Rugby Lives Adam Bishop
RWC2023 Guides: Lille
Memorial Ground
Hong Kong Sevens
Rugby Photographer of the Year
The former Harlequins strength and conditioning coach talks about his journey from rugby academies, bobsleigh try-outs, to eventually becoming a two-time Britain’s Strongest Man with his eyes on the world title. This is Adam Bishop’s Rugby Life.
Harlow RFC was my first club, I started playing there when I was 10. There was no minis section, so I went straight into under 13s. I’m not sure that would be allowed now. By the time I was sixteen, I was playing regional stuff. Then I got involved in the Saracens academy and from there I got a scholarship for Llandovery College – my parents are Welsh.
The two years there were the best two years of my life, it was awesome. I managed to briefly get into the Wales squad. I was in the same year as Leigh Halfpenny, I never heard him say a single word. He was a proper quiet bloke, but a quality player. It’s usually pissing it down in Wales, so you just try to keep your head down and do your best.
I didn’t get a cap for the under eighteens. After leaving school, I got offered a full-time academy contract with Saracens. I was there for a year, and they offered me another contract, but it was a risk. I had a place at Loughborough University to study sport science, so I went there so I could play rugby while I was studying.
Growing up, Richard Hill was the man at Sarries. I was playing in the back row, so he was the one who inspired me I’d say. Getting the chance to train with him was awesome. I came through that year of the 2003 World Cup, so all those guys were immortals to me – the likes of Wilkinson, Martin Johnson, Lawrence Dallalgio. They were the guys I looked up to, playing wise.
I was lucky enough to play one game with Courtney Lawes. It was one of those weird fixtures – London Acadamies versus France U19s. We were literally just thrown together, some guys from Saracens, London Irish and Harlequins. It was just, ‘call on the fly, here’s some basic lineouts, some basic backs plays, see what you can do’. I knew from then that Courtney was a super tough player.
I played in the back row growing up, but ironically, I was told I wasn’t big enough. I had a lot of pace though, so I actually moved out to the wing. I had an awful moment playing against London Irish. Edd Thrower was playing full back and he’s run all the way to the try line and I’m supporting him but fully expecting him to just put the ball down. But for some reason, he ships one more pass which goes straight through my hands, hits my chest, and goes forward. Try butchered. It was not enjoyable watching that under review on Monday.
I always loved preseason, which is probably the exact opposite of every other player in the world. I was a really good, all round athlete. I was gifted in terms of speed, strength, stamina, but I just wasn’t a good enough rugby player to go on and play in the Premiership, for example. That’s probably why I enjoyed preseason so much. That was my domain – the measurable fitness tasks.
I had a go at bobsleigh. When I left the academy, I got contacted by the English Institute of Sport, who at the time had this programme called pitch to podium. If you were part of a football or rugby academy, they would try and talent ID you for an Olympic sport. I went for a physical testing day, and they said, ‘you should try out for skeleton bobsleigh’. The whole aim was to bring home gold at Saatchi in 2014 at the Winter Games, and obviously in that training group was Lizzy Yarnold, who did win that gold and went on to be very successful.
It was a crazy experience going and sliding on the ice. I didn’t really fit. I was a lot bigger than most of the skeleton bobsleigh guys, which made some steering around the corners a little bit more difficult. The average guys were about 80 kilos, a lot shorter. Definitely not 100 kilos and 6 foot 3. It wasn’t my true calling.
When I was at uni, I did an unpaid year helping at the Harlequins strength and conditioning department. I was doing whatever I could to try and learn as much as possible after uni. I was working as a doorman to make some extra cash, so I was really working overtime the whole way through. I was doing shifts from 7PM to 5AM, and not being fully awake for my morning lectures, but it all worked out in the end.
I started at Quins as a rehab specialist in the 2011-2012 season. I was at the club for 10 years from then. I quickly moved on to coaching the first team performance guys. By the time I was finishing up, I was specialising in working with the forwards, getting the big boys strong, getting their scrummaging better, making sure they were fit and performing on the field.
Joe Marler still messages me on Instagram for a chat. He loves his weight training and gym work. I worked with him on a one-to-one basis more than anyone else. I think he can be a bit much for some of the younger S&C coaches, but I really enjoyed working with him. His sense of humour is fantastic. We got him up to benching 200 kilos, squatting 240kg to a box.
