Former Wales lock Ian Gough is enjoying life in Pembrokeshire
Ian Gough is now working as a coach driver with Taf Valley Coaches(Image: Taf Valley Coaches)
At dawn in rural Pembrokeshire, when the roads through the Preseli Hills are still empty and the day is only beginning to stretch awake, Ian Gough is already on the move.
He guides a school bus through Llandissilio towards Crymych, stopping for children laden with backpacks and half-formed conversations. It is quiet, purposeful work — a long way, on the surface, from the ferocious collisions of Test rugby.
As a player, Gough was a warrior who put his body through hell across 64 caps for Wales. A giant second row, he was a no-nonsense enforcer and the backbone of two Six Nations Grand Slam-winning teams, as well as an Ospreys side that lifted the old Magners League and the Anglo-Welsh Cup.
He was the sort of player you wanted in your corner.
Retirement in 2015 did not bring stillness. Now 49 and living in Amroth, Gough has built a life that looks very different from the one he left behind, but is no less busy.
He works as a rugby pundit, manages a property portfolio, supports a range of charities — and, most mornings, drives a school bus for Taff Valley Coaches.
“A little bit of boredom set in and right on my doorstep there’s Taff Valley Coaches which is run by Clive Edwards who is a big character as well,” Gough tells WalesOnline.
“I spoke to them in passing at the Pembrokeshire Show and they went ‘well we are short of school bus drivers if you want to do that for us.’
“My 13-year-old boy is in school in Whitland which is the same school Mike Phillips, Jonathan ‘Foxy’ Davies and James ‘Cubby’ Davies went to.
“I thought why not. I did my licence with them and I’ve been doing that for the last eight or nine months.
“My boy jumps on the bus with me in the morning and comes back with me in the afternoon so I get to hear all his playlist and the new bits of music he’s learnt on his guitar.”
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The routine is demanding but familiar. “At the minute I do it every morning,” Gough says.
“But I’ll be moving onto this military project with the soldiers. That will come very soon. It is about an hour and a half in the morning and the same in the afternoon.
“I’m on the Crymych run. I’m in the Presellis. So up through Llandissilio, through to Crymych and then back. A lot of the time I’d do five days and other times it coincided with other things that needed to be done. They were very flexible.
When drivers are short elsewhere, he fills in.
“There’s a big centre here called Morfa Sands in Pendine so if some drivers couldn’t do it I’d jump in and help out.
“So I’d pick the kids up from school to bring them there or pick them up from their little residential adventure camp and take them back as well.
“It has been a good little distraction.
“It has been like having a bit of a changing room back because that’s what I miss from rugby. It’s the changing room and the camaraderie. We’ve got a good bunch of guys there who are as good at the banter as the rugby boys.”
Gough’s rugby career had its own share of upheaval.
He began at Newport, had a stint at Pontypridd and played for the Dragons before reaching a crossroads.
His move to the Ospreys proved decisive, turning him into a regular for Wales under Warren Gatland and tying him emotionally to a region that remains close to his heart.
Since retiring, he has focused heavily on helping others.
“I had a company that was running whilst I was playing and we started a schools programme for underachieving boys called ‘Reach for the Skies’,” he says.
“The driver was rugby. I used flying as a driver because I’ve had my licence for many years now. But it was anything that inspired the boys and could get them across the line.
“We’ve got a homeless veterans project that I’m going to put together now for homeless veterans.
“It is a combination for homeless veterans and ex-military personnel that have fallen on hard times and have no housing.
“There’ll also be a charity on the bottom floors of the building to facilitate all sorts of things like PTSD to workshops to do employment linked in with Hiring a Hero which is a charity I’m involved with.”
Yet despite the quiet rhythm of school runs and charity work, Gough finds himself once again drawn into a fight.
Much of his energy has been directed towards the battle to save the Ospreys, whose future has been thrown into doubt after the Welsh Rugby Union selected the club’s owners, Y11 Sports & Media, as its preferred bidder to buy Cardiff Rugby — a move that could see Wales’ most successful professional side cut all together.
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“I just think it has been handled really poorly,” Gough tells WalesOnline.
“Players seem to be far down the list with priorities for being looked after.
“I had a great time at the Ospreys. I really enjoyed my time there and it reinvigorated my rugby career when things began to dip for me at the Dragons.
“They gave me an opportunity to win league titles and cups while they also provided me with a springboard to get back involved with Wales as well. It holds really treasured memories.
“To see the way they have been treated and the lack of transparency is so obvious to everyone now.
“I think it has united a lot of fans across Wales. It is the thought of this could happen to us.
“We knew the OSC were putting on a protest so we thought it would be a great idea to get some former players to turn up.
“We will add our weight to it and support you anyway we can whether that be a protest or we will voice ourselves to the local council.
“I think that was a heated meeting last week and some former players like Alun Wyn Jones attended that as well.
“Any weight we can put behind it we will. What we didn’t want was for it to all come crashing down and in 10 years time we wished we’d done something about it.
“We didn’t want to look back and reflect and ask ourselves why we didn’t do something.
“It is Wales’ most successful region and brings through so many good players. It is such a great area which covers Bridgend, Neath, Port Talbot and Swansea. It is something worth fighting for I believe and all the other guys think the same thing as well.”
Former players have requested talks with the WRU.
“A few days after we became vocal we were approached via email to come across and have an open chat with the union,” he says.
“We responded through Ryan Jones, who requested an agenda, so we want to know exactly what they want to get out of the meeting.
“He didn’t feel it was appropriate for just a few cherry-picked players to be involved.
“He thought there should be a large spread of players there. As of today we haven’t had a reply to that invitation. There was an email sent via Dave Reddin.
“I haven’t seen a reply for a date or a time for that meeting. Hopefully something positive can come out of it but it just seems they are hell bent on destroying the Ospreys at the moment.”
Welsh rugby, Gough believes, is at its lowest ebb for 20 years, perhaps ever.
He has seen darkness before. He made his Wales debut in the infamous 96–13 defeat to South Africa at Loftus Versfeld in 1998.
A year later, he was part of the side that beat the Springboks for the first time in the opening match at the Millennium Stadium.
“I’ve come through some tough times with Welsh rugby,” Gough recalls.
“My first tour with Wales Mike Ruddock was supposed to be the coach but that was pulled before it was officially announced. We weren’t going to get on the bus.
“There was a big argument where we thought we were being exploited on that trip.
“Lots of players dropped out and the travelling crew thought we were being exploited. It was almost a strike before we got on the bus.
“After that South Africa game I remember Sir Tasker Watkins standing up and doing his post-game speech. We’d almost had 100 points put on us and he was adamant that things would change for the better.
“He said we’d change the way we train and we’d bring new coaches in. Within a year of that we almost beat South Africa at Wembley and soon after we beat the Springboks at the Millennium Stadium.
“Out of adversity we can recover but the strategy has got to be put in place.
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“We’ve just been left with a very poor transition plan. For a team to lose all of its senior players all at once it has left the Welsh national coach in a tough predicament.
“It is about looking at the pathways, looking at grass roots rugby. The kids have just got to be enthusiastic to play. You’ve got to have access to these clubs along with the best facilities and resources.
“We need to develop and get that buzz back. There’s lots that need to be fixed and things need to be put in place but we’ve had success with more than three regions and even more than four because the Celtic Warriors were the only side to beat Wasps when they won the Heineken Cup in 2004.
“When I was coming through there were 10 teams. It exposed me to a lot of rugby and allowed me to develop over those early years whereas if there were three teams I might not have had that opportunity to develop. It gave me that chance.”