Mark Cornwell is still knocking ‘em over even though he hung up his rugby boots 10 years or so ago.

That’s because Cornwell, a one-time second row who was good enough to play more than 130 Premiership games for Gloucester and now a highly successful head coach at Hartpury College, is also a very keen skittles player.

The 44-year-old plays twice a week every week, when time allows, for teams in the Gloucester City League and the Tewkesbury League, and enjoys sending the skittles flying as much as he did his opponents on the rugby field back in the day.

Both sports are very close to Cornwell’s heart – he has also done a lot of fishing over the years – but it was football that first got the young Cornwell out of the house and playing sport.

“I didn’t play a lot of rugby when I was younger,” he said, “I used to play football. I was quite tall so I played in goal. I played at Upton St Leonards but I wouldn’t say I was particularly good.”

It wasn’t until the Gloucester born and bred Cornwell, known to everyone as Pasty, went to a strong rugby-playing school – Saintbridge – that he started to become aware of the rough and tumble game that was rugby union.

“When I was 14 or 15 I shot up in height,” he recalls. “I was something like 6ft 5in and my PE teacher Clive Stuart-Smith said I should be playing rugby, not football.”

Stuart-Smith knew what he was talking about, of course, and it was to be some of the best advice that Cornwell, who added another couple of inches in height before he finished growing, was ever given.

He still sees his old PE teacher regularly – “He lives about five doors away from me in Longford,” said Cornwell – and there remains close links between the two families because in later years Cornwell would coach Stuart-Smith’s son, also called Clive, when he was a pupil at Sir Thomas Rich’s.

Stuart-Smith senior, meanwhile, liked what he saw when the teenaged Cornwell first started getting up close and personal with his opponents on the rugby field, and suggested he go for a trial for Gloucester Schools.

“I was 15 or 16,” recalls Cornwell, “and I made the squad. I wasn’t the best player on the pitch but being a Gloucester boy this was the way I wanted to go. I wanted to play rugby.”

That was the start for Cornwell. Pretty soon he was in the Gloucester Under-18 squad and from there he moved on to the under-21s, which were the transition to the senior squad.

In those days Gloucester, in common with all rugby clubs in the pre-professional era, had a pretty extensive fixture list and Cornwell didn’t have to wait long before making his first-team debut in the cherry and white.

“It was against Cheltenham on a Tuesday night,” said Cornwell, who can remember the game almost like it was yesterday. “I was up against John Brain, the ex-Gloucester second row who was near the end of his career. I was 16 or 17 and there was no weight to me – the complete opposite of now! I think he probably gave me a bit of a schooling but putting on that Gloucester shirt was everything.”

Brain, who went on to coach Cornwell at Gloucester, may have taught the young Cornwell a few things that night but the teenager was clearly doing plenty to impress the powers-that-be at Kingsholm because he was soon invited to join the senior squad – along with three or four other up-and-coming Colts – on a tour to America.

They took a squad of 40 to 50 players and Cornwell recalls: “I was still at school at the time. We went to New York and Boston… what an experience. I learned so much on and off the pitch about the club – how to conduct yourself in the Gloucester way, how to prepare for games and how to play. The lessons I learned on the training field and in the bar on that tour have moulded me into the person I am today.

“My Gloucester career made me the coach I am – the standards I expect from players and the drive I have to succeed.

“There were players like Dave Sims, Richard West, Bobby Fowke, Mike Hamlin and Mike Teague on the tour along with the likes of Andy Deacon, Tony Windo and Simon Devereux.

“In those days everyone was local and it was a very tight-knit group. We also had a very strong United squad and that was very tough to break into. Once you got into the United side it could take another three or four years to get into the first team.

“I must have played well over 100 games for the United. We used to play every week. If Leicester’s first team were playing at Kingsholm we’d go up to Welford Road.

“There were some good boys in our squad and it was some achievement to be playing for them. We had a helluva team.”

Patience was to prove a virtue for Cornwell as he finally got his chance in the Premiership in 1995.

“I’d been playing rugby in South Africa for a team called Hamiltons,” recalled Cornwell. “Mark Mapletoft and Tom Beim were also out there when I got a call from Mike Burton, who was my agent. He said that rugby was going professional and that Gloucester wanted to sign me.”

