Andrew James Goode (born 3 April 1980) is a

sports pundit A color commentator or expert commentator is a sports commentator who assists the main (play-by-play) commentator, typically by filling in when play is not in progress. The phrase "colour commentator" is primarily used in Canadian English and the ...

and retired

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the Comparison of rugby league and rugby union, two codes of ru ...

player. Goode had an 18-year professional career playing over 400 games and scoring over 4,000 points. He played professionally in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

featuring for

Leicester Tigers Leicester Tigers (officially Leicester Football Club) are a professional rugby union club based in Leicester, England. They play in Premiership Rugby, England's top division of rugby. The club was founded in 1880 and since 1892 plays its ho ...

Saracens upright 1.5, Late 15th-century German woodcut depicting Saracens Saracen ( ) was a term used in the early centuries, both in Greek and Latin writings, to refer to the people who lived in and near what was designated by the Romans as Arabia Pe ...

Worcester Warriors Worcester Warriors Rugby Football Club is a professional rugby union club, based in Worcester, England, that is currently in administration and which has been suspended and will be relegated from Premiership Rugby, the top division of domestic ...

Wasps A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. Th ...

and

Newcastle Falcons Newcastle Falcons is a rugby union team that play in Premiership Rugby, England's highest division of rugby union. The club was established in 1877 as the Gosforth Football Club. Around 1882 the club merged with the Northumberland Football C ...

in England's

Premiership Rugby Premiership Rugby, officially known as Gallagher Premiership Rugby, or the Gallagher Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is an English professional rugby union competition. The Premiership has consisted of thirteen clubs since 2021, and is the ...

CA Brive Club Athlétique Brive Corrèze Limousin, also referred to as CA Brive, Brive () or CAB, is a French professional rugby union club based in Brive-la-Gaillarde, in the Corrèze department. They compete in the first-tier Top 14 competition. Bri ...

in France's

Top 14 The Top 14 () is a professional rugby union club competition that is played in France. Created in 1892, the Top 14 is at the top of the national league system operated by the French National Rugby League, also known by its French initialism o ...

and for

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Building on various Southern Hem ...

's in South Africa. Goode represented 17 times between 2005 and 2009 scoring 107 points. Goode is the second highest scorer of all time in

, having previously been the record holder. During his career he won five Premiership titles (1999–2002 and 2007) and two European Cups (

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanistan ...

and

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains independence from Indonesia and ...

) all with Leicester; he also won the

RFU Championship The RFU Championship is an English rugby union competition comprising twelve clubs. It is the second level of men’s English rugby and is played by both professional and semi-professional players. The competition has existed since 1987, whe ...

with

Early life

Born 3 April 1980 in

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed ...

, Goode attended King Henry VIII School in

and

Bromsgrove School Bromsgrove School is a co-educational independent day and boarding school in the Worcestershire town of Bromsgrove, England. Founded in 1553, it is one of the oldest public schools in Britain, and one of the 14 founding members of the Headmaste ...

Bromsgrove Bromsgrove is a town in Worcestershire, England, about northeast of Worcester and southwest of Birmingham city centre. It had a population of 29,237 in 2001 (39,644 in the wider Bromsgrove/Catshill urban area). Bromsgrove is the main town in th ...

, Worcestershire. He started playing rugby union at the age of five at Barkers Butts, before moving to Nuneaton at 12. Up until then he had played at

scrum half Scrum may refer to: Sport * Scrum (rugby), a method of restarting play in rugby union and rugby league ** Scrum (rugby union), scrum in rugby union * Scrum, an offensive melee formation in Japanese game Bo-taoshi Media and popular culture ...

but soon found out he enjoyed the game better at

fly-half In the game of rugby union, there are 15 players on each team, comprising eight forwards (wearing jerseys numbered 1–8) and seven backs (numbered 9–15). In addition, there may be up to eight replacement players "on the bench", numbered 16– ...

. He also played for Warwickshire and the Midlands. He joined

aged 16. In 1998 Goode was selected to play for England Schools U18 and represented England at U21 level, playing at the 2000 SANZAR tournament in New Zealand.

Club career

Goode joined

as a youngster, despite his youth he played a substantial part in the Tigers' record four successive Premiership titles and also won two

Heineken Cup The European Rugby Champions Cup (known as the Heineken Champions Cup for sponsorship reasons) is an annual rugby union tournament organised by European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR). It is the top-tier competition for clubs who compete in a pre ...

winners' medals. Goode started the 2001 final and was an unused replacement in the 2002 final. He later moved to

and after moved back to his old club Leicester in 2003. Goode was nominated for player of the Season 2004-5 and the PRA Players' Player of the Year. He also ended the season voted player of the year by the Leicester Tigers members and players and in March 2008, Goode became the all-time leading points scorer in the English Premiership, overtaking

Jonny Wilkinson Jonathan Peter Wilkinson, CBE (born 25 May 1979) is an English former rugby union player. A fly-half, he played for Newcastle Falcons and Toulon and represented England and the British & Irish Lions. He is particularly known for scoring the ...

. Goode won his fifth Premiership medal in 2007, starting the final as Leicester defeated

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east of t ...

