Careers day at Hutton Grammar School in 1995 and the kids are writing down the jobs they want when they leave. “I wrote: ‘I want to be a professional rugby player and I want to play for England’,” recalls Steve Borthwick. “I was expecting this incredibly disapproving reaction, like: ‘You’re not going to be a professional rugby player’ and to the careers advisor’s great credit, she looked at me and said: ‘You want to be a professional rugby player? Well, you’d better learn how to spell ‘professional’ then.’”
The memory makes him laugh. Listening to Borthwick talk you get the sense he still cannot believe how lucky he is to be involved in Test rugby. He describes himself as the little kid who used to sit right up next to the TV screen for Five Nations games, and remembers how the hairs on the back of his neck would stand up when the players sang the national anthems.
