MENU saturday may 16 2020 Ready for more? Start your trial and get one month’s free unlimited access. Machacek finished his career at Montferrand, now Clermont, after stints in New Zealand, England and Wales DAVE ROGERS/GETTY IMAGES RUGBY UNION Jan Machacek – from behind the Iron Curtain to five- course lunches at Clermont In a new series celebrating the global game of rugby, we will be talking to the men who came from unusual places to play at the highest level. Today, Jan Machacek Elgan Alderman Friday May 15 2020, 12.00pm BST, The Times Share Save Life behind the Iron Curtain was dull. No travel. No western music, TV or films. Minimal freedom of choice. Factories polluting the country. Don’t take my word for it: take Jan Machacek’s. Machacek was born in Prague on February 15, 1972. He was 17 during the Velvet Revolution, a six-week period at the end of 1989 when one-party rule in Czechoslovakia ended. When he first played rugby at 15, the odds of him becoming a powerful No 8 for the Barbarians and shaking President Jacques Chirac’s hand before the 2001 French league final, having spent time in New Ready for more? Start your trial and get one month’s free unlimited access. Zealand and played as a professional in Wales and England, were slim. But it happened. “It was weird,” Machacek, 48, says of life in Czechoslovakia. “You couldn’t start your own company. Your life was more or less lined up. People weren’t struggling with food, schools were free, everyone had a job. It was just a dull time — you couldn’t do much. I really value the freedoms we have now. I’m really happy that I can hop into the car and drive through Germany to France, to Portugal, without being questioned why I’m travelling there and whether my parents can support me. I hated that. “We were in the last year of school [when the revolution began], so we were going out protesting in the streets, putting up posters against the government and so on. In 1989, it wasn’t that violent: maybe 200 students got beaten up — I wasn’t there. There were no shootings, no Russian tanks involved as in 1968. But it was a huge and dramatic change. It went from being completely under control to the early Nineties when there was no control at all. Now we are a normal, western country.” Rugby had been played in Czechoslovakia since the 1920s but ice hockey and football were more palatable to the authorities. The Machaceks were sporty: their father played rugby and Jan followed him to Slavia Prague; Dusan, Jan’s brother, competed in rowing at the 1988 and 1992 Olympics. As the curtain fell on Communism, Czechs and foreigners crossed paths at borders. New Zealanders were travelling through Europe; one, from Otago, played for Slavia and stayed in the city for three months. That was the spark for Machacek, cutting short his master’s degree in information technology to head to New Zealand for a few months and play for Dunedin Pirates. He returned home in October 1995, just after rugby had become professional. Not that Machacek had designs on playing rugby for a living. The event that changed everything was a sevens tournament in Abertillery, Monmouthsire, in the summer of 1996. Fiji were there. So were Machacek and the Czech Republic. He caught the eye and was invited back to the UK for trials. Swansea filled their back row by signing Paul Moriarty. Saracens were more interested in height and weight than ability. “I ended up in Newport and I liked it Ready for more? Start your trial and get one month’s free unlimited access. there,” Machacek says. “It was a good bunch of boys.” Machacek has kept many newspaper clippings from his professional career: in the early days at Newport there was plenty of “Czechmate”, the odd allusion to “Czech bounce”. At 6ft 4in and 16st, he quickly earned a reputation as a rampaging runner, scoring 27 tries in 61 matches during two seasons at Rodney Parade. His signature headguard sported a geometric pattern, described by Nick Cain in one interview as looking like he was wearing a Meccano set. It was a South Moravian design by a friend, inspired by the area from which his father hailed. “How can society be driven forward if we are all clones?” he told Cain in that interview, an attitude born from his childhood. “We were the first professional generation,” he says. “There were a few guys from abroad like Rod Snow [Canada], there were some Aussies like Alex Lawson. We also knew the international guys from other rugby clubs like Ebbw Vale and Cardi. It was a big family type of environment.” Machacek, second row, fourth from left, was the first Czech to represent the Barbarians NOT KNOWN Machacek was put up in a flat in Malpas and given a car. Clubs were professional but they were finding their feet: Newport trained two or three times a week and Ready for more? Start your trial and get one month’s free unlimited access. players were responsible for their own gym work. “Slavia to national side, that wasn’t a big step,” Machacek says. “From the national standard to Dunedin Pirates, that was the eye-opener. It was several levels up. That was just one of the ten club sides based in Dunedin. I wasn’t anywhere near the provincial level. I think that year Otago beat South Africa [the Springboks played 11 provincial sides on their 1994 tour, Otago were the only ones who beat them]. Such was the level in Dunedin. “I thought that Newport were on a similar level as the Pirates. This fully professional set-up in Wales compared with this completely amateur side in New Zealand; they were kind of similar — maybe the Pirates were more inventive. They were very good ball-handlers.” There was turbulence during Machacek’s time at Newport. During his second season, he was among a group of players who wrote a letter of grievances to ocials over the club’s problems after they had lost all 14 league matches. Despite that run, Machacek shone on the field. All the while he would continue to return to represent his country: he played for the Czech Republic more than 50 times between 1993 and 2009. Of the numerous tries Machacek scored, two came in Newport’s double-header with Sale Sharks in the 1997-98 Challenge Cup. The English side oered him a contract and he was o to Manchester, for his “first truly professional environment” under John Mitchell, England’s current defence coach. Mitchell was not the only future staple of English coaching at Sale. The playing squad featured Steve Diamond at hooker and Jim Mallinder at full back. “I think we were friends, I took them to Prague on a trip once,” Machacek says. “I like them. Jim for his knowledge and Steve for his passion.” On the playing side, however, Machacek’s stint was not as successful — though that season he did become the first Czech to play for the Barbarians, against Leicester Tigers — and he returned to Wales with Pontypridd after one year. “I struggled, I wasn’t that outstanding and they had limits on overseas players [in England],” he says. Ready for more? Start your trial and get one month’s free unlimited access. He has fond memories of his time at Pontypridd. “This heart-of-Wales club,” he says. “They are very passionate about rugby, they played a nice style of rugby, they’re hard, and their backs were always on fire. There were so many internationals there.” Among the likes of Ian Gough, Michael Owen and Gethin Jenkins, there was Fe’ao Vunipola, father of Billy and Mako. “We’re still in touch over Facebook,” Machacek says. “I compliment him about his sons all the time. He was wider than tall.” Machacek was known for his surges from the base of the scrum There was more change soon. He spent only one year at Pontypridd and was ready to head back to his homeland. “I was 28 at the time and I thought I’d had enough of rugby,” he says. “The competition was pretty sti in Pontypridd and I just didn’t enjoy the training any more.” It was a surprise he had lasted until 2000. In an interview with the South Wales Argus in October 1997, Machacek said: “I’d like to quit rugby in 1999. I’ve got so many scars on my face, and I’d also like to settle down a bit and have a family. I’d Ready for more? Start your trial and get one month’s free unlimited access. also like to do my own business full time, probably back in Prague.” The salvation of his career came from an unexpected source. Machacek did not like French rugby. He had played with Pontypridd in Colomiers, where the spectators threw industrial toilet rolls at the away side. The prop Richard Nones had been sent o at Sardis Road for gouging but was then paraded around Colomiers’ ground “in almost gladiatorial fashion”, Pontypridd’s chief executive said at the time. There were alleged assaults by fans on players. “I didn’t think much of France — I thought they were very filthy, eye-gouging, dirty players,” Machacek says. But he ended up at cosmopolitan Montferrand, swayed by Stade Marcel-Michelin and the remuneration (his reticence turned into the perfect negotiating tactic), after a Barbarians team-mate informed him he was a wanted man.