Rob Andrew
Encyclopedia
Christopher Robert "Rob" Andrew MBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 (born 18 February 1963 in Richmond, Yorkshire), nicknamed "Squeaky", is a former English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

 footballer and currently Director of Operations at the RFU
Rugby Football Union
The Rugby Football Union was founded in 1871 as the governing body for the sport of rugby union, and performed as the international governing body prior to the formation of the International Rugby Board in 1886...

. He was formerly the Director of Rugby of Newcastle Falcons
Newcastle Falcons
The Newcastle Falcons is an English rugby union team currently playing in the Aviva Premiership. The club was established in 1877 and played under the name of Gosforth Football Club until 1990. The name was then changed to Newcastle Gosforth and the club began to play at Kingston Park stadium in...

. As a player, Andrew was assured in his kicking and defensive skills off both feet. Andrew also had a brief career in first-class cricket
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

.

Domestic

Andrew attended Barnard Castle School
Barnard Castle School
Barnard Castle School , is a co-educational independent day and boarding school situated in the market town of Barnard Castle, in the North East of England. It was founded in 1883 as the North Eastern County School, with the name changed to the current one in 1924, and to this day is generally...

, and was captain of the 1st XV in 1981. He then attended St John's College Cambridge and played for Cambridge University in the Varsity Match
The Varsity Match
The Varsity Match is an annual rugby union fixture played between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge in England. By tradition, the match is held on the second Tuesday of December. In 2005, however, this changed, and the match was on Tuesday 6 December. In 2007, it was held on a Thursday for...

. He joined Nottingham
Nottingham R.F.C.
Nottingham Rugby Football Club are a rugby union club based in Nottingham, England. The club's first team currently play in the Championship, the second tier of English Rugby....

 for one season in 1985/86 and then joined Wasps FC
Wasps FC
Wasps FC is the amateur side of the Wasps rugby union club formed in 1867. The men's first team was split from Wasps FC at the turn of professionalism, for the 1996-97 season, to become Wasps RFC, owned by Chris Wright, and later became London Wasps in the summer of 1999...

 where he was first choice fly-half throughout most of the eight seasons he spent with the north London club. At Wasps FC
Wasps FC
Wasps FC is the amateur side of the Wasps rugby union club formed in 1867. The men's first team was split from Wasps FC at the turn of professionalism, for the 1996-97 season, to become Wasps RFC, owned by Chris Wright, and later became London Wasps in the summer of 1999...

 he won the English League in 1990, eventually leaving to join Newcastle Gosforth in 1995 as both a player and as director of rugby. The club had just been bought out by Sir John Hall in the leadup to the game turning professional, they became the Falcons of today. During his time in charge of Newcastle Falcons
Newcastle Falcons
The Newcastle Falcons is an English rugby union team currently playing in the Aviva Premiership. The club was established in 1877 and played under the name of Gosforth Football Club until 1990. The name was then changed to Newcastle Gosforth and the club began to play at Kingston Park stadium in...

 he is credited with discovering Jonny Wilkinson
Jonny Wilkinson
Jonathan Peter "Jonny" Wilkinson OBE is an English rugby union player and member of the England national team. Wilkinson rose to acclaim from 2001 to 2003, before and during the 2003 Rugby World Cup and was acknowledged as one of the world’s best rugby players...

.
His playing career was ended in 1999 after an injury in training.

International

Andrew was fly-half for England
England national rugby union team
The England national rugby union team represents England in rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and Wales. They have won this championship on 26 occasions, 12 times winning the Grand Slam, making them the most successful team in...

 during the Will Carling
Will Carling
William David Charles Carling, OBE is a former Rugby union player for Harlequins, and a former captain of England from 1988 to 1996, winning 72 caps.-Early life:...

 era, making a winning debut in January 1985 against Romania at Twickenham . For the next 10 years he was England's regular fly-half earning 70 caps, including 2 as captain. After England finished 4th in the 1995 Rugby Union World Cup, he saw out his contract at Wasps and moved to the Newcastle Falcons
Newcastle Falcons
The Newcastle Falcons is an English rugby union team currently playing in the Aviva Premiership. The club was established in 1877 and played under the name of Gosforth Football Club until 1990. The name was then changed to Newcastle Gosforth and the club began to play at Kingston Park stadium in...

. He made his final appearance for England after an absence of almost 2 years when he was called off the bench as a try scoring replacement against Wales in March 1997. In total, he scored 396 international points, won the Grand Slam with England 3 times and held the English record for the most points scored in an international - 30, scored against Canada in 1994. Critics of the England side blamed him for kicking the ball too much rather than passing. England
England national rugby union team
The England national rugby union team represents England in rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and Wales. They have won this championship on 26 occasions, 12 times winning the Grand Slam, making them the most successful team in...

 did, however, enjoy a great deal of success with him as their Number 10.