The 21-year-old Cornwell didn’t need any second invitation, so he rushed back to Gloucester, signed on the dotted line and was soon making his home Premiership debut against Harlequins. And some debut it was.

“I scored two tries,” he laughed, which wasn’t bad for someone who scored only six in his Premiership career. “I remember Mike Teague picking up the ball and popping it up to me and I just fell over the line.

“Then I scored another and I thought, ‘Jeez, what’s happening here, I’m only 21’.”

Cornwell was unable to maintain that try-scoring rate of course – in footballing terms that was even more prolific than Lionel Messi! – but he can remember all of his Premiership tries including one against Wasps. “It was at Kingsholm and I ran it in from the 22,” he said with some pride.

While the professional era had been ushered in, the clubs themselves were not so professional in those early days.

“Not compared with nowadays,” chuckled Cornwell. “In those days weight sessions and fitness sessions were optional. Only the rugby training was compulsory. Phil Greening was my training partner and I remember we used to do the weights just to make ourselves bigger.”

The arrival of former Bath and England scrum-half Richard Hill as the club’s new man in charge of rugby brought about a big change at the club.

“He was one of the big influences on me,” said Cornwell. “He was the start of making the club more professional. He was given a playing budget and he put a squad together and we became fitter and stronger.”

After Hill left, Philippe Saint-Andre took over – “Fantastic player, great bloke but the worst trainer ever,” chuckled Cornwell.

He was followed by Nigel Melville and then Dean Ryan, and it is the one-time Wasps and England back row Ryan who Cornwell says most impressed him over the years.

“I wouldn’t tell him that to his face,” laughed Cornwell, “but he has an outstanding knowledge of the game. The way he got his message across and his management style earned our respect.

“He didn’t suffer fools and if you didn’t conform you didn’t last very long.

“I still see him occasionally and people say I’m now just like him – a grumpy old man who doesn’t smile!”

Ryan was Melville’s right-hand man when Gloucester won the Powergen Cup in April 2003, beating Northampton 40-22 in front of a near full house at Twickenham.

Sadly, for Cornwell, his name was missing from the winning line-up.

“I’d been selected to play and I remember we stayed in a hotel on the Thames the night before the game,” he said. “I remember waking up in my room at 2.30am and feeling horrendous. I was throwing up in the bathroom and then I passed out.

“When I woke up I’d cut my head on the sink when I fell after I’d fainted and I also cut my leg.

“I managed to get myself back to bed and in the morning I went to see the doc. I was still throwing up at 10am and I felt so weak. I had no energy whatsoever. I knew I couldn’t play.”

It turned out that he had gastroenteritis and his misfortune was Rob Fidler’s good fortune as he was summoned from his Cheltenham home to play in one of the biggest games in the club’s history.

“The boys were all drinking champagne afterwards,” said Cornwell. “I was drinking water. And I missed the open-top bus tour around Gloucester the following day as well.”

While that weekend was obviously a huge personal disappointment for Cornwell, there are many, many highs from his time at the club – a period which he looks back on with real pride.
He played with some great players over the years including All Blacks legend Ian Jones who he describes as “a real gent”, adding, “I learned so much from him.”

Another player to have a big influence on him was Andy Deacon. “What a clubman,” said Cornwell. “I wouldn’t say this to him but when you are looking at players you want to emulate he was one of them.

“His training standards; he was always on time, he did everything the right way. Terry Fanolua was another. I grew up with him from the ages of 20 to 30 and he was a clubman through and through. And he was as tough as old boots.

“Those were the sort of characters you need in a squad. Scott Benton was another, I could go on and on – Ludovic Mercier, Dimitri Yachvili, Chris Fortey, Steve Ojomoh.”

Mercier, of course, was a member of Gloucester’s European Challenge Cup winning team in 2006 but by then Cornwell had moved on to pastures new.

“My body gave up on me,” said Cornwell. “It wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do.”

It’s always difficult for any professional sportsman or woman when they realise their playing career is coming to an end, so what did Cornwell decide to do?

“I always remember Chris Catling coming up to me and saying I was a deep thinker about the game,” Cornwell said. “He said I’d make a good coach because I didn’t just anlayse my own position on the pitch, I analysed everyone else’s position as well.

“I remember thinking, ‘he’s right’.