Chris Robshaw is probably the hardest working guy I’ve worked with. Physically, he wasn’t the most gifted, but he had this incredible work ethic. He would just go to that dark place in his conditioning sessions, always be the last one finishing up.
I knew I wasn’t going to play professional rugby, so I needed to find another sport. A friend of mine said, ‘do you want to come down and give strongman a go’. I took to it naturally. We would be in a dusty yard, in the middle of nowhere in Leicestershire, all the kit was homemade, but I just loved it from the beginning, it was awesome.
I watched World’s Strongest Man on TV as a kid, I was fascinated by it. I won the first competition I did, and then the year after that I won the UK Strongest Man in the under 105kg weight class. That tied in with me getting my full-time employment at Harlequins. That was the early beginnings for me, and it’s just built from there.
The strongman community is really supportive. We’re all fans of strength – we just want to see the biggest weights being lifted. We want 500kg deadlifts, and people pulling planes, stuff like that. It’s not like a fighting sport, where you’re trying to one-up your opponent. I can only lift what I can lift, whoever does it better on the day is going to win, and there’s nothing you can do about it, so you might as well enjoy it.
I competed at my first World’s Strongest Man in 2015 but ruptured my bicep tendon off the bone in 2017. Those kinds of injuries are very common. I recovered and made my first World’s Strongest Man top 10 in 2019. Martin Licis won it that year, but we were also competing against Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, The Mountain from Game of Thrones, and Eddie Hall, who I’ve competed against for several years.
Paddy McGuinness is a big strongman fan. He came to watch Britain’s Strongest Man the year that I won it. I also had Hunter from Gladiators come up to me and tell me he was a massive fan, and could he get a picture? It was surreal because I grew up watching him on TV, now he’s the one asking me for a photo!
My ultimate goal is to win World’s Strongest Man, which is coming up in the next five weeks. But with the injuries I’ve had, I’ve learned that it’s important to have things in life that aren’t just work.
I used to do a bit of carp fishing when I was younger, which I recently returned to. My biggest catch is a 27lb, which is not that big by UK standard anymore – the record is 68lb! The game has changed, though, it’s become so high tech, rigs have become way more sophisticates from the days of a simple hair rig. Casting and baiting accuracy has improved with the introduction of distance sticks. It is nice going back to be being a bit of a novice again and having to learn from the more experienced guys.
It helps to take my mind off things, I can switch off and not really think about much else. I like just sitting on the bank and fishing – you don’t have to catch anything, it’s just nice to be in an environment that makes me feel fully relaxed.
By Tyrone Bulger
Got tickets booked for Rugby World Cup 2023 matches in Lille? Read our host city guide and watch the video on this unique French city.
Memorial Ground, Bristol, Bristol RFC, 1921-2013.
Bristol is a place famous for many things, from the tales of Blackbeard to the engineering contributions of Brunel, there is much to shout about. High on that list is its contribution to English rugby. Fifty-three clubs make up the membership of Bristol and District Rugby Football Combination, more than anywhere else in the country. For a long time, the Memorial Ground in Horfield was the rugby epicentre of this great city.
The formation of Bristol Rugby Club, who now play as the Bears, dates to 1888. The team started as Bristol United, when players drawn from various local clubs played against Cardiff Harlequins on the 6th of October. They were absolutely decimated with a score of 24 points to nil, which under modern scoring values would have been 80-0. Despite this tough start to life, the club persevered and within four seasons, had found winning form, inspired by their first notable captain, W ‘Tommy’ Thomson. In 1902, they won 20 out of 24 matches, establishing themselves as a team to be taken seriously.
In the same year that the rugby club was founded, the Gloucestershire County Cricket Ground also opened. This was home for both Bristol and Clifton, who to this day remain one of the oldest clubs in the world. The two clubs played alternate Saturdays until the First World War, when the ground was transferred to the now defunct chocolate company, J S Fry & Sons.
After the war, a six-and-a-half-acre plot of land in Horfield, known as ‘Buffalo Bill’s Field’, was purchased by Frank Cowlin, the Sheriff of Bristol at the time. Cowlin donated the land to the rugby club, who needed a permanent home. The field was named after Colonel William Cody, an American soldier, bison hunter and showman who had brought his Wild West Show there in 1891. Since then, it had been used as a public showground for air displays and various sports, as well as allotment plots for the provision of vegetables in wartime.
