Toby Flood
Encyclopedia
Tobias Gerald Albert Lieven "Toby" Flood (born 8 August 1985) is an English
rugby union
player. He currently plays at fly half or inside centre for Leicester Tigers
, having signed from Newcastle Falcons
, and England
.
and comes from a thespian lineage. Both of his grandfathers were actors. His paternal grandfather, Gerald Flood
, featured in the television drama series The Ratcatchers. His maternal grandfather was German actor Albert Lieven
, who appeared in The Guns of Navarone
, and his maternal grandmother was English actress Susan Shaw
. His father, Tim, is the programme and marketing manager of The Customs House South Shields.
Flood was raised in Morpeth, Northumberland
where he attended Chantry School. He also went to Kings School
in Tynemouth
. Flood graduated from Northumbria University
in 2007 with a degree in business management, and has also undertaken a Graduate Diploma in Law, in preparation for his planned post-rugby career as a lawyer
.
trained the Kings School first team while Flood was a student there. On 3 May 2008, it was announced that Flood was set to leave Newcastle Falcons for Leicester Tigers
. He was officially confirmed as a Leicester player on 11 June 2008.
As a Tigers player, he settled at fly-half, having been switched between centre and fly-half in his career up until then. He was the first to top their points scoring list in a debut season since Dusty Hare
in 1976–77. His debut game was in the first game of the season, against Gloucester, in which he managed to score a try. The shine came off his season, however, when he injured his Achilles in the 2008-09 Heineken Cup
semi-final game against Cardiff Blues – right before professional rugby's first ever sudden-death kicking competition. He was unable to take part in either of the Tigers' finals that year.
The injury unfortunately ruled Flood out of the first two months of the 2009–10 season as well, and he returned in November, in a 2009-10 LV= Cup win against Newport Gwent Dragons
. He stayed relatively injury-free for the rest of the season, however, and his good form helped the Tigers to top the table. They went on to win the 2009-10 Guinness Premiership final 33–27 against Saracens
.
In the autumn of 2006, he came on twice as a fly-half replacement for England, his first cap coming in the defeat to Argentina
. With Brian Ashton
installed as the new England head coach, Flood was selected in the Elite squad for England's 2007 Six Nations campaign. Flood came on as a replacement in the game against to win his fourth England cap. He started his first game for England against at Twickenham and went on to score a try, helping England to a 26–18 victory. His personal points tally in the match was 16 points. Flood also started in the defeat to .
Ashton included Flood in the Elite squad for 2007 Rugby World Cup
campaign of France
, as a replacement for then Newcastle team-mate Jamie Noon
. He came on as a substitute in the quarter final against Australia
, which England won 12–10. Flood also came off the bench in the semi final win over France
and in the loss in the world cup final to South Africa
.
He scored England's opening try in the 2008 Six Nations game against Wales, and managed another the following game against .
After acting as a replacement in the first two games of the 2009 Six Nations, Flood started the away game against , and held onto the fly-half shirt for the remaining two wins against France and Scotland. His Achilles injury saw him lose it to former clubmate Jonny Wilkinson
for the 2009 Autumn internationals, but he started the first 2010 Six Nations game against Wales at inside centre, due to injury to Riki Flutey
. He finished the Six Nations once more in possession of the England 10 shirt during the game against France, and retained it for the summer tour. Although England lost the first game, Flood was able to link up with his club colleague Ben Youngs
in a strong half-back pairing in the second. A much improved performance saw England beat Australia 20–21.
Flood's link with Youngs developed over the Autumn Internationals, starting with a good display in a loss to New Zealand. The team peaked in the Test against Australia, in which Flood had an immaculate game with the boot. He scored 25 points, which is the most amount of points recorded by an Englishman against the Wallabies. He also helped England to a victory over Samoa, but was injured early into the last game with South Africa, and later revealed he couldn't remember anything after the incident.
In the 2011 Six Nations, Flood and Youngs again combined to great success, Flood gaining man-of-the-match for a strong display against Wales at the Millennium Stadium. He was also a key component in several of the tries scored against Italy, developing a key relationship with wing Chris Ashton
.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
player. He currently plays at fly half or inside centre for Leicester Tigers
Leicester Tigers
Leicester Tigers is an English rugby union club that plays in the Aviva Premiership.Leicester are the most successful English club since the introduction of league rugby in 1987, a record 9 times English champions - 3 more than either Bath or Wasps, the last of which was in 2010...
, having signed from Newcastle Falcons
Newcastle Falcons
The Newcastle Falcons is an English rugby union team currently playing in the Aviva Premiership. The club was established in 1877 and played under the name of Gosforth Football Club until 1990. The name was then changed to Newcastle Gosforth and the club began to play at Kingston Park stadium in...
, and England
England national rugby union team
The England national rugby union team represents England in rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and Wales. They have won this championship on 26 occasions, 12 times winning the Grand Slam, making them the most successful team in...
