Greg Bateman

Greg Bateman’s openness on mental health has inspired many, even inspired himself – to start up a brewery, People’s Captain. The former Leicester, London Welsh and Exeter Chiefs front-rower, now doing his propping at Dragons, discusses his beer brand People’s Captain, the impact of Lyn Jones, Manu behind the bar, and the importance of sharing a pint. 

My dad told me I had two left feet, so couldn't play football. And so he said, ‘right, let's go down to rugby’. I was just like any kid, and my old man was keen to get us into anything. Probably because he just didn't want us in the house! 

I started my career as a six and, actually, maybe I should have stayed there. Maybe I would have grown a few inches taller if I had! The ball carrying side of my game, meant I was in the back row, but very quickly they realised I was never going to be a line out option so I was slowly moved further forward. I've kind of floated between prop and hooker ever since really, but settled in at loosehead over the last three or four years.

Ben Youngs was in my year for England age grade. So, it was nice that it went full circle and I ended up playing with him at Leicester. But age grade rugby is a bit strange, and I don’t mean this disrespectfully, but when I was involved, it was run by school teachers, rather than ex-pros blooding themselves [in coaching]. And I think that change [to ex-pros] has been good for diversity really, because the teachers would’ve been public school and recognised other kids from other public schools they’d played against. 

To this day, Lyn Jones is one of, if not the best rugby coaches I’ve ever had. I had my first professional contract with London Welsh and he was in charge there, and how he taught that group of players to play rugby and get on board with his vision was amazing. 

Lyn had no kit, no rugby balls, a club with no ground, nothing. Yet he pulled all of that together, taught us to play a nice style of rugby, and we got promoted to the Premiership. We didn’t even have the same training kit. At the time, ESPN came to do a TV thing on us and none of us had the same gear, we had two lads from the Bath academy wearing their Bath stuff, two props from France in French gear.  

In the Championship, you can get away with a squad of 30-35 people. But in the Premiership you can’t because, it’s just week-in, week-out, back-to-back, against really big blokes, plus you've got Europe on top of that, the LV Cup... You know, it just really takes its toll on a squad of inexperienced people. 

I was really lucky that Lyn believed in me. I had to earn my stripes [at London Welsh], I had to sit there and not play for the first few months, which was tough. But then when he gave me a shout, he left me in there. And I think it was good to be able to get some game time at 21 years old, in the Premiership, in the front row! You learn pretty quickly then, don't you?

The year we got relegated we had been in a great spot. They say if you win six games you stay up, and we’d won five by Christmas, so we were doing great. But then it got really tough, everybody at the bottom was winning, and it was between us and Sale. Then, we got hit with the points deduction [five points for an administration error], just before the Sale game. We lost and it was really tough. As a group of lads we worked so hard, Lyn in particular, to make it work, but we couldn’t.

There were a lot of us signed to carry on with London Welsh, to continue with what Lyn had built. It was a weird one really because the owner had written to the Rugby Paper saying he’d had enough, and this and that, then on the Monday morning we came in and found out we had to go and get jobs. 

I loved living down in Devon, but I just wasn’t playing. The lad that was in front of me was Luke Cowan Dickie, who is a Lions hooker, and Jack Yeandle, local born and bred, and so while I was loving living down here, I wanted to be a rugby player, and that’s where Leicester came in.

I wasn’t even on the bench at Exeter, I was a stunt cock. Not even on the benches was hard. It was amazing [with Lyn at Welsh] being young and having a coach really believing in you and giving you an opportunity and even getting that chance to make your mistakes. So going from that to Exeter where, you know, they obviously have their systems and the way they want to play and all the rest of it. If I’m, being honest, I found it really difficult. But I think it’s a deeper thing than that to be honest, because if you're not involved, sometimes you can feel like you're not valued. And that's the skill of really, really, good coaches, to give you an opportunity to provide value to a group, even if you're not playing. 

We had a squash club at Exeter for the lads that weren’t playing. There were a number of us not playing, and the lads who were in were doing well, so you didn’t get chances in games to prove what you could do. You’re obviously getting limited opportunities in training too, so we set up a squash club. We used to go out on a Wednesday after team training, go and play squash, have a few beers, come back. It was just a way of that group being nice and tight and just having something else... 

