that I was leaving Cardiff, and that it was because I thought they were taking me for granted, seeing all these other boys get the perks.”

The attention also brought Pontypool to the table, and the opportunity to play with David Bishop – and with Mark at his preferred fly-half rather than the midfield spot he was forced to play for Cardiff and Wales – was enough to sell him in. Although, again, he reckons he missed out. “I think there might have been money involved,” he ponders, “I never saw any of it. I was naïve at the time, and I think some skulduggery may have happened and the money that came from a businessman may have ended up in the wrong pocket. 

“That said, a local guy did send me and my girlfriend to Jamaica to stay at Sandals, that was a three-grand trip at the end of season, so that was nice.”

The same year he moved to Pontypool, 1987, he went to the first Rugby World Cup, jointly hosted by New Zealand and Australia. “There was disappointment that South Africa weren’t in there,” he says. “And the World Cup did feel like it was finding its way, it wasn’t that well organised and we were staying in these cheap hotels, it made you wonder where all the money went.”

What made the hotels ‘cheap’? “It was the carpets, and it just felt a bit grubby – they had a pool table where the carpet was ripped, and there was a roll to it. Everything was just, I don’t know, a bit cheap.”

Mark did at least manage to make the most of it. “Glen Webbe was a good mate and he helped me run this pool comp,” he says. “We made everyone pay entry and we ran a book on it, everyone had a punt.

“In the first round, I was against a local farmer, Kevin Phillips, and everyone went for me, so I threw the game, but it was really hard to make it look genuine – I had to keep missing the black. He eventually managed to pot it and we cleaned up.

“A strong favourite was prop Stuart Evans, he ran a pub, but he got knocked out in the semi-final, and freakishly two players nobody backed at all got to the final – Phil ‘Steve’ Davies and Paul ‘Cliff’ Thorburn – so all the money was mine and Glen’s.”  

Mark scored as Wales beat Ireland [13-6] in their opening game in Wellington, and also played against Tonga [29-16] and, after the side had lost to New Zealand 49-6 in the semi-final, he returned for the third-place win over Australia. “All it did was provide evidence that we were all hopelessly far behind the All Blacks. Even in 1987, they were so well drilled, they were light years ahead then, they always have been, and they still are today.” 

It still provided Wales with a kickstart into the next season. “We won the Triple Crown the year after,” he says, “we beat England, Ireland and Scotland, and only lost to France by a point. We were just starting to develop into something but unfortunately a lot of players then went to rugby league.

“I could understand it,” he admits, “they were all keen to make the money, and I agreed terms myself in ’88 with Wigan, but the day they were going to come down to sign me, I changed my mind.”

By 1991, Mark had built his caps up, almost exclusively playing at centre, aside from a single start at full-back against the All Blacks – a 54-9 defeat in Auckland – but when the Rugby World Cup rolled around, he got the chance he thought he’d never get, to play at fly-half for Wales. “Alan Davies came in and said he wanted to build a side around me at fly-half,” he says. “From a fly-half perspective, I was on top of my game, I’d gone from Pontypool back to Cardiff, but I got injured in the warm-up in France, and they sent me for rehab in Brecon. They told me not to do any running, and I’d be back playing in three weeks, so it was all a bit of a rush. 

“They took a chance on me and I was really proud, I was technically okay, but the heart and lungs weren’t good,” he admits. “I hadn’t got off the bed from the operation for three weeks or done any training, and he threw me straight in.”

He was thrown in against Samoa, and they lost 13-16. “That was a tragedy,” he says. “I got a lot of stick because, my performance wasn’t too bad, I missed the goal kicks. I struck them well, but didn’t they didn’t make it. 

“We didn’t do too bad against Argentina [winning 16-7], but against Australia I think we won two lineouts in the whole match, we got absolutely mullered [38-3].”

The side were widely panned by the media, but it got personal for Mark. “Those were the days when people had answer machines, and when I got home I checked the messages and it was obviously what you’d now call a troll. He said, ‘fucking hell Ring, you’re fucking useless, give up’. It wasn’t nice to hear on the end of your phone, and I just thought to myself ‘was I really that bad?’

