MARTIN JOHNSON AT CALDICOTT - 11 May 2005 

He achieved in an hour what the best sports masters failed to pull off in a year. To get the players to listen, apply themselves and progress. It does of course help if you're not only the World Cup-winning England captain but also 6ft 7in and look like Terminator. ...

On this day the Sports Section of the Daily Telegraph newspaper carried the report below, with a photograph, covering most of the page.

It was the week before the England rugby Captain, Martin Johnson, was due to retire, and were fortunate that he came to Caldicott then.

Many thanks are due to Dawn Jackson of The Daily Telegraph for giving permission to reproduce the text in full, and to the Telegraph photographer, Russell Cheyne, for sending us the original picture (scroll down) to use.

The picture on the left shows J-J Gibbs held in just one of Martin Johnson's hands (he's a big man). J-J had been chosen as the most promising forward of the 2004-2005 season - and he's only nine! By the time he's in his final year he will be seriously good.

Below is a reproduction of the article as laid out in the Daily Telegraph.

THE you-and-who’s army expression has softened and Martin Johnson bows out of club rugby at the end of this week, to have time to “do other things”. Judging from the impact he has had on a bunch of Prep School kids (and their teachers) last week, however, retirement is unlikely to provide much respite. He is that rarity, a great sportsman who would be a great coach.

He achieved in an hour what the best sports masters failed to pull off in a year. To get the players to listen, apply themselves and progress. It does of course help if you're not only the World Cup-winning England captain but also 6ft 7in and look like Terminator.

His morning at Caldicott School, on behalf of the Sparks charity, revealed a lot about what made him an outstanding player and an exceptional motivator. It is not just his physical presence: he has an efficient way with words, a smart judgement of character and a laconic wit that gets results. He is running a number of rugby camps around the country in the summer holidays (www.johnnocamps.com spaces still available). He will be inundated with requests for his presence after that. He shouldn't have to do ‘courses’, just be himself. He's a brilliant man-manager.

He was, it is true, preaching to the converted at Caldicott, an excellent rugby school near Beaconsfield with expansive grounds that also spawned the Middlesex and England batsmen Andrew Strauss - captain of rugby and cricket when he was there. Johnson's presence was bought at a charity auction by Harvinder Hungin a businessman friend of the headmaster, Simon Doggart, a Cambridge Blue at cricket whose father, Hubert, played for England in the Fifties. It was the best £7,000 he’s ever spent. People always go on about pouring money into grassroots, but without the nourishment of heroes, grassroots wither and die.

Johnson arrived promptly at 11am. He strolled towards his greeting party, mainly eight-year-olds, like a giant in the land of Lilliput. He posed for photos outside the school, holding one young prizewinner in his arms. “Did you see that, he lifted him up with one hand!” carolled another lad. On the field his enormous hands almost completely enveloped the junior-size ball.

“Right,” he said to the first group, a bunch of seven-year-olds, “we’re going to start with a five-mile run. Happy with that?” Respectful silence. "OK, we'll just do a quick warm-up once round the pitch." Desperate to impress, they all set off, most in the wrong direction. He called them back. They arrived, breathless. “Who was first? You? Good man. Two press-ups for being so quick."

The mild ‘punishment’ for doing well is a common thread of his coaching ethos, and has the dual effect of containing egos and helping the best get better. You could see why he was such a successful captain. He won't tolerate complacency, likes to encourage and challenge at the same time. Before the first group's final relay race, he said, “Okay … no pressure … but this is for the championship of the school." None of them has surely ever run as fast with the ball before.

Without delay another, slightly older group were ferried in. “Have you met my mum? You signed a ball for her,” one boy asked. Johnson replied, smirking slightly, “If I signed the ball for her I have met her then.”

“OK, chop, chop, no more chit-chat. Kick, catch, pass. Practice makes perfect.” He uses short sharp expressions to quickly get their attention. A minimum of words, a maximum of impact. A good lesson for all of us.

He put them through a few exercises. “Now,” he said, “why do we do sit-ups? To get a six pack and look good on the beach? Well, partially yes … but also it's really important to strengthen your core … warm up, warm down. Do that and you won't end up like me - stiff as a board.” Johnson is a man without conceit. He talks down to no-one. He treats everyone as equal.

Two more groups were put through their paces. In spite of his inherent modesty, he was smiling and thrusting his enormous chest out. You sensed he was enjoying himself. The feeling was contagious. The winners of the final relay were congratulated, then told to go and pick up the plastic cones. “Yeah! We tried to lose,” cheered the losers. “Yes, and you did a good job,” Johnson said drily.

Russell Cheyne, the Daily Telegraph photographer, asked for a final shot of Johnson running pursued by all the players. He could have a 10-metre start. “Ten metres?” Johnson said aghast. “In rugby terms I'm of pensionable age!” He did it, anyway, and was still standing with 15 or so panting children clinging to him. “Breathe, relax, stay calm,” he said in a manner that would have been invaluable during flashpoints in matches.

Half an later he had 150 pupils and staff rapt as he answered some pre-prepared questions. What did he say to the England team in the huddle before extra time in the World Cup final?

“People think I said something inspirational. But it wasn't like that. You see, really we should have had the game won by then. But you couldn't change that. And if someone had told us before the tournament that we’d have 20 minutes to beat Australia in the final, we’d have taken that. You could see that in everyone's face. They were so motivated and ready and determined to win it didn't take a great speech from me. It was more about staying calm and collected and remembering a few technical things: concentrating on what was required to win the game.”

How about his advice for prospective captains? “I think you've got to be honest. Captains always seem to believe they've got to be something different. You've got to be yourself. The best thing you can do is to play well. It’s not about bossing people around, it is about creating a team atmosphere. When we won the World Cup I was happy just as much for them, knowing all the work they’d put in, as I was for myself.”

I asked him afterwards whether it was for physical reasons that he’d decided to retire. “Well, yes, there is some general wear and tear, but really it’s the whole package, the preparation, the training, the chatting about how Johnson are going to stop so and so’s rolling maul. It's a mental thing as much as a physical - thinking that must be much more to life than this. It’s a time thing too. There’s so many things I haven’t been able to do.” Having a two-year-old daughter has obviously also influenced his thinking.

Knowing he is a useful reservoir of sporting trivia, I asked him whether he might captain a team on A Question of Sport. "No, I haven't got the humour," he said. While the statement is completely untrue sport will eternally benefit if such an enriching character is not lured after Saturday into the whirligig of light entertainment TV. Unless, of course, you're the son of Harvinder Hungin, the Caldicott benefactor. "Dad, couldn't you have got Jonny?" he said.

Article by Simon Hughes, The Daily Telegraph