. In the game Goode scored a try, three conversions and a penalty. Following Leicester's 07/08 season, Goode left Welford Road and signed for French club

. Goode had a very impressive start in the

, scoring 235 points in his first season, making him the second highest point scorer in the

2008–09 Top 14 season The 2008–09 Top 14 Competition was a French domestic rugby union club competition operated by the Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR). It ran from late August 2008 through the final at Stade de France on June 6, 2009, in which Perpignan lifted the Bou ...

. He spent the early part of 2010 on loan to South African Super 14 franchise, the Sharks. He made his

Sharks Sharks are a group of elasmobranch fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the sides of the head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the clade Selachi ...

debut off the bench against the

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were ...

, but was sin-binned six minutes from full-time in this game following a head high tackle on Dan Carter. In February 2010, Goode signed with then English Premiership side Worcester Warriors. He joined the side in the summer, in preparation for the new season starting in September 2010. Goode scored a try, two conversions, a penalty and a drop-goal in leading Worcester Warriors to victory in the second leg of the Championship final against Cornish Pirates. This guaranteed promotion to the English Premiership for the 2011/2012 season. He returned to Welford Road in April 2012 for the match against Leicester Tigers but was sent off in the first half after hitting his old team

Tom Croft Tom Croft (born 7 November 1985) is a retired rugby union player. He played 173 games for Leicester Tigers between 2005–17 winning four Premiership Rugby titles, played 40 times for between 2008–2015, was part of the squad for th ...

high and late with his arm. Despite this performance, Andy Goode's consistent kicking performances were important in ensuring they ended the season above London Wasps and

. On 5 March 2013 it was announced that Goode would join London Wasps from the start of the 2013/2014 season. On 21 December 2014, in Wasps' first permanent home match at the

Ricoh Arena The Coventry Building Society Arena (often shortened to the CBS Arena or just simply Coventry Arena, and formerly known as the Ricoh Arena) is a complex in Coventry, England. It includes a 32,609-seater stadium which is currently home to footb ...

in his home town of

, Goode set a Premiership record of 33 points in a single match with 1 try, 2 conversions and 8 penalties, beating the joint record of 32 points set by

Niall Woods Niall Woods is a retired Irish rugby footballer. He retired in 2001 having earned 8 caps on the wing for the Irish national team between 1994 and 1999 as well as playing for Blackrock Coll, Dublin University, Leinster, London Irish, Harlequins ...

and equalled by Dave Walder and Tim Stimpson, as Wasps beat

London Irish London Irish RFC is a professional rugby union club which competes in the Premiership, the top division of English rugby union. The club has also competed in the Anglo-Welsh Cup, the European Champions Cup and European Challenge Cup. While ...

48–16. On 16 February 2015, it was announced Goode would join

at the end of the season. However, on 8 September 2015, it was announced Goode would retire due to injury problems without playing a single game for London Irish and was therefore released from his contract. On 28 December 2015, after having his injuries treated with a botulinum toxin solution, Goode came out of retirement with the

for three months as injury cover for Mike Delaney and Ruki Tipuna. Goode's first outing in Newcastle colours was in an Aviva A League match against Leicester Tigers A on 4 January 2016. He made his last appearance for Newcastle on 27 March 2016 and retired for a second time. Goode was inducted into

's ''Hall of fame'' in June 2021.

International career

Goode played five times for England Saxons in 2001 and 2002. He has also played 17 times for England. Goode made his England début as a replacement for Charlie Hodgson in the 2005 Six Nations victory over Italy, in which he also scored his first points from a conversion. Just before the 2009 Six Nations, Goode was called up to train with the England team and was subsequently named in the starting line-up for the match against . Goode went on to score the opening try of the 2009 Six Nations and converted it himself, ending the match with 16 points. While playing against Argentina

Old Trafford Old Trafford () is a football stadium in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, and the home of Manchester United. With a capacity of 74,310 it is the largest club football stadium (and second-largest football stadium overall after We ...

on 6 June 2009 he scored 22 points. He then scored 17 points against them in the match in

Salta Salta () is the capital and largest city in the Argentine province of the same name. With a population of 618,375 according to the 2010 census, it is also the 7th most-populous city in Argentina. The city serves as the cultural and economic ce ...

After Retirement

After retiring from professional rugby, Goode has become popular as a sport TV pundit and by hosting a podcast named "The Rugby Pod" with Jim Hamilton, another former international rugby union player from Scotland.

References

External links

Worcester Warriors player profile

Leicester Tigers player profile

England profile

Andy Goode Blog, Living Rugby
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goode, Andy 1980 births CA Brive players Coventry R.F.C. players England international rugby union players English rugby union players English expatriate rugby union players Expatriate rugby union players in France Expatriate rugby union players in South Africa Living people Leicester Tigers players Newcastle Falcons players People educated at King Henry VIII School, Coventry People educated at Bromsgrove School Rugby union players from Coventry Saracens F.C. players Sharks (rugby union) players Sportspeople from Bromsgrove Wasps RFC players Worcester Warriors players Rugby union fly-halves