.
Background
Toby was born in Frimley, SurreyFrimley
Frimley is a small English town situated 2 miles south of Camberley, in the extreme west of Surrey, adjacent to the border with Hampshire. It is about 31 miles west south-west of Central London. It is part of the Borough of Surrey Heath...
and comes from a thespian lineage. Both of his grandfathers were actors. His paternal grandfather, Gerald Flood
Gerald Flood
Gerald Flood was a British actor of stage and television.Born in Portsmouth, Hampshire but lived for most of his life in Farnham, Surrey, where he regularly appeared on stage at the Castle Theatre...
, featured in the television drama series The Ratcatchers. His maternal grandfather was German actor Albert Lieven
Albert Lieven
Albert Lieven was a German actor. He was born Albert Fritz Liévin in Hohenstein, East Prussia. He died in London, England. He was married four times, including to the actresses Susan Shaw and Valerie White....
, who appeared in The Guns of Navarone
The Guns of Navarone (film)
The Guns of Navarone is a 1961 British-American Action/Adventure war film based on the 1957 novel of the same name about the Dodecanese Campaign of World War II by Scottish thriller writer Alistair MacLean. It stars Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn, along with Anthony Quayle and Stanley...
, and his maternal grandmother was English actress Susan Shaw
Susan Shaw
Susan Shaw was an English actress.Shaw began her film career in 1946 when she was signed to a contract by the J. Arthur Rank Organisation...
. His father, Tim, is the programme and marketing manager of The Customs House South Shields.
Flood was raised in Morpeth, Northumberland
Morpeth, Northumberland
Morpeth is the county town of Northumberland, England. It is situated on the River Wansbeck which flows east through the town. The town is from the A1, which bypasses it. Since 1981, it has been the administrative centre of the County of Northumberland. In the 2001 census the town had a population...
where he attended Chantry School. He also went to Kings School
The King's School, Tynemouth
The King's School is a co-educational, independent day school in Tynemouth, Tyne and Wear, England with over 800 pupils aged between 4 and 18. The current headmaster is Mr Edward Wesson . The school is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference...
in Tynemouth
Tynemouth
Tynemouth is a town and a historic borough in Tyne and Wear, England, at the mouth of the River Tyne, between North Shields and Cullercoats . It is administered as part of the borough of North Tyneside, but until 1974 was an independent county borough in its own right...
. Flood graduated from Northumbria University
Northumbria University
Northumbria University is an academic institution located in Newcastle upon Tyne in the North East of England. It is a member of the University Alliance.- History :...
in 2007 with a degree in business management, and has also undertaken a Graduate Diploma in Law, in preparation for his planned post-rugby career as a lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
.
Club career
A product of the Falcons academy, his third year at the university was completed on a part-time basis due to his rugby commitments. Jonny WilkinsonJonny Wilkinson
Jonathan Peter "Jonny" Wilkinson OBE is an English rugby union player and member of the England national team. Wilkinson rose to acclaim from 2001 to 2003, before and during the 2003 Rugby World Cup and was acknowledged as one of the world’s best rugby players...
trained the Kings School first team while Flood was a student there. On 3 May 2008, it was announced that Flood was set to leave Newcastle Falcons for Leicester Tigers
Leicester Tigers
Leicester Tigers is an English rugby union club that plays in the Aviva Premiership.Leicester are the most successful English club since the introduction of league rugby in 1987, a record 9 times English champions - 3 more than either Bath or Wasps, the last of which was in 2010...
. He was officially confirmed as a Leicester player on 11 June 2008.
As a Tigers player, he settled at fly-half, having been switched between centre and fly-half in his career up until then. He was the first to top their points scoring list in a debut season since Dusty Hare
Dusty Hare
William Henry "Dusty" Hare MBE is a former international rugby union footballer, who played fullback.Hare currently holds the world record for points scored in a first class rugby career with 7,337 points....
in 1976–77. His debut game was in the first game of the season, against Gloucester, in which he managed to score a try. The shine came off his season, however, when he injured his Achilles in the 2008-09 Heineken Cup
2008-09 Heineken Cup
The 2008–09 Heineken Cup was the fourteenth edition of the Heineken Cup, the annual rugby union European club competition for clubs from the top six nations in European rugby. It started in October 2008 and ended on 23 May 2009 at Murrayfield in Edinburgh...
semi-final game against Cardiff Blues – right before professional rugby's first ever sudden-death kicking competition. He was unable to take part in either of the Tigers' finals that year.
The injury unfortunately ruled Flood out of the first two months of the 2009–10 season as well, and he returned in November, in a 2009-10 LV= Cup win against Newport Gwent Dragons
Newport Gwent Dragons
Newport Gwent Dragons are one of the four professional Rugby Union regional teams in Wales. They are jointly owned by Newport RFC and the Welsh Rugby Union and play all their home games at Rodney Parade, Newport. They play in the RaboDirect Pro12, the Anglo-Welsh Cup and the Heineken Cup...
