Danny Care explains bizarre arrest that turned his life around

Every sportsperson has their own story. Some may have come from a background where financial support wasn’t plentiful, others may have struggled with size, whilst others were the cause of their own struggle.

Well, Danny Care has been speaking on the England Rugby Podcast all about his own troubles in his younger days. Now 36 years old, Care is one of the older gentlemen in international and club rugby, and with advanced age comes a great deal of experience.

Not only able to benefit from his experience on the field, but Care has also been detailing the lessons learned off of it.

 

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“I got arrested for urinating in the street” Care started. “I’ll never forget my dad picking me up from the police station in the morning.

“He was just so disappointed,” Care said about his father. “I could hardly look him in the eye, I knew that I’d let a lot of people down, I knew I’d lost a lot of respect and trust from a lot of people, like I said, my parents, my coaches.

“I realised I was I was just killing myself really, if I wanted to be a successful rugby player and play for England then I realised I had to sort my my life out.”

Fans were quick to take the mickey out of Care, with one fan saying “Don’t know how you can live with yourself after doing that Danny.”, whilst another said “Lucky to avoid a life sentence with that kind of crime mate”.

Whilst one fan admitted it has an air of “Running through a field of wheat” about it, it is an important lesson to any young player that there is always time to turn things around.

Recently Care spoke to the BBC’s Rugby Union Weekly podcast, in which he chatted about his excitement to be back in the England squad.

“In 2011 I was named in the squad but got injured in a warm-up game and didn’t make the plane to New Zealand. In 2015 I was in the squad but didn’t play an awful lot. In 2019 I didn’t even make a pre-World Cup camp.

“Did I think I would be here in 2023? If you had asked me a couple years ago, probably not.

“But I never gave up that hope. The dream was always still there. I would like to play as many World Cup games as I possibly can.”