“It put a negative spin on it for me and I decided that I was going to retire and that [message] was one of the main things that affected me,” he admits. “You do feel wholeheartedly responsible. I had no intention going into that World Cup that it would be my last games for Wales, I just knew I’d had a bit of a knee injury, but I think a bit of depression set in, and that pushed me into making the decision.

“I’d still achieved what I wanted to do and played for Wales at ten,” he says, “even though it was a bit of an anti-climax, a bit like the England debut – when he touched the ball four times.  But, no, I’d made my choice and stuck by it.”

The two injuries to his knees, there was also one in 1985, which, Mark says, ‘cost him a yard of pace’, had meant he needed to manage his playing time anyway. He not only nursed himself through to Cardiff’s one and only Heineken Cup final appearance in 1996, against Toulouse, but even turned out in his forties for local club St Peter’s. “They had to win the last three games to stay up and so I came out of retirement – they paid me a couple of hundred quid per game – and we won two of them, lost one by a score, but the other result went our way, and we stayed up.”

Unfortunately for Mark, his last game for Cardiff, the final, wasn’t quite so successful, and not just down to the 18-21 scoreline. “I was substituted at half-time [for Jonathan Davies] and I just thought, ‘it’s time to finish’,” he says. “I was disappointed but it obviously sent me a message, I was on my last legs.”

A week later, West Hartlepool called. “The timing made it seem like the right thing to do,” he says. “I’d never been paid for playing rugby and all of a sudden I was being offered a salary for coaching a team.”

It was the tail-end of the 95/96 Premiership campaign, then Courage League National One, a season before the first fully professional league would officially begin, so there was no relegation. Although only a few dead rubbers were left to play, the fact West Hartlepool had failed to win any games didn’t bode well. “They were fighting relegation before I even started,” he says, “and some of the best players had left, Andy Blyth had gone to Newcastle, Tim Stimpson went to Leicester Tigers, Rob Wainwright had gone too.

“On a very, very small budget we had to try and pull a side together, but I never thought we’d survive,” he admits, “everyone had been waiting on the Sky Sport deal and so the purse strings were closed tight.”

The plan had been for the playing side to be limited for Mark, instead focusing on the dual role of head coach and director of rugby. “Ideally I’d put myself on the bench and bring myself on if need be,” he says, “but we were always in a relegation struggle, so I was always facing pressure from the powers that be to play as they felt they needed me on the pitch.

“We only won three games in the season, but we beat Saracens when they had Michael Lynagh, Philippe Sella and the all-stars, that was tremendous, especially at home with the ground full..”

Mark had scored in the 25-16 win over Saracens and the side had indeed been competitive. He had an impact on the players too, with Rugby Journal’s own columnist Russell Earnshaw crediting him with playing a big role in his career, including help securing him the move to Bath.

“I was disappointed [to go] because they should have known and been aware of where our problems were, they should have had more faith in me,” he says.

Such was the era, he even selected his own successor. “I found out that Mike Brewer, the former All Black, was available and might be good to come in, with his player contacts, to come in and work for me.

“But then there was a change at the top, and they brought Brewer in and got rid of me, that’s exactly what happened.”

One job did lead to another though, as he was almost instantly off to Cornwall, and what was then Penzance & Newlyn RFC, who were starting their rise up the leagues, funded by Dicky Evans. “I did alright from Hartlepool, they’d paid me £45,000 a year, £20,000 signing-on fee, and then £20,000 severance, but I went straight down to Penzance, £60,000 a year, car and flat, it was beautiful down there, and I did okay.”

But although he’d again put the side among the challengers, it hadn’t been enough and history repeated itself. “I’d brought Kevin Moseley in – I’d taken him from Newport to West Hartlepool and now Penzance – as forwards player-coach, and after one game I remember seeing the owner take him for a long walk and I just thought ‘dead man’s shoes’. The following season, it was all done, and I was gone.” 

He’s philosophical about sackings, just as he is about defeat. “You mustn’t be afraid of the sack,” he says, “you can always learn something, especially when it’s a tough task, it can be great experience.

