Mangan Memorial unites Rugby greats

At 7.45pm on Friday, the evening before England take on Ireland at Twickenham, a game of legends takes place at The Stoop. It will be the first ever Stuart Mangan Memorial Match. Stuart passed away suddenly in August 2009, almost a year and a half after suffering a spinal injury – “the worst possible” – whilst playing for Hammersmith and Fulham RFC. The England Legends, captained by Martin Corry, will include Jason Leonard, Richard Cockerill, Mark Regan, Jason Robinson, Tim Stimpson, Matt Perry, Dan Luger, Neil Back and Josh Lewsey. Their Irish counterparts, led by Shane Byrne, include Reggie Corrigan, Victor Costello, Rob Henderson, Anthony Horgan, Kevin Maggs, Tyrone Howe and David Humphreys. Proceeds from the game will go towards Keith Wood’s Paralysed Rugby Player’s Fund and the Matt Hampson Trust. Tickets are just £5 for students.

Matt Hampson is now a well-known name in world rugby. His story is truly inspiring, not just for those who have suffered similar tragedies, but for the public in general. Matt first walked onto a rugby pitch at the age of five. He was “crying” as his mother remembers. Yet “Hambo” came to love the game. He was a young prop of significant talent. He joined the Leicester Tigers Academy at fifteen years old, represented England U-19s at a World Cup and then stepped up to the U-21s. He was set to go all the way. On March 15 2005 he was preparing to take on Scotland in the U-21 Six Nations. It was scrummaging practice. His favourite. International referee Tony Spreadbury was there to oversee the session. “Crouch. Hold. Engage!” This scrum went down. The weight of fifteen forwards crashed upon him. He could not breathe – that is all he remembers. Matt had dislocated his neck. His career had been ended in an instant. He was just twenty years old.

Matt and his family were thrown into great darkness. While Matt was unconscious for three days, his family panicked as the medical staff at Northampton General Hospital were unable to find him a single bed in any spinal unit in the country. He finally emerged from a four hour operation with a hole cut into his throat to pump air to his lungs. During these days Matt remembers a series of dreams which swelled through his mind. He defused bombs, got trapped in lifts, was shot by “Welsh” gunman and was air ambulanced to hospital. (Strangely, these all took place in France!) All the while his mother sat and cried by his bedside. When he finally opened his eyes he could not speak or feel his limbs. The Hampsons tried to stay positive but when Matt was still in a critical condition three months on this became harder and harder. He had become quadriplegic. Black thoughts pervaded their minds.

Matt would require an estimated £8 million to support him through his life. This bombshell was not eased by the RFU. They sent the Hampsons a letter nine months on stating they would be terminating their financial support within three months. The Hampsons went to war. Matt’s mother, Anne, eventually defeated the powers that be at ‘HQ’. She demanded they accept their responsibility to look after one of their own. Matt had after all been injured on international duty. She won. RFU president, Martyn Thomas, has since promised life-long support. Such determination has come to characterise the family. The kindness Matt received finally changed his outlook towards the circumstances he found himself in. When he looked around at those other patients in the unit he realised how fortunate he was. “There are a lot of people in here who don’t have anyone, there are a lot of people in here who sit and basically just rot, and it’s horrible”, he said. Matt had people. He had adoring parents, friends, team-mates and strangers even. He always had people visiting him; he always had people asking about him. There was a role model too.

“There are two kinds of people in this hospital. The people who think the world owes them a favour because of this terrible injury they’ve suffered, and the people like Paul Tiana”, declares Matt. “Paul is tetraplegic which means he has some movement in his arms, but he didn’t want any favours, he didn’t want anyone pushing his wheelchair or doing anything for him”. Within three months Paul was running his own business again. Matt invested in such drive. He finally left Stoke Mandeville hospital after seventeen months, still paralysed from the neck down and breathing through a ventilator. Yet he is full of life and has even regained some feeling in one of his shoulders. Matt explains: “I live in an adapted barn next to my parents’ home in Rutland. I go to most of the Tigers home games, write a regular column on rugby for the Leicester Mercury, write interviews for a rugby magazine and coach the game from time to time at a local boarding school. I also am a patron of Special-Effect, a disability charity, have my own website and memorabilia company and am in the process of writing a book. Life is good”. He has become “Hambo” once again.

His father, Phil, recalls Matt saying soon after the injury: “I’ll be a better person for this in the long run, Dad”. Though Matt has had his physical athleticism torn away, he still retains an intense mental toughness. He craves challenges: “I might not walk again, I might not get any feeling back in my arms, but they’re making progress with the research, so there’s always hope. That’s why raising money and raising awareness is so important”. His efforts have been phenomenal. May 2009 saw the first ‘Walk4Matt’ event which raised thousands of pounds for people with disabilities. Matt was joined by the likes of Martin Johnson and Dusty Hare, as well as members of the public, on the nine day walk from Rugby to Twickenham to watch the Guinness Premiership Final. It was a great success, not least because Matt’s beloved Leicester were crowned champions! Matt will also be in attendance on Friday evening at The Stoop.

In October 2008, Matt published an article in The Times entitled ‘Why Matt Hampson chose to live’. This was written following the tragic news of Dan James’ suicide. He had suffered a similar accident to Matt. Despite Matt’s efforts to support him, Dan tried to take his own life on numerous occasions. He finally did so in September 2008 in Switzerland. While he hopes Dan has now found peace, suicide is something Matt declares he has never once contemplated. Now twenty-five years old, he firmly lives by the motto: “get busy living or get busy dying”. It is endearing to see Matt’s sheer bloody-mindedness and positivity in the face of such tragedy. Yet by his own admission he has been extremely fortunate in the support he has received. Sadly, many quadriplegics in his unit had no one there for them. Their injuries were not rugby-related. They did not have the rugby world to embrace them as Matt did. These are the people the ‘legends’ at The Stoop are really playing for. If the English and Irish can raise awareness for the cause then that should be classified as a success for the sport. I’m sure “Hambo” would share similar sentiments.