Matt Dawson MBE, 34, England’s most capped rugby-union scrum-half, was a
crucial part of the 2003 World Cup-winning side, feeding Jonny Wilkinson the
ball for the crucial drop goal. He has since shown his skill in other areas,
winning the BBC’s Celebrity Masterchef and coming second in last year’s
Strictly Come Dancing. He is British Airways Ambassador for Taste of London.
He lives in London with his girlfriend, Joanne Salley
‘TRAVELLING for rugby was incredible. I went to all corners of the earth, and
saw some amazing places, but because our focus was on training for the
matches, we didn’t get to see them in much depth. I would like to go back to
some of those places again and spend a bit more time getting to know them.
I’ve already managed to get back to Cape Town. Joanne and I were there for New
Year last year. We’d planned a quiet celebration in a bar, just the two of
us, but it didn’t quite work out like that. This guy Jason was showing us
around, and we ended up having a crazy night at the Buena Vista Social Club,
in Green Point. We met so many people, and had a great party, making such
good friends ... it has to be my best holiday ever. Then, on New Year’s Day,
we drove to Franschhoek and stayed in a beautiful hotel up in the hills. I
love wine and Joanne loves riding, so we did a wine tour on horseback – the
perfect combo. We rode through the vineyards for three hours in the baking
sun, stopping for tastings en route. We didn’t taste enough to get drunk (I
only swallowed if the wine was really good), even though you can’t get
arrested for drink-riding.
The good thing about the Cape is that you’re almost in the same time zone as
the UK. Jet lag was always a problem when we did long-haul travel for rugby.
The more senior players in the squad would try to come up with clever ways
of dealing with it: sleep for the last leg of the flight, drink lots of
water and go out in the sun. A few of us discovered a better method. It was
simple: as soon as you touch down, find the nearest bar and start drinking.
You’d get back to the hotel, bladdered, at two in the morning, sleep for a few
hours and come down to breakfast looking ropey, but no more ropey than all
the others who’d slept at four the previous afternoon, then been up all
night. At least we got a good night out of it.
We had no excuse for drinking when we were playing in the UK, and not much
time for holidays, either. Time off tended to be quite last-minute, which
explains why we ended up on a four-day break in Tunisia in November. The
plan had been to catch some last-minute sun, but we hadn’t really done our
homework. When we arrived, it was colder than here, and the holiday season
was over. There was nobody in our hotel, nobody by the pool and nobody in
the restaurants. It was like a ghost town. We’d packed summer clothes, but
it was pretty damn cold, so in all the photos, Joanne is wearing the same
jumper and I’m wearing two shirts. It wasn’t a complete disaster, though,
because the food was really good.
Generally, I’ve been fortunate with my travels, because nothing really awful
has happened. The worst thing was probably last summer, when I lost my
wallet on the way to Dan Luger’s wedding in Croatia. It made me feel so
helpless: I had absolutely nothing, and neither did Joanne. In the end, I
was able to get a mate of a mate to lend us some money. Two weeks later, I
did get my wallet back. Someone had found it at Heathrow and handed it in.
And the wedding was great. Dan got married on a beach, and 20 of us spent the
week on a boat, going up and down the Adriatic coast. We’d moor up in the
evening for a bite to eat, then, the next morning, pull into another
beautiful bay for breakfast and a swim. We were often the only ones there.
That was much more glamorous than the first lads’ holiday I went on, when I
was 21.
My mate Brett Taylor and I picked a mega-cheap last-minute package off
Teletext, and we ended up in C’an Picafort, on Mallorca. We were amateur
rugby players, so there was no celebrity about it, and we spent a week in a
fairly average hotel, but we had an awesome time doing all the things you
should do when you’re young. We’d spend all day sunbathing, playing tennis
and putting lemon juice in our hair to get it to go as blond as possible.
Then we’d spend the nights drinking, partying and chatting up girls. Brett
was the good-looking feller, so he had all the romance.’
