Ben Foden interview: Why I swapped New York for Scarborough

For this past summer, the former England international and Premiership winner traded in his New York lifestyle to move his young family 3,500 miles east to begin the first serious steps on his coaching journey when he accepted the dual role of director of rugby at Scarborough College and head coach of the Scarborough men’s team.

It was a huge coup for both the private school and a part-time team in the sixth tier to land a name as big as Foden, and one that got the rest of us proclaiming: “What?”

“I’ve never even been to Scarborough,” laughs Foden, 40, who was born in Chester, began his career at nearby Sale, made his name with Northampton and England, married a pop star and then tried to launch rugby Stateside with his move to New York towards the end of his playing days.

“The thing that was appealing for me was coming back and doing something I loved after four years in the real world out in America.

“I recognised pretty quickly that if you can do something you wake up and enjoy doing every day then life can be pretty good. I’d made a start on the coaching journey over there, I did a university in upstate New York for a year and ended up doing a season with Yale, just helping them out with the backs.

“They were small gigs but in terms of trying to make a career out of doing rugby, unless you’re playing the MLR or coaching in there, it’s not easy.”

His second wife, American actress Jacki Belanoff Smith, had grown disillusioned with the way America was being run and was ready for a break. So they sat down and laid out a plan.

“If we’re moving back to England I’d love to coach rugby and young kids,” remembers Foden. “That’s the area I wanted to go into, and then try and go up the levels and aim for the Prem eventually.

“But I want to earn my stripes. I always find it a little odd when coaches become the coach of a team they’ve played with and you’ve been out for drinks with the guys, then suddenly you’re a boss when you have to make tough decisions. So a school seemed a logical choice for me.”

Scarborough wasn’t his first choice, he actually applied for Sedbergh School on the outskirts of the Yorkshire Dales, but the process didn’t go well.

“I got to the last stage of the Sedbergh process but then interviewed terribly. I don’t know why, that’s usually my forte, but for some reason I just didn’t do very well,” he recalls. “I got off the phone, said to the wife, we may have to rethink this!”

But then someone involved in the recruitment process for Sedbergh put the Scarborough job in front of him.

Foden picks up the story: “The school is up and coming, the headmaster is really enthusiastic for sports, he wants to build the rugby programme out like the hockey and cricket programmes where they’re competing on a national scale, and it links into the local rugby club; an amateur club with brilliant facilities.

“I picked up the phone with Mr Emmett the headmaster, had a good conversation. It seemed like a really good fit and within three days of getting off that call we had contracts signed. I rushed out here for a visit, saw the rugby club, saw the school, met a few of the players and started setting out a plan for where we want to go this term.”

By day, Foden, is a rugby teacher.

“I came here stupidly and probably naively thinking I’d only be working with the school’s first team and the second team, the older kids,” he smiles, ruefully.

“When you’re building a team for the future you really have to invest time and energy into the Under-14s, 15s, 16s guys because they’re going to be the ones.

“I realised pretty quickly you only get the guys in the sixth form for two years, you can do a fair bit but not enough to push the programme on, so you’ve got to invest in the younger years and also recruit in the younger years as well.

“We’ve just had our big rugby term, we do a bit more development stuff for the first four or five weeks when we get back after Christmas before moving into Sevens, but my major job now over the next six months is to get around local schools and prep schools and find local rugby talent and try and coax them over to Scarborough.”

And Foden is enjoying the challenges more than he thought he would.

“It’s been eye-opening, and I’ve really enjoyed it because it’s a busy term,” he says. “During the season it’s hard to do extras and one-on-one sessions because you have a game on Wednesday and they’re playing for their club on a Saturday, so they’re pretty banged up. So where we can make a difference and the most improvement physically is in the off-season.

“I’ve already said to the guys if you’re not signed up for another sport you’ll be on the athletics track with me doing strength and conditioning and basic skills.

“It’s about getting these kids ready for the next step of competing at the highest level.”

In America he felt he was banging his head against a ceiling. Rugby union is in the embryonic stage of its development in the States, a sporting landscape dominated by basketball, baseball and crucially for rugby recruitment, American football.

“There is a hunger to get rugby going in America, especially with it having the 2031 Rugby World Cup, and in order to grow the game you’ve got to get it in the high schools and the universities, but if you’re a semi-talented rugby player and an American football programme sees you it’s hard to turn down,” laments Foden.

In England, he can give these boys more of a pathway. The lack of a Premiership club in Yorkshire to funnel talent into is restrictive, but he can at least flow them into men’s rugby through his other role, coaching Scarborough’s men’s team on a Tuesday and Thursday evening and a Saturday afternoon.

And he has made a good fist of that, Scarborough went top of Regional 2 North East last Saturday.

“Promotion is the aim. I set out the stall very early, they were second last year and didn’t go up, so I said from the off, we want to be first and get promoted and take this club as high as we can possibly go,” he says.

“The facilities are top notch, it’s a well-run club and they feel the time is right to push themselves up the leagues, hence why they brought someone like myself in to try and boost that and get a bit of a buzz going around the club.

“They’ve already got significant status with good old Zoe (Aldcroft - World Cup winning captain) who is a very proud former player. We’ve been able to lean into her success a little bit.

“And I love the club. Scarborough is a really good club, they’re profitable, multiple avenue streams through the cafe, bar takes, the gym, padel courts. It’s a profitable club heading in the right direction.

“For Scarborough to be one of the premier clubs in the area is the end goal.

“And my role’s a little different, I can just focus on the one team, I don’t have to worry about admin, logistics or getting referees.

“I love coaching the kids, it’s very rewarding, but to have one foot in men’s rugby is important.”

Foden’s memories of his playing days are complicated. “It’s weird,” he says. “I look back at my career and all my fondest memories are tainted by a bit of disaster.

“My favourite season at Northampton was when we lost in the final of the Heineken Cup, for all that team achieved was extraordinary, the rugby we played, it was a lot of fun to play in that team.

“When I played for England, we had a really good 2010 Six Nations and went for the grand slam against Ireland in Dublin but sadly it didn’t go our way.

“My last England cap came at 27, 28, so I look back on my England career and see a lot of missed opportunity. I was perhaps a little immature in the way I approached it: one of those guys who just wanted to play rugby and would rush back from injuries. I probably should have been a bit more selfish and mindful of my body.”

The second phase of his rugby career might prove to be more fulfilling, certainly the penning of this first chapter in an unexpected outpost here in North Yorkshire has started well.

“I’ve always been a leaf in the wind,” says Foden. “I adapt to everything that’s around me, whether it’s Northampton, Manchester, going off to New York.

“I feel sorry for my wife because she grew up in New York and is a proper New Yorker, and suddenly she’s in North Yorkshire in a little house on a golf course.

“But we can’t sing Scarborough’s praises highly enough.”