. He stayed relatively injury-free for the rest of the season, however, and his good form helped the Tigers to top the table. They went on to win the 2009-10 Guinness Premiership final 33–27 against Saracens
Saracens F.C.
Saracens are a professional rugby union team based in St. Albans, England – although they play their home games at Vicarage Road, in Watford. They are currently members of the Aviva Premiership, the top level of domestic rugby union in England...
.
International career
Argentina national rugby union team
The Argentina national rugby team, nicknamed Los Pumas, represents Argentina in international rugby union matches. The team, which plays in sky blue and white jerseys, is organised by the Argentine Rugby Union .Argentina played its first international rugby match in 1910 against a touring British...
. With Brian Ashton
Brian Ashton (rugby player)
William Brian Ashton MBE is a former rugby union player and the former Head Coach of the England and Ireland national rugby union teams.-Biography:...
installed as the new England head coach, Flood was selected in the Elite squad for England's 2007 Six Nations campaign. Flood came on as a replacement in the game against to win his fourth England cap. He started his first game for England against at Twickenham and went on to score a try, helping England to a 26–18 victory. His personal points tally in the match was 16 points. Flood also started in the defeat to .
Ashton included Flood in the Elite squad for 2007 Rugby World Cup
2007 Rugby World Cup
The 2007 Rugby World Cup was the sixth Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. Twenty nations competed for the Webb Ellis Cup in the tournament, which was hosted by France from 7 September to 20 October. France won the hosting rights in 2003,...
campaign of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, as a replacement for then Newcastle team-mate Jamie Noon
Jamie Noon
Jamie Darren Noon is a rugby union footballer who plays at centre for CA Brive.-Career:Hard-running centre Noon joined the Falcons in the 1998/9 season, after a letter from one of his school teachers alerted the club to a player who had been totally missed by the representative rugby system in...
. He came on as a substitute in the quarter final against Australia
Australia national rugby union team
The Australian national rugby union team is the representative side of Australia in rugby union. The national team is nicknamed the Wallabies and competes annually with New Zealand and South Africa in the Tri-Nations Series, in which they also contest the Bledisloe Cup with New Zealand and the...
, which England won 12–10. Flood also came off the bench in the semi final win over France
France national rugby union team
The France national rugby union team represents France in rugby union. They compete annually against England, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales in the Six Nations Championship. They have won the championship outright sixteen times, shared it a further eight times, and have completed nine grand slams...
and in the loss in the world cup final to South Africa
South Africa national rugby union team
The South African national rugby union team are 2009 British and Irish Lions Series winners. They are currently ranked as the fourth best team in the IRB World Rankings and were named 2008 World Team of the Year at the prestigious Laureus World Sports Awards.Although South Africa was instrumental...
.
He scored England's opening try in the 2008 Six Nations game against Wales, and managed another the following game against .
After acting as a replacement in the first two games of the 2009 Six Nations, Flood started the away game against , and held onto the fly-half shirt for the remaining two wins against France and Scotland. His Achilles injury saw him lose it to former clubmate Jonny Wilkinson
Jonny Wilkinson
Jonathan Peter "Jonny" Wilkinson OBE is an English rugby union player and member of the England national team. Wilkinson rose to acclaim from 2001 to 2003, before and during the 2003 Rugby World Cup and was acknowledged as one of the world’s best rugby players...
for the 2009 Autumn internationals, but he started the first 2010 Six Nations game against Wales at inside centre, due to injury to Riki Flutey
Riki Flutey
Riki John Flutey is a New Zealand born rugby union footballer who plays at centre or fly-half for London Wasps in the Aviva Premiership....
. He finished the Six Nations once more in possession of the England 10 shirt during the game against France, and retained it for the summer tour. Although England lost the first game, Flood was able to link up with his club colleague Ben Youngs
Ben Youngs
Benjamin Ryder Youngs is an English rugby union player who plays as a scrum-half for Leicester Tigers and England.-Background:...
in a strong half-back pairing in the second. A much improved performance saw England beat Australia 20–21.
Flood's link with Youngs developed over the Autumn Internationals, starting with a good display in a loss to New Zealand. The team peaked in the Test against Australia, in which Flood had an immaculate game with the boot. He scored 25 points, which is the most amount of points recorded by an Englishman against the Wallabies. He also helped England to a victory over Samoa, but was injured early into the last game with South Africa, and later revealed he couldn't remember anything after the incident.
In the 2011 Six Nations, Flood and Youngs again combined to great success, Flood gaining man-of-the-match for a strong display against Wales at the Millennium Stadium. He was also a key component in several of the tries scored against Italy, developing a key relationship with wing Chris Ashton
Chris Ashton
Chris Ashton is an English rugby union player who has represented England in both Rugby League and Rugby Union...
.