This was the easiest article I’ve ever been able to scroll past.
thought I’d make bob feel better by replying.
This was the easiest article I’ve ever been able to scroll past.
thought I’d make bob feel better by replying.
Geez 81 and still playing...one tough old geyser.
thought I’d make bob feel better by replying
Wanna make me feel better ... make the changes that might encourage ouDawie to return.
Quit being a doos.
Ou Dawie and I are tight bob. We never had a problem with one another.
9,575 posts
OWEN SLOT
How I survived gruelling training session with rugby’s oldest player, 81
new
Bob Barrie is a lock for Bury third team and is taking big hits from opponents wanting to ‘take this old sod out’ — but he finds time to put me through my paces
Times photographer Bradley Ormesher
Owen Slot, Chief Sports Writer
Thursday March 19 2026, 7.25pm GMT, The Times
When we heard that there was a bloke still playing rugby at the age of 81, it was obvious: we had to go and find him, didn’t we? So many of life’s crucial questions were crying out to be answered here, like: what is the secret to eternal youth? What’s it like being hit by a tackle when you are in your eighties? And: do you ever get up?
Thus did we meet Bob Barrie, a lock forward for the Bury third team, which already doesn’t make sense, because if you were 81 and playing rugby, at the very least you’d be playing vets rugby with the over-35s, wouldn’t you?
But though Barrie does play occasionally for the Bury vets — the Black Puddings — he says, very straightforwardly, he doesn’t really see why he should be limited to being just a Pudding.
The Times photographer Bradley Ormesher
Times photographer bradley ormesher
The opening day of the season, against Fleetwood, was thus both dramatic and palindromic for Barrie. Dramatic, because Bury didn’t have a subs’ bench so he had to do the full 80; palindromic, because the 81-year-old had a team-mate playing at centre who was 18.
You wonder if there’s a deal agreed with the opposition before kick-off. You know, go easy on the octogenarian, lads.
But Barrie says no: “If you are playing rugby, you have got to be prepared to play along with the rules and everything that goes with it. I am quite happy to get tackled hard as long as it is a fair tackle.”
His notoriety doesn’t exactly help here. A few years back, Scallie, who plays on the wing, decided to get some clarity on Barrie’s senior status and eventually the RFU got back to him saying yes, he is the oldest player in the land, and that’s news which doesn’t always trigger a sympathetic response.
“There are one or two people who think, ‘I am going to take this old sod out,’ ” he says. “They tackle me off the ball, sneaky little tackles.”
Times photographer bradley ormesher
He had a bit of that last Friday night against Rochdale, and that was a vets game. “I got battered,” he says. “And I only played 20 minutes. I’m still aching now in one or two places.”
I ask him when was the last time he was on the end of a hit that really smashed and he goes back to a home game four seasons ago. “I can’t remember who we were playing,” he says.
“But from kick-off I caught the ball and did a side-step. The guy took it and then I did another side-step and this second guy didn’t take it at all and he hit me, and I literally went through the air. If you are cheeky enough to sell somebody a dummy and they don’t take it, then you suffer the consequences, don’t you?”
What bothers him more is being dropped to the ground after a lineout. Eventually, he asked Dobbo, one of the lifters, to guide him back down.
“And Dobbo said: ‘I always let people go like that.’ I said: ‘Yeah, most people have got young and flexible legs.’ I have noticed, these last two years, that my knees are taking a bit of hammering, especially the left one.”
Times photographer bradley ormesher
Generally, though, he just about survives because he has team-mates looking out for him and because his game involvements aren’t quite what they used to be. (I don’t think he’d mind me saying that.) And, crucially, he explained, because of his Monday night training regime.
It was at this point that the trouble started. Barrie has had Monday training as a fixture, booked in religiously, since his thirties. I asked him about the sessions and he started explaining how hard they are, how they do a number of different sets of exercises 100 times each, with endless running in between.
“If you really want to see how I can play rugby, you need to see these sessions,” he said. Then, he added, casually: “Why not bring your trainers?”
