Cathal BarryRugby legend Ollie Campbell speaks to Cathal Barry about life, faith and the future
They don’t make ‘em like Ollie Campbell any more. It’s a shame. He’s a real old-fashioned gentleman.
Ollie is arguably Ireland’s greatest ever fly-half, yet admittedly remains a “reluctant” interviewee.
He claims to lack the “eloquence” necessary to do his 61 years justice but in truth he handles words with the same grace that he used to kick a ball.
Born on Westland Row exactly 100 years after Oscar Wilde was born on the same street, Seamus Oliver Campbell was baptised in the nearby popular St Andrew’s Church before his family made the move across the Liffey to Malahide.
Ollie described growing up in the “idyllic surroundings” of the leafy north Dublin suburb as a “blessing”.
“Growing up in Malahide was like growing up in a playground. It was just such a wonderful place,” he told The Irish Catholic, listing off endless activities such as tennis, cricket, golf, fishing and swimming, that he took part in throughout his youth there.
Blessing
Another “blessing” for Ollie was being sent to the Jesuit-run Belvedere College on Great Denmark Street. His brothers Martin, Stuart and Michael attended the same school, while his sister, Mona, went to Scoil Íosa, now known as Malahide Community School.
Belvedere’s Jesuit ethos left a “lasting impression” on Ollie.
“The Jesuits, whether you like it or not, really get in under your skin. Their influence really never leaves you.
“They taught excellence and aspiration,” he said, and “that you are a winner once you try”.
Listing well-known expressions associated with Jesuit education such as “give us the boy and we will give you back the man” as well as the order’s goal to create “men for others”, Ollie said they “all seem to hold true in real life”.
The other lasting impression the Jesuits seem to leave on their pupils, Ollie noted, was the “importance of having a social conscience”.
“Sometimes it’s even subconscious but the Jesuits give you a broader picture of the world and to always be on the lookout for those who might be less fortunate than you.
“Either consciously or subconsciously that just seems to carry on in many Belvederians that I would know to this day,” he said.
Having mentioned mind and soul, body was the obvious missing link in Ollie’s evidently holistic education. Missing until he was “bitten” by the rugby “bug” that is, and “it’s been a love affair ever since”.
Starting out with Belvedere’s under nine’s team, Ollie took to the game “like a duck to water” and has “loved every single minute” of his involvement in the sport ever since.
“They say rugby is not just a sport, it’s a way of life and that thankfully has been the way it has been for me,” he said.
En route to playing for the school’s senior team, the talented youngster was even coached by the well-known Fr Peter McVerry SJ, who has previously joked that
Ollie “survived” a season under his tutelage. Nevertheless, Ollie regards the renowned homeless campaigner as a “living saint” who taught him a great deal.
Attempting to explain the phenomenon that is schoolboy rugby, particularly in Leinster, Ollie defers to another famed Old Belvederian, rugby star and businessman, Sir Anthony O’Reilly.
“He once said that the Leinster Schools Senior Cup final is one of the top ten blue-riband annual sporting events in the world. So that would be one perspective,” Ollie suggested.
Perspective
Another perspective Ollie offered was from Sir Anthony again, who said that despite losing by a last-minute try that resulted from an unfortunate intercepted pass, playing in a Leinster Schools Senior Cup final was a better experience than winning his first cap for Ireland against France on the same ground less than a year later.
“I think it’s hard to add to those two particular comments in terms of just how serious and important the Leinster Schools Senior Cup is to anybody who is lucky enough to take part in it,” Ollie said.
Ollie’s alma mater has now won the coveted cup 10 times in its 183-year history. This reporter was lucky enough to be part of the school’s most recent victory in 2008, but Ollie, of course, can do much better. He was involved in back-to-back titles in 1971 and again in ’72, while both his uncles Seamus and Michael captained the winning sides of ’38 and ’46 respectively.
“Our family have actually been involved in four of the 10 wins so it’s part of the tapestry of my life,” he said.
Rugby, as readers will be aware, didn’t stop for Ollie after he left school.
He describes a whirlwind six weeks that saw a string of good luck lead to his international debut against Australia in Lansdowne Road as if it were yesterday.
Playing club rugby for Old Belvedere, Ollie got a call which would see him on the bench for a thrashing of his home province against old rivals Munster in Thomand Park in November 1975.
The inevitable “wholesale changes” after such a thumping meant he would win his first cap for Leinster against Ulster the following month.
The game, which happened to be the 100th anniversary of the first ever match between the two provinces, was a “dream”.
“It was one of those games where we didn’t put a foot wrong and everything went right.”
Having “against all expectations” won the match, Ollie was then selected as a reserve for a test against southern hemisphere giants Australia on their European tour early in the New Year of 1976.