“It was the same as when I played the All Blacks in 1988. We’d got mullered in that semi-final in 1987, but I was on the bench, so it didn’t feel as bad.

“But in 1988 [when they lost 52-3 in the first Test, 54-9 in the second], I played against a guy called Warwick Taylor and, to this day, he was the best player I’ve ever played against. He was never flash, but he showed me how to play midfield in a tactical and distributive manner, he could take the ball up to the nostrils of his opposite number and make a killer pass, sending you one way, and the ball the other. He could kick it too if needed, he was just the most rounded back I’ve ever played against.”

Mark is one of the most engaging storytellers you’re likely to meet, and his is a story that has plenty of twists and turns. He was shaped hugely by his dad, following in his footsteps. “My dad was the main influence, god rest his soul,” he says. “He played for Leicester Tigers back in the 1950s, he was a fly-half but played centre for Leicester because they had JP Horrocks-Taylor, an England international there, so he had to move.”

He followed his dad’s path on the pitch, helped along by a horrendous trial game at full-back for Cardiff. “I remember playing against Bath and John Horton, the Bath fly-half, put this cross-field kick for David Trick, the wing, and he just cantered in unopposed, as I was thirty yards away.

“I was actually so far out of position that the referee disallowed the try as he presumed Trick must have been off-side, but he wasn’t, but I was that bad.”

Anecdotes and incidents frequently punctuate his story, some related to rugby, many not, some printable, many not, but what comes to the fore continually is his passion for the game. He regularly jumps up to demonstrate a point of coaching technique or tactic and doesn’t mind going over moments that are still raw, even now decades later. “A couple of guys on the Pontypool committee who I loathe to this day tried to make out I had my hands in the kitty and dropped these rumours – what an utter load of bollocks, I wouldn’t steal sweets from a sweet shop.”

At the time he was on his second stint at the club, but having spoken to the then coach at Cardiff about the incident, he was advised to just leave it all behind and come back. “I wanted to take it to court, but Alec [Evans, the coach] just said ‘just keep your trap shut and come back and play for us’.”

The bluntness and honesty of Mark unpicks even the most controversial of topics, such as the time he was offered money to throw the 1990 Five Nations match between Wales and Ireland. It was something that had come to the fore in the book of Allan Bateman, his former team-mate. “Bateman has got this completely wrong, right,” he begins. “He was my roommate at the time and I mentioned it to him, in the same way I’m telling you.

“I said to Allan I’d been made this offer, but it was all immaterial, because I’d turned it down flat. I told him that when he made the offer, I said, ‘how on earth would I do that anyway?’ The man had said, ‘well, jump out of the way of Brendan Mullins for a start’.

“I said, ‘now, let’s be fucking realistic, this would never work anyway’. Now, I’m still talking to this bloke because he wasn’t some random bloke, he was someone I knew, just acting on behalf of some people in London – heavy guys, so I’ve got to be careful.

“And he said, ‘well, pay Bateman five grand to jump out of the way of Mullins, give five grand to Thorburn to miss the kicks, five grand to the hooker who can’t throw the fucking ball’. He said the money was mine to use as I wish. I said, ‘Jesus, fucking christ, even if I was bent, I’d only end up with about five grand, what a fucking waste of time that would be’.

“So, you see, Bateman never got offered the money, I was just telling him the story like I’m telling you. But yeah, I am the person, the person that ‘offered him five grand’, but I never offered him five grand. I never read the book, but that was the story that made all the papers, I think it was just the publishers or press of whatever trying to find something controversial, because Allan is such a solid bloke, a proper rugby bloke. 

“One day, I’ll have a word with him about it,” he adds, “and say, ‘eh, what the fuck was that all about?’.” 

Mark’s coaching career has enjoyed many moments, such as taking Caerphilly to the final of the Parker Pen Shield against French side Castres in 2003. “They had a three and a half million pound side, we had a fifty grand one,” he says. They lost 40-12, but given they were a team of part-timers, Mark had done well. 

As he had with Cross Keys, a village side. “They were this tiny little village of about 300 people [3,000, but that doesn’t detract from the achievement] and we got them all the way to the final of the British & Irish Cup, we beat full-time sides like Cornish Pirates – good to get one over on them – and Llanelli on the way.

