Merseyside For Sport - Andy Ripley

 

Andrew George Ripley was born in Liverpool on the 1st of December 1947, the youngest of five children, but his schoolteacher mother, dispirited by her marriage to Ripley's father, an often-distant merchant seaman, decamped with the children when Andrew was seven and moved to Bristol where he was brought up. Here he was educated at Greenway Comprehensive School in Bristol before he went to the University of East Anglia where he began playing rugby at the age of 19, at a school that actually favoured association football, and would spend his whole rugby career at Rosslyn Park, playing until he was 41. However he also excelled at rowing, canoeing, athletics, swimming, basketball, tennis, sailing and water-skiing. He has been described variously as "rugby’s first hippie", "the original Crazy Horse" who was also a champion triathlete, reaching the semi-finals of the 400 metres in the Amateur Athletic Association championship in 1978.
The gangling 6ft 5in tall, with flowing locks streaming out of a headband, knees pumping almost up his chest and the ball under his arm he was an unforgettable sight on the pitch, making his international debut on the 15th of January, 1972, at Twickenham, in the England v Wales match. He went on to win 24 caps for England at number eight between 1972 and 1976, when, with his extrovert rock star images, he was credited with bringing skill and excitement to sides that were otherwise often dull and unimaginative. Andy was also an exceptional seven-a-side player and won the inaugural World Cup Sevens with England at Murrayfield in 1973, once running the length of the field to score. In 1974 he scored the winning try in England’s first victory against Wales at Twickenham since 1960 and that year toured with the British Lions to South Africa, where they were unbeaten in 22 matches and won the Test series 3-0. However he lost out in the Test side to Mervyn Davies, of Wales, who described his English rival as "the best - certainly the most awkward" number eight he had ever played against."   

In 1976, he lost his England place, at what many considered to be the peak of his career, but he remained devoted to sport. A champion triathlete, he reached the semi-finals of the 400 metres in the Amateur Athletic Association championship in 1978 and was a qualified canoe instructor and skilled at basketball, tennis and water-skiing. Two years later he won the BBC series 'Superstars', in which sportsmen competed in a number of disciplines. He was perhaps the last in a great English tradition of all-round amateur sportsmen going back to CB Fry, a tradition ended by the specialised disciplines of professional sport. When the English game turned professional, Rosslyn Park stayed amateur and Andy pined for what was being lost. In an interview, he railed against professionalism. "Friendship and loyalty have been smashed," he said. "Rugby has lost its heroes. I want to have heroic figures out there. If they're chasing a few quid like me I don't like it. It devalues them. It means they are marionettes, puppets, manipulated by people with money." At the age of 50 he gained an MPhil at Cambridge University and even tried out, unsuccessfully, for a place in the Boat Race crew.

A chartered accountant by profession, when he retired from rugby in 1989 he became deputy general manager of the United Bank of Kuwait. He also ran a company called Dart for training accountants and another, Incredibly Fit Co, for marketing rugby gear, and was a director of Esprit health clubs in London. In addition to his many other talents, he was a fluent linguist and worked as a rugby commentator for French television. Andy did much work for charities, including the Sport Aid Foundation, the Bristol Sporting Association for the Disabled and the Aston Charity Trust for Homeless People.

Andy Ripley, who received an OBE, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2005 and died on the 17th of June, 2010 survived by his wife, Elisabeth, and three children.