Fringes: Life on the Edge of Professional Rugby
£11.40
LONGLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR PRIZE 2020
Sports books tend to detail extraordinary achievements, triumphs against the odds or commemorate World Cup winning captains.
This book does not do that.
For many, playing professional sport is the Dream Job. Few manage it, very few make it to the top and for the rest, life is very different. This is their story.
In Fringes, Ben Mercer invites you to witness life at the outer edges of professional rugby. This is a first hand account of what life is like as a journeyman professional athlete. You play, but to the wider public you don’t exist. You earn but you don’t drive a flash car. You sometimes pack out a stadium but sometimes, you play in a deserted park. This is the story for the majority of sports professionals. Only the minority taste the top, only one person gets to lift the cup or win the medal, only 15 get to play for England at any one time. For the rest, that’s not the case.
Ben Mercer is a former professional rugby player who after becoming disillusioned and uninspired plying his trade in the English Second Division, accepted an offer out of the blue to go to France and do something different – help an amateur team turn professional. This is a first hand account of what life is like in the lower reaches of professional sport – where your employment status is as precarious as your health and barely anyone will know your name.
It’s about how it feels to live year to year, with teammates constantly on the move. It’s about how professionalism irreversibly changes the French club Stade Rouennais as they move up the divisions, about the tension between progress and identity in a rugby team. It’s also about how it feels to actually be out there on the field, how it feels to occasionally do something extraordinary and how it feels when this is no longer enough for you to make the sacrifices that you need to make to keep playing.
There’s no ghostwriting, it’s an unmitigated meditation on how it feels and what it means to play rugby for a living, to dedicate yourself to an uncompromising but occasionally beautiful game.
If you’ve wanted to know what life is really like as a professional athlete, on the Fringes, away from the glitz and glamour of the international game then look no further.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Outlier Press (25 July 2021) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 360 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1915001021 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1915001023 |
| Dimensions | 15.24 x 2.29 x 22.86 cm |
by Matthew Clark
I hugely enjoyed reading Ben Mercer’s book ‘Fringes’. It provides a wonderful insight into the life and times of a successful sportsman on the brink of the very top level – which I’m sure can be a testing place to be, and to my mind makes the book even more intriguing, if indeed you have any genuine interest in Rugby Union. Ben covers on and off ‘field’ events and experiences in depth, with humour and genuine humility. Having played rugby overseas myself and having had to adjust to different cultures, I also really enjoyed the insight he provides into the French culture, and the way the French Rugby Federation operates – which is both unique and somewhat flawed. Finally, having read some of the less praising reviews (of which there are very few) all I can say is that these are a complete nonsense. I assume Ben took the decision to ‘self edit’ this work to maintain the integrity and honesty of his story. This honesty is ingrained throughout, and another reason why I read this in 2 days. Essentially, ignore the negative critics! For sports fans in general – give this a go; if you are a rugby fan this is a must!
by Mr Thomas C E Robinson
Fascinating insight into the world of pro Rugby. It’s like holding a cocktail of vermouth in one hand and a beer in the other. As an ex professional in sport I related to many of the dilemmas including elder sibling overachieving, and what to do at the end of one’s career. I also know what being on the fringes of France is like post brexit! Beautifully written and easy to read I enjoyed being taken around France to many of the places I have visited and seeing them through someone else’s perspective. Genuine thanks to the author
by Ben S
This is a brilliant book for a variety of reasons.
As a sporting biography it offers a great level of insight into professional life that few books get to – normally it’s either in the third person or a reflection on a stellar career which is already known. This is grittier, more personal, more unknown (apologies to Ben for this lack of knowing) and more insightful as a result. For example the interplay between the first and second teamers is not something I’d realised existed, while the thought of being hired and given accommodation always created an assumption that the accommodation would be at least reasonable. Now, I feel like my eyes have been opened.
As a wider book, it offers a great insight into an Englishman abroad, his struggles, his successes, his collegiate relationships and his life generally. The personal is clear, as is the driving force behind decisions. Emotions are interwoven skilfully, not least in the theme of the relationship with Hilly, his coach and the reason for being in France to begin with, a man who then doesn’t select him at the end of a dead season. It’s a far cry from the polished version of sport, and life in the social media age, we get to see and hear.
Finally, it’s a great looking book. Never judge a book by its cover they say, but with this one, it looks as good as it reads. Buy it.
by Barry Dougall
Being a lover of rugby I have read many a biography/autobiography devoted to the famous players but Ben Mercer’s “Fringes” I found as good as any of them, and a great deal better than most. Yet Ben never played at the highest level of the game, his rugby career was spent in the Championship and the lower Divisions in France. But as can be the case with some sports people who may not have reached the top, his well written memoirs have an insight and perspective of the game and of people rarely displayed in sporting books. It helps greatly that he writes well, of players and places in France you might never have heard of, and games, on the face of it, of little interest to anyone other than the Clubs and supporters involved. But it is all so thoroughly entertaining and illuminating, funny and perceptive that after reading “Fringes” you believe you have really good grasp of what it must be like to be a professional rugby player, albeit one on the “Fringes” and rarely in the spotlight. This book is a considerable achievement, and not only of interest to the rugby fan, self published and available at present, so I believe, only on “Amazon”, but selling as well if not better than those of established rugby personalities like Eddie Jones and Warren Gatland. So many sporting books by the big names are ghost written and disappointing. Ben Mercer may not have reached the top as a rugby player but as a writer, this, his first book, is already up there with the best and many of us who have enjoyed and appreciated “Fringes” will be hoping for more in due course.
by Amazon Customer
I liked the vivid picture this drew up in my mind of the author’s experiences and so well written. I found it entertaining and a thoughtful analysis of the state of rugby as the book says, on the fringes. Made me want to move to France too.