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Fringes: Life on the Edge of Professional Rugby
Updated edition of the #1 Amazon BestsellerLONGLISTED FOR THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR PRIZE 2020Sports 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.
Kindle Edition
Published July 24, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 12, 2023
This book was great fun to read.
I think I may be the only reader who came at it from a ‘reading’ direction.
I found Ben Mercer on Instagram because of his posts about good books. I like the same books Mercer seems to like so I began following. Then I saw a post that he’s dropping a book called Fringes around town. A Rugby Book. Nice! I like rugby!
Oh! This good looking man actually played rugby! (As you can imagine, we don’t get much French rugby in Arkansas, USA… Me especially, as I don’t own a tv 🤷🏻♀️)
Anyway, I bought the book on an audio app and it’s delightful. I know enough about the game to follow what’s going on and just enough named players to have a touchstone.
I learned a LOT I didn’t know before, both about the game and about the rugby culture. I liked Fringes enough that when my husband and I take a road trip in October I’ll listen again. I know my husband will love it as much as I do.
Now - back to my reading and following Mercer for his suggestions…
I think I may be the only reader who came at it from a ‘reading’ direction.
I found Ben Mercer on Instagram because of his posts about good books. I like the same books Mercer seems to like so I began following. Then I saw a post that he’s dropping a book called Fringes around town. A Rugby Book. Nice! I like rugby!
Oh! This good looking man actually played rugby! (As you can imagine, we don’t get much French rugby in Arkansas, USA… Me especially, as I don’t own a tv 🤷🏻♀️)
Anyway, I bought the book on an audio app and it’s delightful. I know enough about the game to follow what’s going on and just enough named players to have a touchstone.
I learned a LOT I didn’t know before, both about the game and about the rugby culture. I liked Fringes enough that when my husband and I take a road trip in October I’ll listen again. I know my husband will love it as much as I do.
Now - back to my reading and following Mercer for his suggestions…
September 11, 2024
Fringes was an odd book for me. It is a good book and I applaud Ben for having the courage in taking the steps and writing it. It was just strange to have so many of my experiences echoed by a professional rugby player. It's incredible how so many of us can be connected by experiences.
I have been a Midwest American rugby player for about 20 something years now and recently retired at age 33. Played tight head prop at the Chicago Blaze in Lemont IL for nearly a decade... I Definitely had a belly near the end lol. Wouldn't trade it for anything besides maybe winning the lottery. I loved every scrum and ruck I was a part of and I occasionally find myself day dreaming of rolling another teams pack.
Rugby holds a special place in my heart and some of Ben's stories ring true. The camaraderie, the narrowing of your world when playing, the team drama, the good days, the bad ones, the drinking, partying, the clicks, coaches, best friends, mates, and the genuine love for the game. No one ever walks away from a sport they love when or how they want to. It is hard to explain and Ben does a great job painting the final years of his career with a rollercoaster organization at foreign location.
I was never anywhere close to being a professional but the team I was on towards the end started to think like one. So I can relate to a lot of his stories here. I always thought the lower level professional players missed the point of what it means to be on a team but I see the other perspective now after reading and I am grateful.
Overall a great book and a worthwhile read for any rugby fan and or player.
I have been a Midwest American rugby player for about 20 something years now and recently retired at age 33. Played tight head prop at the Chicago Blaze in Lemont IL for nearly a decade... I Definitely had a belly near the end lol. Wouldn't trade it for anything besides maybe winning the lottery. I loved every scrum and ruck I was a part of and I occasionally find myself day dreaming of rolling another teams pack.
Rugby holds a special place in my heart and some of Ben's stories ring true. The camaraderie, the narrowing of your world when playing, the team drama, the good days, the bad ones, the drinking, partying, the clicks, coaches, best friends, mates, and the genuine love for the game. No one ever walks away from a sport they love when or how they want to. It is hard to explain and Ben does a great job painting the final years of his career with a rollercoaster organization at foreign location.
I was never anywhere close to being a professional but the team I was on towards the end started to think like one. So I can relate to a lot of his stories here. I always thought the lower level professional players missed the point of what it means to be on a team but I see the other perspective now after reading and I am grateful.
Overall a great book and a worthwhile read for any rugby fan and or player.
December 14, 2020
Great insight on his career on the fringes of professional rugby. Really good few of the variables within these levels and how unprofessional it can go sometimes. Next to that also great few of the growth proces within a club. On the downsight, I personally found some side stories a bit unnecessary and long-winded. The level of vocabulary is sometimes very high and as a non native English speaker a few words needed to be googled. Still a great read! Would recommend it to everyone. Definetly a different story than all the other rugby biographies out there.
