Former Leicester Tigers player and 75-year-old Oakham RFC regular claims record as English rugby's oldest active player
By retirement age most of us will have consigned sporting careers to the memory bank and the folder marked ‘past glories’.
Even strenuous activity may make some of us think twice. Not so for Brian Sampson.
Having turned 75 on November 5, Brian can still be found wherever Oakham RFC are playing most Saturdays of the rugby season. And not on the touchline.
Fortunate to have a frame which has avoided serious injury and remains sturdy, he adds almost unprecedented experience to the Oaks Second XV.
“Some people think it’s a bit weird,” Brian said.
“It’s more so when you get a new player coming in. They’ll ask, ‘how old is that bloke, he’s older than my grandad and he can’t walk’.
“But they are getting used to it now. I’ve had a few things said in the past, but now opponents are usually quite nice and say ‘well done’ afterwards.”
As a softly-spoken, modest man, Brian does not seek limelight, but was stung by the claims of another rugby stalwart to stake his claim for a record.
“He was in the national press two or three times years back claiming to be the oldest rugby player in the country and he’s two years younger than me.
“And he’s probably stopped playing by now.”
His rugby story began in illustrious company, spending four seasons with the Leicester Tigers from 1965 after leaving school.
“In those days you could just rock up,” he said. “I wrote to the Tigers and said I’d like to play, and they invited me to come down.”
He represented the powerhouses of English club rugby at Second and Third XV level, yet regularly rubbed shoulders, quite literally, with the game’s big names.
“You were training with the first team and they had internationals in the front row,” he recalled.
“At 17 I could be propping against the first team prop in the scrum so I learned how to manage. You were mostly just lying up against them, but now and again they might feel like messing you up.”
Brian’s ties to Oakham RFC stretch back to 1966, in his Tigers days, when he turned out as a guest player.
A new job with a tractor company took him to Harrogate, where he became a mainstay of the First XV, and then to Nigeria.
Two spells in Africa followed, spanning 12 years, but even emigration didn’t interrupt his rugby career, and he went on to captain one of only a handful of sides there.
After settling back in the UK, Brian renewed his ties with Oakham in the late 1980s and hasn’t missed a season since.
“It’s the interaction with other people,” he said.
“It keeps me in touch with everyone and people of all ages, all the way down - the next oldest player in our team is 30. You hear what their aspirations are.”
First team call-ups slowed after passing 40 as younger guns were given their turn.
There was even a fifth team appearance when Oakham was at its peak, as well as veterans rugby for Stamford and Melton Mowbray.
And he continued to fill in when required - his last first team outing came aged 60.
Yet no matter what the level, the enthusiasm and interest remains undimmed.
Age and its fresh perspective also liberated him from the pressure of results.
“If we are losing by 50 points I just keep on playing as I would if we were winning,” he said.
“One of the players told me they worry about winning or losing, and then they look at me and I’m just playing as I normally do.”
After spending a good chunk of his career sprinting up and down the touchline at full-back, the march of time spurred a move into a less roving role in the second row of the scrum.
“Normally you would expect to do half a game, but if I go on at the beginning I might be on for the whole game so I don’t run around too much in the first half,” he said.
“You are better off with 15 on the pitch, even if the 15th player is doing practically nothing.
“If a scrum doesn’t go backwards, I have done what I need to do.”
Instead of silverware, Brian’s proudest legacy at Oakham was his part in establishing a now thriving junior section, and the success of a youth team he coached.
And on the pitch, even after more than 50 seasons, there was still room for breaking new ground.
Against Burbage this season, Brian played in the only position he had not previously filled.
“I was a reserve front row and 99 per cent of the time you don’t do anything, but our guy at prop lasted about 90 seconds before he was injured so I went in,” he explained.
“The first scrum didn’t work out very well and so I swapped with the hooker, and that completed my list of playing a full match in every position.”
Now ‘semi-retired’ in Langham, work on his small holding and installing solar panels gives him the conditioning he needs to continue packing down in the second row each weekend.
“I’ve cracked a bone now and again, but the work that I do keeps me fit,” he added.
“I used to go training quite a lot, but for the last five years I’ve had this place so I’m out in the fresh air carting bales about.”
With a playing record that long, no-one could say his lifetime achievement award, from Leicestershire Rugby Union in 2018, was not earned.
But still the inevitable question - how much longer?
“To get to this season was a little bit of a target,” he said.
“I know I won’t go on forever, but I don’t know when I’ll stop. If there were a lot of rugby players I wouldn’t get picked, but there aren’t.”
