| Justin Bishop, London Irish stalwart (born 8 November 1974 in Crawley) is a rugby union footballer who played at wing and full-back for London Irish until the end of the 2006/2007 season. He made 279 appearances for the London Irish first XV scoring 58 tries, registering 290 points in the process. He also made 25 appearances for Ireland scoring eight tries. He is currently player/backs coach at Doncaster Knights RFC.
His grandfather Thomas Dunn of NIFC played for Ulster (3-3) and Ireland (9-17) versus the New Zealand All Blacks in 1935.
“For me Doncaster feels like a whole new career, and definitely the right decision” Justin started the interview with.
Justin Bishop, like a lot of players, started Rugby early. At 6 years old he joined the Mini junior section of East Grinstead, with his Mum being a huge inspiration. “My Mum was a real sportswoman and loved Squash and jogging, I can remember getting up at 6am and jogging the streets with her before breakfast.” Rugby and Squash were Justin’s main interests, but with his Heritage in rugby it seemed his career path had already been chosen. Justin was actually ranked at U19 level in Squash so he had a real choice to make
“My Grandad played for Ireland, and my Uncle and Cousin were the President and Vice president of Irish Rugby so we had a family tradition.” Justin explained. “Although I had a possible future as a squash player I’m a great believer that you get out of things what you put into them and rugby I could give my all too.” He continued.
At 13 he was spotted by a Coach at London Welsh who took Justin to play there, but within a year again his Mum got involved and made sure he played for London Irish as befits his heritage. With 270 + appearances for London Irish and 25 caps for Ireland his time there was a success, and was something that anyone would have been proud of. An interesting fact about Justin is that while Clive Woodward was at London Irish Justin played for both England U21’s and Ireland U21’s within a year, touring Italy with the former.
Looking back he has no regrets about choosing rugby over squash, but does play a lot of squash to help with his fitness. It’s still a game he admires greatly and another skill picked up from his Mum.
If you know Justin Bishop, you’ll know he can be a little excitable. When it comes to other ambitions he blurted out “Cheese Rolling, that’s the one. Where they roll that big cheese down the hill in Gloucester and race it down the hill. I’m definitely doing that.” was his first idea “or Camel Racing, I’d have a go.” Bish did fail to tell us whether he wanted to ride in a camel race, or race it on foot but we’ll leave that to the imagination. With Justin Bishop it’s all about competing.
“Big Bob, Big Bob, Big Bob” Steve Salvin started chanting across the room, and Justin furnished us with the tale.
“I roomed with Salvin at Plymouth , and even though I fell fast asleep watching Al Murray’s Happy Hour I still sang along with Big Bob. Big Bob is my hero, as well as his lovely wife of course.”
It’s true, Bish does sing in his sleep. He has been known to belt out “Lady in Red” by Chris De Burgh while snoozing on the coach, and has threatened to sing it to supporters on the away bus several times.
And his favourite food is a good curry. “ It’s handy, because my lovely Wife is expecting our second Child, and right now she cant get enough curry”.
“ Happy Days” He finishes with. Happy days for Bish indeed.
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