“Yeah, right,” I replied with zero enthusiasm. Participation journalism is something I’d given up on years ago.
Times photographer bradley ormesher
In these pages, you’ll occasionally see my colleague Will Kelleher — young, not lost any hair — doing this kind of stuff infuriatingly well: working out with the England rugby fitness coaches, doing a kicking clinic with George Ford.
I’ve done that stuff too: played pro-am tennis, did a workout with Jess Ennis, a day as the dragon mascot at Cardiff Arms Park (yes, pre-Principality rebuild and that really dates me).
Times photographer bradley ormesher
But those days are long gone, at least they were until Barrie said: “But I warn you, our Mondays are really hard,” and: “If you do join us, I’d suggest taking it easy, maybe not doing all the reps.”
At that point, from deep within me, some alpha-masculinity emerged, started flexing a muscle and telling me: “You’re not having that.”
Thus, it was that when I went to interview Barrie, I did indeed bring the trainers.
“Don’t go out too hard,” he warned. He was with Steve, the scrum half, who nodded sagely. Then Barrie mentioned the guy from the BBC who’d come on a similar mission and struggled on the bench step reps. “The number of times he puked up!” Barrie said.
“You’re trying to intimidate me,” I said.
“No, no,” he insisted, warmly.
By that time, his daughter, Tina, had turned up.
“What do you think of your dad still playing rugby at 81?” I asked.
“He’s a lunatic,” she said, laughing. “But I’m also really proud of him.”
“You don’t worry he’ll get hurt?”
“That’s always been the case,” she said, recollecting the game they were watching when he broke a leg and their mother said to leave him, it was his problem to sort out. “I’ve always said we’ll be carrying him off the pitch in his coffin. It’s the way he wants to go out, I reckon.”
At that point, Barrie interjected, explaining that wasn’t the broken leg. It was the broken arm. The leg was a different occasion.
Barrie’s rugby story starts like this. He went to a football school and played goalkeeper. He left aged 15, and went to work for the Churchill Machine Tool Company, who had a rugby team. Then he joined Old Salians, did 42 seasons there before moving to Ashton-on-Mersey and then Bury 12 years ago.
Over that time, he has faced the likes of Steve Smith and Mickey Skinner on the sevens pitch, and Steve Diamond in XVs playing for Metrovicks (“If you’d nicked a ball off him, he’d chase you around and try and stuff one on you. What a little bastard he was!”).
Those were his standout skills, at least they were 50 years ago, he says: mauling, ripping ball, breakdown work. And that was when he played back row and also had a nose for where to be for tryscoring offloads.
His tryscoring record isn’t so hot any more. So much so that he can’t remember when he last scored.
“But also,” he explains, “I don’t want to just go along, put shorts on and go on the pitch. I want to be involved. I’ve always said that when I couldn’t contribute to the game, that’s when I’d pack in.”
He also doesn’t want to be politely marginalised. “If I don’t get 40 minutes, I moan like hell! And every captain I’ve played for knows that,” he says.
Times photographer bradley ormesher
That’s very much Barrie’s approach to life: high standards and consistent behaviours. If he’s playing rugby, he expects 40 minutes. Minimum. If it’s a Saturday, he’ll always do his share of the ironing before leaving for the game. If it’s the first Friday in June, he’ll always walk the Yorkshire three peaks. And if it’s a Monday, he’ll have egg, chips and beans at five o’clock to fuel himself for the training that he will always do later.
Which brings us back to the aforementioned training session. Among our motley crew was: Solomon, abs of steel, aged 71; Bill, the ex-policeman, aged 74; scrum half Steve, 50, and “super-fit Chris”, who’s 60 and still runs ridiculously fast marathons.
The bad news was that they don’t take it easy. Not at all.
The good news was that I survived without too much humiliation. I did all the reps, I didn’t puke; Barrie even told me: “You did really well,” and without being patronising.
Barrie survived too, of course. No problem. But Barrie survives every week.
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