Today my guest is author and rugby historian James Stafford. A self confessed rugby fanatic, James is the founder of cult rugby website The East Terrace, and has written on rugby for publications such as The Daily Telegraph, Irish Independent, Metro, ESPN Scrum.com, and Rugby World. In 2017 his collection of short comics, The Sorrowful Putto of Prague, was published to critical acclaim in the Czech Republic and James now lives in Prague and coaches with Nyrsko RFC. I wanted to chat with James about his current opinion on the state of rugby worldwide, as well as his catalogue of books, so I hope you are sitting comfortably and happy to stay with us.
We started our chat with me asking James about the origins of his love for rugby (04:15), the psychical development of current professional rugby players, and the current perception of the English international team (15:20). We then talked about Irish team and how it has improved over the last decade (19:22), the recent World Cup in France (25:30), and the future of the game across the world (34:18). Towards the end of our conversation we discussed the women’s game (42:18) and finished up with me asking James what he is reading and watching at the moment (48:50).
Show notes
- The East Terrace website
- The East Terrace on Instagram
- James on X
- The Sorrowful Putto of Prague website
- For more, hear my conversations with Michael Lewis, David Goldstrom and Justin Middleton
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