“We played Munster A in the final and lost [41-12], but then we picked ourselves up to play Pontypridd in the Swalec Cup, and we won 32-19, and were Welsh champions!”

Conversation sways from the good – his son, a very talented fly-half – to the bad – a coach he describes as ‘the biggest fraud in rugby’ – and there’s passion for everyone, including lamenting how the side he loves, hasn’t managed to repeat the feat. “The Cardiff I knew was the best club side in the world, and it’s a travesty that the fact there are so many more houses in England, that Sky TV forced Wales and the great club sides into regions because they couldn’t sustain clubs financially. England retained club status, but welsh clubs died and fell by the wayside.

“I always thought it was ludicrous to put Cardiff city in with the valleys, such a preposterous idea,” he says, “the valley rugby culture supporter-wise is anti-Cardiff. The Cardiff that I know would go up to the valley and feel like we had a chip on our shoulder: ‘they don’t like us, we don’t like them’. It was always animosity between the two, so it didn’t make an ounce of sense. 

“And it’s nothing against the valleys, I love the valleys, I love the culture, and the success the likes of Pontypridd have had. The Gwent Valley, the Rhondda Valley, the Swansea Valley, they’re the heart of soul of Welsh rugby, steeped in history. When you went to those places they made it so hard for you.

“But it was never going to sit right with people, and ultimately, they’ve [the regions] never been supported, have they? But I guess it’s hard to fight the union.”

He’s been labelled the ‘clown prince’, which seems harsh, but Mark owns it, even using it in his autobiography. “I had no idea how it came about really,” he says. “There was this one game in Scotland and I was on the field with the others in our blazers and a photographer was doing the rounds, and I just went up to him and did this [gestures putting his hands on his head and splaying his fingers, as every child has done] and the photograph appeared and it had the ‘clown prince’ caption, and it pops up every now and again. 

“I guess I’ve always courted controversy I suppose, like that time against London Welsh.” 

His reference is a game against his one-time suitors that saw him attempt a backheel conversion. “It never even went over, it hit the upright and landed right in front of me,” he says. “Half the crowd laughed, half the crowd didn’t see it. But my mother and father heard the criticism and had to leave the ground, and I had to write a letter of apology to London Welsh. But nobody knows the background, and I couldn’t defend myself.”

So what happened? “I had come back from injury, the two designated kickers weren’t playing, so the ball was thrown to me,” he explains. “I’d missed the first three kicks, and a guy shouted at me, ‘you got your slippers on again Ring?’ and I thought, ‘I’ll show him’ and backheeled the thing. 

“It was just in the moment,” he says, “it’s all about the entertaining. It’s all part and parcel of me really, my character.”

The good moments. “Winning my first cap,” he says, “although it was anti-climatical because I knew I was just filling in, so I was dropped back again.

“So I guess it has to be that performance in France [in 1985], and I had wonderful game – it was on the back of a fantastic game in Scotland as well – and even though we lost, everything was working, in broken play I was stepping past players, five or six at a time, time and again.

“That was the one that meant something because you’re in a Welsh shirt, you know you’ve finally made it, you know you’re part of it and you know you’ve impacted massively on the game. One win, one loss but, you know those two games, it was just the feeling inside.”

That was followed by that first major knee injury. “People say to me, ‘if it wasn’t for that injury, you’d have won so many more caps’,” he says, “but I don’t know about that really, because at that point I’d only won five caps, and went on to win thirty or something, so I’m not sure that’s true at all.”

He’s not over with rugby, he never will be, as you can imagine him still coaching someone, somewhere right to the end. “I’m quite happy at the moment,” he says. “I coach my home club St Albans and do a bit of consultancy, I don’t even charge any money for it, if anyone wants some help, I’ll always give advice. 

“But I know for a fact,” he concludes, “that I’ve still got more than enough knowledge to make an impact anywhere I went, no matter what level.”

And with that statement, it’s impossible to disagree.  

Story by Alex Mead

Pictures by Richard Johnson

This extract was taken from issue 14 of Rugby.
To order the print journal, click here.