So began Cornwell’s coaching career. “I went to Birmingham/Solihull where I was captain and player/coach and then I was head coach at Cinderford for two years and in the second season we got promotion to National One,” he said. “That was big at the time.”

It certainly was and Cornwell was soon back among familiar faces as Dean Ryan, who was by now Gloucester’s director of rugby, invited him back to Kingsholm to head up the club’s academy.

A big part of that role was recruiting the stars of tomorrow, and such was Cornwell’s enthusiasm for the role that he was soon given the go-ahead to find and sign any players who possessed that X factor.

And he certainly had an eye for a player with potential.

“The first player I signed was Akapusi Qera,” he chuckled. “He was some player and went on to captain Fiji. He was playing for Birmingham/Solihull at the time and I remember I signed him on a car bonnet in the club’s car park!”

Other players signed by Cornwell include Rupert Harden, Yann Thomas, Henry Trinder, Jonny May, Charlie Sharpes and Freddie Burns.

Many of those have gone on to be capped at international level and Cornwell was soon working alongside them again at Gloucester following Ryan’s departure from Kingsholm.

He was promoted to first-team coach under the Bryan Redpath/Carl Hogg regime, a position he held for two years before Hartpury came calling.


“The then Director of Rugby Alan Martinovic asked me if I wanted to be head coach and the chance to work on a team and coach it tactically appealed,” he said.

It’s proved a good move all round because two promotions later Hartpury are now playing in the rarified heights of the Championship where they are rubbing shoulders with the likes of Bristol and Leeds.

“We’re a lot more professional than we were five years ago,” said Cornwell. “More staff, more players, it’s great for the college.”

Last season was a momentous one for Hartpury as they swept all before them to race to the National One title.

“I knew we had some serious players,” said Cornwell, “but I didn’t expect us to win 30 out of 30. We’d pretty much got the title sewn up by Christmas – we were 17 points clear – and the drive was then to see if we could win all 30.

“No one had ever done it before and I’m proud of the boys who made it happen.”

Cornwell’s role in that record-breaking achievement was significant, of course, so where does he see himself in years to come?

“I want to coach at the highest level,” he said without hesitation. “When I left Gloucester I wanted to develop myself, mature as a coach and understand my coaching philosophy.

“When you finish playing, people think it’s an easy transition into coaching but it’s not. There are so many things to consider – player management, individual plans, understanding gameplans.

“At Hartpury we’re not just coaching the Championship team, there’s the Wednesday side, the under-18s. There’s a lot of coaching going on.”

And coaching is definitely where Cornwell sees his future, not as a director of rugby.

“I like to have a whistle in my mouth,” he said. “I like to get my hands dirty. I want to be out there on the pitch with my boots and tracksuit on.

“The director of rugby is a different skill-set. You have to deal with the off-the-field stuff like contracts and manage a team. I can do that but I want to coach.”

And when he’s not coaching the dad-of-four who is married to Lorraine – she’s commercial manager at Hartpury College – likes to go fishing and play skittles.

He used to do a lot of fishing with Chris Fortey and a gang of seven or eight of them, including ex-Gloucester and England prop Phil Vickery, would head off to Ireland for a few days’ fishing every May.

These days work and family commitments mean he fishes very rarely but he refuses to give up the skittles, a sport he has been playing since the age of 16.

His dad John and mum Diane both used to play – mum still does – and his dad used to be general secretary of the Gloucester City Skittles League.

That is a position Cornwell junior now holds. He is also captain of the Gloucester invitational team that plays an annual match against teams from Worcester and Hereford, plays for Maisemore Hornets in the Gloucester League – for whom Lorraine also plays – and for Forthampton in the Tewkesbury League.

“I love it,” he said. “I see my mates and it takes my mind off the rugby.”

So, which sport does he prefer – rugby or skittles?

“Jeez, now you’re testing me,” he laughed. “God, I’ve never been asked that before. I think I’m going to have to say – because it looks better – rugby.

“It wouldn’t look very good if I said skittles, would it? But I’m passionate about both of them.”

He may have hesitated before answering that final question, but in his rugby life Mark ‘Pasty’ Cornwell – “only my wife and my mum call me Mark” – has had an answer to every question that has been thrown at him... and he is continuing to do so.