Three hundred Bristol rugby players had lost their lives during the First World War, so it was decided that the new ground was to be built at Buffalo Bill’s Field would be called the Memorial Ground. It was designed by a local architect named James Hart, who had been a member of the club’s committee for many years. Funds to build stands and a dressing room were donated by key benefactors such as J S Fry & Sons as well as the people of the city.
In the development of the field, large amounts of limestone were found just beneath the surface, which had to be excavated and removed so that the pitch could be drained, levelled, and turfed. The Memorial Ground was formally opened on the 24th of September 1921, by the mayor at the time, G.B. Britton.
The opening game was played against Cardiff and a huge crowd turned out to watch from the newly built wooden terraces and stands. It was reported as a thrilling game which was equally matched for much of it, but towards the end Bristol moved into the ascendancy with four tries and two conversions. The final score was 19-3.
The Second World War once again forced many of the club’s players to leave, but this time a Bristol Supporters team kept rugby union going in the city. This meant that when peacetime rugby resumed in 1945, the club had readily available players.
Into the 1950s, the club had established itself as one of the very best in the country. The captaincies of Bert Macdonald and Dick Hawkes brought huge improvements to the team, and the 1956 to ’57 season was a record breaking one. With fly-half John Blake at the helm, Bristol went on to win more games and score more points than they had ever done previously.
The ground hosted several international sides over the years, including Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. In 1957, a Western Counties side captained by John Blake beat the Wallabies 9-8. The All Blacks were victorious there in 1963, although the match was never a foregone conclusion and the tourists trailed at the break. That same year, floodlights were installed to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the club which had been the year previous. In 1965, the club had its best season yet, scoring a thousand points for the first time and winning 39 fixtures under the captaincy of Derek Neate.
In 1983, Bristol achieved one of their greatest successes, when they beat Leicester 28-22 in the John Player Cup final. Although the club had long been regarded as one of the best in the country, they had very little silverware to show for it, so this win was a huge moment. In the same period, Alan Morley established a world record of 479 tries in senior rugby.
South Africa visited the Memorial Ground to play England B in 1992. The Springboks won the game 20-16, but the occasion was perhaps more memorable for the anti-apartheid protests that took place. Activists descended on the entrances to the ground before the game kicked off, armed with signs opposing apartheid and the tour that the South African team were on.
As rugby entered the professional era in the 90s, Bristol faced challenges both on and off the field. In 1996, Bristol Rovers moved to the Memorial Ground as tenants of the rugby club to boost its financial position. However, Bristol RFC were relegated into Premiership Two in 1998. This would have been the end of the club it wasn’t for the financial intervention of Malcom Pearce, the owner at the time.
This tumultuous period saw the rugby club lose control of the Memorial Stadium Company to Bristol Rovers. Despite everything that was going on, they were able to win the Premiership Two title and gained promotion back into the topflight.
2001 brought a new name to the club as a five-year sponsorship deal with Mitsubishi was signed and Bristol Rugby became Bristol Shoguns. The Shoguns finished the season with the most bonus points in the Zurich Premiership and a place in the Heineken Cup final for the following season.
When the sponsorship deal ran out in 2005, the club returned to their former moniker. In that season, they elected to play two games at Ashton Gate, where the capacity of 21,500 was almost double the 11,750 of the Memorial Ground. One match was played against local rivals, Bath, and the other against Leicester. Despite the efforts to better the financial position of the club, they were relegated from the Premiership again in 2008.
That year, Stephen Lansdown began financing the team and his ownership was formalised in 2012. Following on from his takeover, Lansdown injected funds to secure several high-profile internationals including David Lemi, who to this day holds the record for points scored at the club.
In that same season, Bristol finalised a move from the Memorial Ground to Ashton Gate, ending a 92-year spell at the ground, leaving it in the hands of Bristol Rovers who have retained ownership of it to this day.
While many memories remain attached to the Memorial Ground for the supporters of Bristol Rugby, the main physical reminders of that past era are the gates to the stadium which achieved listed status in 2011. They have plaques mounted on them to commemorate the soldiers lost in both the First and Second World Wars and will remain standing for many decades to come.
By Tyrone Bulger