It’s a great pub quiz fact that I'm the only player in the Premiership, in the professional era, to have started in all three front row positions [for Leicester].  There's definitely a ‘jack of all trades master of none’ tag which is, you know, difficult. But when you're in a squad, it's whatever's best for the team, isn't it? I turned up to Leicester as a hooker and then within my second season Coley [Dan Cole] was away, Logo [Logovi'i Mulipola] had a niggle and Fraser Balmain was on his way back from a hammy, and Cockers said, ‘well, you’ve had some time at tighthead, want to jump in?’. Then the same thing happened at loosehead. I'd rather play and be part of whatever we're trying to do, than say no and not be involved.

We went through a horrendous patch at Leicester. And for a big club like Leicester that’s a very, very difficult thing to go through. But being able to come away and drive out of the gates at the training ground and leave all of that there is so important. To put on a different hat – as a dad, as an entrepreneur – even if it's just for a few hours before you go in the next day, just makes it bearable so that you're not going home and sweating on the same stuff. You look at some of the lads who have nothing [beyond rugby] and are playing week-in, week-out and if it's not going the way they want to, they've got nothing else to focus on and think about. 

I probably played my best rugby when things were really tough at home. Gengy was away so I was playing every week, scoring tries every week, and it was just a nice time to be involved. Going back to being able to put on different hats, and then it was good to be able to throw myself into rugby, because I had a close group of mates that were looking after me, making me feel valued, and I was getting stuck in.

I did come pretty close to sacking it all off, and quitting rugby. My marriage had broken down, and the kids weren’t living with me, but I was still turning up to training. We weren’t playing well at all, and I was just like, ‘what am I doing?’. It was becoming very difficult when you’re training so hard but getting the results that you worked for. And you’re not seeing your kids, and I was just thinking ‘this is bullshit’, so I was pretty close to giving it up and going to work in a supermarket so I could see the kids.

It was important to come through the other side of that. I think you need to do things on your own terms. And it's been something that I've believed in quite a lot anyway: doing things on your own terms. I want to finish rugby on my own terms, not just because of something else. So that's why I've worked hard on setting things up while I'm playing so that when the time's right, I can go, ‘actually, I want to focus on this now’.  

I was one of the contracts rebels at Leicester. It was my job as player rep to get legal advice for the lads and, you know, I was just honest about my position, and there were four lads that were honest about theirs. And, you know, I’m really pleased that the rest of the squad managed to sort themselves out. I’m not really allowed to talk about the ins and outs of that situation, but fundamentally, what I was being asked to do didn't line up for me and I only had the rest of that year there anyway. I had no idea about my future, but it wasn't working out and I left. And then, obviously, Dragons were in need of a loose head... 

I had a player sponsorship from a local pub company. And my nickname was the People’s Captain – self-proclaimed nickname – and they wanted to do a beer to celebrate me coming on board. So I went down to the brewery and had a go, I knew a bit about beer, I knew what I liked and didn’t like, and we just about making a particular style of beer.

I find the brewing process cathartic. I really enjoyed the whole brewing experience, it’s such a process-driven thing, when you’ve got something to do every 20 minutes for eight hours. And, when your head's all over the place, with super-high anxiety, and you're really worried about everything that's going on, having things to focus on is really, really useful. So I found that process fascinating but also really healthy for me. 

We did a launch night in Leicester and Manu decided to put himself behind the bar. He gave away all the beer and we made no money! But the launch coincided with this article I'd done with David Walsh in The Sunday Times [about his mental health struggles] and so conversations would start about the beer, but then go on to the article and how it had helped them start conversations with their brother or niece who had been struggling too. They didn’t know how to start the conversation, so they gave them the article to read. 

There’s something in that social moment when people have a beer and they get talking. When it was really, really shit for me, my best mate had been trying to get me out for a beer for ages and I just ignored him and fobbed him off. And I literally had a beer that probably saved my life because it actually got me talking, not only admitting, for the first time, to somebody else how I felt, but probably to myself, hearing what was in my head. I don't think I'd ever been told how to cope with emotion, so it was just all in there spinning around. 

I thought, in February 2020, would be a great time to launch People's Captain as its own fledgling thing. I want to make mental health initiatives and encourage people to make their social moments count through our content and stuff but then, obviously, in March 2020 Coronavirus, struck. So, we officially launched in November 2020 as our own flattering thing. 

I see my job with People's Captain to just invite people to check in on their mates and make those social moments count. I'm really passionate about supporting what is now a mental health crisis that we have in the UK, and there's initiatives out there that need our help. I’m a very well-meaning bloke, and I really want to try and make a difference, but I'm not a professional. I know I can't counsel people, I know I can't prescribe people things they need. But I can definitely encourage people on a social level to make the most of those social moments, so I’m incredibly committed to that.