He played in 3 Rugby World Cup competitions; 1987 (making 2 appearances), 1991 and 1995. Curiously, just as Wilkinson
Jonny Wilkinson
Jonathan Peter "Jonny" Wilkinson OBE is an English rugby union player and member of the England national team. Wilkinson rose to acclaim from 2001 to 2003, before and during the 2003 Rugby World Cup and was acknowledged as one of the world’s best rugby players...

 had beaten Australia
Australia national rugby union team
The Australian national rugby union team is the representative side of Australia in rugby union. The national team is nicknamed the Wallabies and competes annually with New Zealand and South Africa in the Tri-Nations Series, in which they also contest the Bledisloe Cup with New Zealand and the...

 in the 2003 Rugby World Cup final with a drop goal, the last time Australia
Australia national rugby union team
The Australian national rugby union team is the representative side of Australia in rugby union. The national team is nicknamed the Wallabies and competes annually with New Zealand and South Africa in the Tri-Nations Series, in which they also contest the Bledisloe Cup with New Zealand and the...

 lost in the same competition was in 1995. In that year, it was Andrew who nailed a drop goal on the stroke of full-time to beat the Wallabies
Australia national rugby union team
The Australian national rugby union team is the representative side of Australia in rugby union. The national team is nicknamed the Wallabies and competes annually with New Zealand and South Africa in the Tri-Nations Series, in which they also contest the Bledisloe Cup with New Zealand and the...

 25-22.

In 1989 he had the honour of captaining the British and Irish Lions
British and Irish Lions
The British and Irish Lions is a rugby union team made up of players from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales...

 against France
France national rugby union team
The France national rugby union team represents France in rugby union. They compete annually against England, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales in the Six Nations Championship. They have won the championship outright sixteen times, shared it a further eight times, and have completed nine grand slams...

 in a rare "home" match for the Lions. The game formed part of the celebrations of the bi-centennial of the French Revolution.

Post playing

Andrew remained as director of rugby at Newcastle Falcons after the injury that ended his playing career until on
August 18, 2006 he was appointed by the RFU to undertake the post of Director of Elite Rugby to oversee all aspects of representative rugby in England, from the regional academies to the full senior side. Although he has the above decision making powers, what he does not control is the employment status of the coaching team and staff.

On 6 January 2011, Andrew's role as director of elite rugby at the Rugby Football Union was scrapped in an overhaul of the organisation's structure. It was reported that Andrew was invited to apply for one of the new roles created by this process, that of operations director. At a press conference on 16 November 2011 Andrew's position was described as Director of Elite Rugby and he reportedly took several attempts to (inconclusively) describe his responsibilities.

Cricket career

Andrew was also a talented cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

er, gaining a Cambridge blue for that sport as well, and he made 17 first-class
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 appearances for the university cricket team
Cambridge University Cricket Club
Cambridge University Cricket Club is a first-class cricket team. It now plays all but one of its first-class cricket matches as part of the Cambridge University Centre of Cricketing Excellence , which includes Anglia Ruskin University...

 in 1984 and 1985, as well as playing five times for Combined Universities in one-day cricket
One-day cricket
Limited overs cricket, also known as one-day cricket and in a slightly different context as List A cricket, is a version of the sport of cricket in which a match is generally completed in one day, whereas Test and first-class matches can take up to five days to complete...

. A left-handed batsman and right arm off-break bowler, he made one first-class century, scoring 101 not out
Not out
In cricket, a batsman will be not out if he comes out to bat in an innings and has not been dismissed by the end of the innings. One may similarly describe a batsman as not out while the innings is still in progress...

 against Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club
Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Nottinghamshire, and the current county champions. Its limited overs team is called the Nottinghamshire Outlaws...

 in July 1984. Andrew also made a few appearances for the Yorkshire
Yorkshire County Cricket Club
Yorkshire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Yorkshire as one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure....

 Second XI, and on one occasion dismissed future England captain Michael Atherton (then aged 17) for a duck
Duck (cricket)
In the sport of cricket, a duck refers to a batsman's dismissal for a score of zero.-Origin of the term:The term is a shortening of the term "duck's egg", the latter being used long before Test cricket began...

.

Off the field

Andrew is an Honorary President of the rugby charity Wooden Spoon
Wooden Spoon Society
Wooden Spoon is a children's charity founded in 1983, when the England rugby team received the Wooden Spoon in the 5 Nations. Spoon is dedicated to helping children and young people who are disadvantaged physically, mentally or socially by using sport as a method of improving lives while...

, which raises funds for disadvantaged children and young people in the UK and Ireland.

See also


External links


  • Statistical summary from CricketArchive
    CricketArchive
    CricketArchive is a website that aims to provide a comprehensive archive of records relating to the sport of cricket. It claims to be the most comprehensive cricket database on the internet, including scorecards for all matches of first-class cricket , List A cricket , Women's Test cricket and...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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