There was no stopping his purple patch then either. A tip on the shoulder at lunch the day before the big game by then coach Roly Meates would inform the unsuspecting Ollie that first choice out-half Barry McGann was unable to play and he would be starting in his stead.
“That was the good news,” Ollie said, noting that the team went on to lose the following day and he was subsequently dropped.
“From the time I first started playing in Belvedere as an under nine to the time I retired 21 years later, the only team I was ever dropped from was that Irish team after my first Irish cap,” he recalled.
Surprisingly, Ollie didn’t get his second cap until the infamous Irish tour to Australia in 1979.
His three-year sojourn was forced through injury and the arrival on the scene of another rugby great, Tony Ward, who was interviewed on these pages this time last year.
Having been injured for most of that season, Ollie was admittedly “very happy to even have been named” in the touring squad.
Indeed, there was nobody more surprised than Ollie, other than perhaps Ward, when he was handed the No.10 jersey for the first test.
“It was one of the best feelings I had in my career,” he said.
Recalling that there was “no such thing as skype or mobile phones in those days”, Ollie said “everyone at home was completely oblivious to the surprise selection at the time”.
To put into perspective just how much of a shock Ollie’s selection at out-half was at the time, on the same day the news broke that Pope John Paul II was to visit Ireland in September of that year, The Irish Press had as its front page headline: “Ward out, Campbell in.”
The Pope’s visit, which saw some three million people welcome the Pontiff at five different venues around the country, managed to nab the off-lead in the newspaper that day.
Australia
The tour to Australia was a success, with that Irish side becoming the first northern hemisphere team to win a test series as an individual country in the southern hemisphere.
“I suppose in many ways that was the real start to my international career,” Ollie admits, adding that then coach Noel Murphy still reminds him to this day that if his “enormous decision” to select Ollie hadn’t worked he would now be an Australian citizen!
It’s worth noting of course that all of this occurred while rugby was still an amateur sport.
Ollie explained that “without any exaggeration at all you would play for Ireland on a Saturday, it wouldn’t even cross your mind not to play for your club on the Sunday and then you would go back to work on the Monday”.
The IRB rules at the time were that no international team could meet and train more than 48 hours before kick-off at the weekend, so the Irish squad would typically gather for lunch in the Shelbourne Hotel on the Thursday before a Saturday test and would train afterwards.
Working in the family business meant getting time off for rugby “was never an issue” for Ollie.
His family were in the rag trade, an industry Ollie still works in to this day, running his own company, Ollie Campbell Clothing, which he set up some 25 years ago.
Ollie lists among his career highlights winning the Triple Crown in February 1982, which was only the fifth in Ireland’s history and the first to be won in Lansdowne Road.
There were of course the two Lions tours to South Africa in 1980 and New Zealand in 1983 which although unsuccessful, were “experiences of a lifetime” for all those who took part.
On the touchy subject of his retirement, Ollie said he is “finally actually beginning to cope with it quite well”.
He’s speaking tongue-in-cheek of course, but this reporter gets the impression there’s a mild truth in the remark.
Chronic hamstring problems forced Ollie’s retirement at the tender age of 29.
“It was very difficult to go from being so immersed in the game feeling that my best rugby was still ahead of me to have to retire. It was very tough. It was very difficult. It took a lot of getting used to,” he said.
Ollie threw himself into his business but admitted that “there is no real replacement for playing” the game.
“Not everyone gets to retire on their own terms and I certainly didn’t. It was a tough time but like everything else you just have to get on with it.
“The fact that my career stopped early would be one of the major regrets and disappointments in my life,” he said.
Turning to what gives him strength, Ollie revealed that his faith is a “very important” part of his life. “I’m a weekly Mass goer. It would be a rare Sunday that I wouldn’t get Mass,” he said. “I believe. My parents would have been a massive influence on that. They were both very strong believers and then you add in the Jesuit influence as well. I have a very strong faith. It’s a very important part of my life,” he said.
On the subject of faith, Ollie recalled a conversation with one of his idols, another rugby great, Jack Kyle.
Kyle briefly explained ‘Pascal’s Wager’ to him as “it’s better to live a life as if there is a God, just in case!”
“So that features strongly as well,” Ollie admitted.
Looking forward to Christmas, Ollie said it’s a time that should be “all about family”. “I have 11 nieces and nephews so Christmas really revolved around them,” he said.
Looking beyond that, to the future, Ollie said he is beginning to become more aware of his own morality.
He’s just 61 but describes his life as a play. Having competed the first two acts, he now has “question marks” around what to do as he enters the final third.
“What to do with my third act has been fermenting in the back of my mind recently,” he said.
One thing is for sure, whatever route the great Ollie Campbell takes, his admirers would love to see an encore.