16 September 2023 , 05:00
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After guiding England to their very first World Cup in 2003, Sir Clive Woodward's stock couldn't have been any higher in the rugby world.
But just two years later, he had turned his back on the sport and raised plenty of eyebrows by taking up a role with football side Southampton, who had just been relegated from the Premier League.
Woodward had quit his role with England in 2004 and outlined his plans to complete FA coaching badges after the completion of the British & Irish Lions tour of New Zealand, as he tried to add more strings to his bow.
That tour couldn't have gone much worse as England were thrashed 3-0 and amid criticism of his coaching methods and relationships with players, Woodward opted to move into football immediately.
He had not undergone any coaching courses when he joined close friend and chairman Rupert Lowe at Southampton as performance director, to work alongside manager Harry Redknapp.
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Woodward recalls a local newspaper poking fun at his appointment with a suggestion Southampton would start using striker Peter Crouch like a second row in rugby at line-outs - only for him to question, slightly tongue-in-cheek, if it was possible.
"My immediate thought was, ‘Can you do that? Can you actually lift someone up?’. Nobody has been able to answer me to this day," he told the Athletic in 2021.
“I’m thinking that if we had a guy who was as good as Jonny Wilkinson at taking a corner and we could get a touch off someone like Crouch who we would lift in the air, then we are going to gain an advantage. This all came from a cartoon that was taking the p*** out of me. But I’m sat there thinking it could actually work.”
Peter Crouch celebrates after scoring for Southampton (Action Images)Among Woodward's other innovate ideas were to bring in a throw-in coach - since utilised by Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool - only to be dismissed by board members above him.
Redknapp insists he had no problems with Woodward, although he did threaten to resign if the former England boss tried to interfere with his team selection. The pair even shared an office for some time as Southampton struggled towards the bottom of the second tier.
He was axed in December 2005 and replaced by George Burley, who was also keen to work alongside Woodward. Southampton ended the season in mid-table before Lowe departed that summer and Woodward found himself increasingly marginalised.
The former England boss left his role and was then offered the top job at MK Dons and Wycombe, keen to take his first steps into football management. But after London had won the bid for the 2012 Olympics, the opportunity to join the British Olympic Association was too good to turn down.
Woodward, who now works as part of ITV's punditry team at the Rugby World Cup, even likened his coaching to hit TV show Ted Lasso but maintains: "I still think I could have done a lot, lot more at Southampton if we had stayed in the Premier League but I was never going to stay for more than a year."