Roger Miles Uttley (born 11 September 1949) OBE is a former English

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

player.

Career

Uttley played 23 games for

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 b ...

both in the second row and the back row, five times as captain, and four tests in the Lions back row on the undefeated 1974 tour to South Africa. Roger was born in

Blackpool Blackpool is a seaside resort in Lancashire, England. Located on the North West England, northwest coast of England, it is the main settlement within the Borough of Blackpool, borough also called Blackpool. The town is by the Irish Sea, betw ...

, attended Montgomery High School, and

Blackpool Grammar School Blackpool Aspire Academy is a secondary school located in the Layton area of Blackpool, Lancashire, England. The school was formed in 2014 by merging Collegiate High School with Bispham High School Arts College. It was temporarily located on Bi ...

and played first for Fylde then

Gosforth Gosforth is a suburb of the city and metropolitan borough of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It constituted a separate Urban district (Great Britain and Ireland), urban district from 1895 until 1974 before officially merging with the city of New ...

before finishing his career at

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. T ...

. He was a member of the famous North team which beat the All Blacks at Otley on 17 November 1979 and went on to play in the England team which won the Grand Slam in 1980, retiring from international rugby later that year. He coached the successful London and South East Divisional side in the mid to late 1980s before working with Geoff Cooke to coach and guide the England XV captained by

Will Carling William David Charles Carling (born 12 December 1965) is an English former rugby union player. He was England's youngest captain, aged 22, and won 72 caps from 1988 to 1996, captaining England 59 times. Under his captaincy, England won Five ...

to the final of the 1991 World Cup He was also assistant coach to the victorious 1989 British and Irish Lions tour to Australia. In 1997 he was asked to manage the England XV, a job he enjoyed doing despite it coinciding with the infamous tour to hell. Due to cutbacks within the RFU the post of manager became financially unviable and he lost his position along with 30 other RFU employees. His day job has always been in teaching physical education and for 20 years he was Director of that subject at

Harrow School (The Faithful Dispensation of the Gifts of God) , established = (Royal Charter) , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent schoolBoarding school , religion = Church of E ...

. In 2008 he retired to look after his wife and was succeeded by Jesse Coulson. He also taught at Cramlington High School for some years in the 1970s. He is a former president of Sparks and a current council member of the same charity. He is an honorary member of

Wooden Spoon Wooden Spoon may refer to: * Wooden spoon, implement * Wooden spoon (award) A wooden spoon is an award that is given to an individual or team that has come last in a competition. Examples range from the academic to sporting and more frivolous e ...

the charity for disadvantaged children and young people. In August 2014, Uttley was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.

References

External links

ESPN Scrum Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uttley, Roger 1949 births Living people British & Irish Lions rugby union players from England England international rugby sevens players England international rugby union players English rugby union players Fylde Rugby Club players Male rugby sevens players Newcastle Falcons players Officers of the Order of the British Empire Rugby union locks Rugby union players from Blackpool Wasps RFC players Teachers at Harrow School