Ask any Leicester or England fan for their memories of Julian White and they will probably recount stories of his destructive scrummaging and chequered disciplinary record. In his playing days, he had a fearsome reputation as a no-nonsense prop.
But that is not the man who welcomes Daily Mail Sport to his Crabtree Farm home on the Northamptonshire-Leicestershire border. Nor is it the man who has amassed nearly 15,000 Instagram followers by providing an intriguing social media insight into his new post-rugby life in the country.
‘I’m sure some people remember me for hitting people,’ says the former tighthead. ‘Rugby wasn’t about fighting for me, but I did get sent off quite a few times. I’m not proud of it. It doesn’t make you a tough guy. It just makes you ill-disciplined.
‘You can’t live your life like I sometimes did on a rugby field. You’d be locked up! The punch-up with (Sale’s) Andrew Sheridan (in a 2009 Premiership match) was bad because we were good mates. I haven’t spoken to him since that day.
‘When we played Leinster (in 2008) and I got sent off for punching Malcolm O’Kelly, it looks like I just started randomly hitting him, but somebody had hold of my genitalia in a ruck.
‘I’m generally very amicable but in the past things have happened in my mind on the field and that takes you to a different place. You can have a split personality and I do think I’ve got two sides.’
Former England prop Julian White on his farm on the Northamptonshire-Leicestershire border. ‘I want people to come here and think I’ve done a good job,’ he says
Prop star White in action for England for whom he won 51 caps between 2000 and 2009
A member of Sir Clive Woodward’s England World Cup-winning squad of 2003, White won 51 caps for his country, four for the Lions, and lifted three league titles with Leicester. Now, as the sole man in charge of a 500-acre estate, a 100-strong herd of South Devon cattle and around 800 sheep, his life is very different.
‘I loved rugby and I did OK, but I didn’t make millions playing,’ White says. ‘Rugby is not like being a doctor or solicitor. It’s not a long-term job. It was a small chapter in my life and I moved on from it long ago. I genuinely love what I do now. When I retired, my plan was always to work really hard at farming. And if that didn’t work, I’d then work even harder.’
White rises each day long before 5am and often posts to Instagram – almost always starting his videos with an upbeat: ‘Good morning! How are you?’
‘I don’t know what I’m doing on Instagram, really,’ he says. ‘But thank you for coming. It’s great you want to speak to me. Had I not stated my Instagram page, I’d just be like any other old prop and you might not be sat here talking to me.
‘It’s all so alien to me. I’m sure I look quite mad, walking around a field looking at a phone. But because I’m on my own a lot, it’s a way of connecting with people. There have been positives to it. I got a free pair of leggings! Hopefully, it helps the farm out. It might pay a few bills.’
But White doesn’t sugarcoat the realities of farming. He heaps praise on Jeremy Clarkson, who has done likewise in his popular Clarkson’s Farm television show. White was also delighted to see Clarkson’s Farmers Choir crowned winners of Britain’s Got Talent.
‘I’m not sure if I’ve had depression, but there have been dark times where you’ve got bu***r all money, your wife isn’t happy, you’ve got the children to look after and there are animals dying outside,’ he says.
‘People see the green grass and the new-born lambs, but farming is a steep learning curve. I want people to come here and think I’ve done a good job.
‘People see the green grass and the new-born lambs, but farming is a steep learning curve,’ says White of his new day job
White in action for the British and Irish Lions in Auckland in 2005
‘That drives me on. It’s very hard. It’s a basic lifestyle. It’s life. It’s death. I was up at half three the other day because a calf was calving. There have been years where I don’t know how we’ve got through it. I don’t do much after-dinner speaking, but sometimes that’s paid for us to keep going.
‘Resilience is in your make-up. If you have tough times, you can either spiral a bit or it can make you very motivated. It’s made me very motivated.’
White’s pride in his livelihood is obvious. Dressed in Canterbury rugby shorts and a shirt, he still retains the hulking physique of a rugby player – one honed by his ongoing physical exertions. But in many ways, it is remarkable he is still able to roam his land and played 15 years of professional rugby. After leaving his childhood home in Devon for New Zealand, White experienced a life-changing incident.
‘I’m not the only person that has had a car crash but those sorts of things focus the mind,’ he says. ‘I was a young guy. The person in the other car was a young girl. She unfortunately passed away in the accident.
‘I’ve met the parents. Events like that give you huge motivation to succeed. My wife, Sara, sorted me out a bit. I used to be a bit loose when I’d had a few beers.’
White broke his leg in the crash and was offered a lifeline to return to Britain with a contract at Welsh side Bridgend. There, Wales and Lions great JPR Williams – then Bridgend’s team manager and a qualified surgeon – operated on him to fix the limb. White’s club career progressed impressively from there and he went on to play for Saracens, Bristol and Leicester as well as England and the Lions.
‘It was great to be involved at the 2003 World Cup, but even now I still feel imposter syndrome that I was there. I was very lucky to go,’ White says. ‘I played a couple of games but for me it’s quite hard to say I won the World Cup. For some of us in that squad, it was a bit of a hollow victory as we weren’t involved much.
White (back row, far left) meets the Queen at Buckingham Palace with the rest of England’s 2003 World Cup-winning squad
‘It was great to be involved at the 2003 World Cup, but even now I still feel imposter syndrome that I was there,’ says White
White won three Premiership titles with Leicester during his career
‘With Clive’s England, you had to be 15 minutes early to meetings and training. One day, I don’t know why, but I thought it was a good idea to take my motorbike to training. I wasn’t even supposed to have a motorbike.
‘It was bloody quick! I roared off down to Pennyhill Park, got a bit sidetracked, and was running late. I ran down the corridor in my leathers and could hear the meeting going ahead. Clive was talking. It was like being late for the headmaster’s office!
‘I wondered if I should not go in at all, but I thought I may as well go for it. I sat in the meeting in my leathers. Shocking. Mark Regan, in his west country accent, looked at me and said: “Ere, bab. Who ordered a f*****g pizza?” Everyone was crying with laughter.
‘I looked so stupid. Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t in the team that weekend against Argentina! I don’t think Clive was too impressed.’