September 3, 2020
Great read! As a top league (amateur) rugby player in a lower tier nation myself, I've seen semi-pro teammates come and go, but never really got a good insight in their lives. Ben Mercer does a wonderful job. A bit of a strain to follow sometimes when English is not your mother tongue - Mercer studied English literature and it shows in his vocabulary - but all in all a great read. 180 degrees different from your average rugby autobio.
January 27, 2023
For players
I feel the rugby player more than the writer in this book. I think is a complex book for a former professional athlete. From a former player I send my congratulations to you and if you player a mid level rugby I recommend this book. Not much to learn thought but a nice story to read.
I feel the rugby player more than the writer in this book. I think is a complex book for a former professional athlete. From a former player I send my congratulations to you and if you player a mid level rugby I recommend this book. Not much to learn thought but a nice story to read.
August 14, 2020
Fringes is a great foray into the underworld of professional sport: namely, rugby. I had a few good reasons for wanting to read this. Firstly, I love rugby which is an obvious in. I also have a tenuous link to the team and the story as my brother, who features towards the end of the book, worked in Rouen as a member of the staff. My family and I went out to watch one of their home games and spent a few days in the city so it had a little more meaning for me than most. Of course, my brother's thoughts and messages during his time there are echoed here in a few instances and there is one amusing anecdote within regarding the French attitude to conditioning and, more particularly, diet.
My overriding impression is of admiration for the author in getting this off the ground; for it to have been as successful as it has is a justification in his belief that this was truly a different story in a world where tedious, run-of-the-mill sports autobiographies have become the norm. The story itself, the places, the people and the situations are all of a different colour to those at the top echelons.
Certainly, the contrast between the UK and France is a key constituent in the book. The language difficulties and translations are important to understand, something that we British are (generally) very poor at making any effort with. The book is as interesting for the lifestyle and cultural differences as it is for the differences in rugby. Geographically, France is truly huge when compared with England. My brother used to tell me of the away trips (taking place in Ben's final season) and that they would routinely take the entire day. The concept of 'terroir' as the soil that must be defended was interesting to hear about and links with the well-known stereotype (not unfounded) that French teams are much better when playing at home. In these lower divisions the crowd pressure on the referee (impartial attitude not always a given) made for some interesting decisions and rowdy games.
The mercenary trappings of French rugby at present is no less apparent at this level of rugby - there are players of many nations in lots of lower division teams, though Rouen had probably a larger proportion than others due to its links with England. It was great to get an insight into a team stuck between amateurism and professionalism as it attempted to make the change. The leadership and staff were not always helpful or consistent in this regard, it would seem.
The book itself is not perfect. I found the length of some of the paragraphs very odd. This was noticeable early on as sometimes a single sentence makes a paragraph. Sometimes this is done for impact and in those instances I fully understand that. At other times it looked a little sloppy. There are also a few times, mainly later in the book, when I felt that I was rereading something I had read earlier. Repetition is a bit of a problem but not enough to take any enjoyment from the reading of this. I think the editing could have been a bit more scrupulous in these regards. The other reviewer complains of the poor grammar. As a self-confessed grammar Nazi, I didn't notice that many errors (either meaning I missed them and am not as observant as I thought or that there really aren't that many). A few words were omitted or misspelled but certainly not that many. That all said, the writing itself is of a high quality and is better than many biographies of other sportspeople. The air of authenticity rings true and there is no ghostly presence to churn this out (no ghost writer - just clarifying if that wasn't plain).
Overall, I recommend Fringes as an alternative viewpoint on rugby and professional sport generally. I have to commend Ben for writing the book and to do so this soon after retiring as a player shows incredible drive. Fringes offers a new and different perspective on rugby (and sport) focusing on divisions and teams which otherwise have very little coverage making it a worthwhile read. I blitzed through it in a few days but it is a decent length to keep you entertained.
My overriding impression is of admiration for the author in getting this off the ground; for it to have been as successful as it has is a justification in his belief that this was truly a different story in a world where tedious, run-of-the-mill sports autobiographies have become the norm. The story itself, the places, the people and the situations are all of a different colour to those at the top echelons.
Certainly, the contrast between the UK and France is a key constituent in the book. The language difficulties and translations are important to understand, something that we British are (generally) very poor at making any effort with. The book is as interesting for the lifestyle and cultural differences as it is for the differences in rugby. Geographically, France is truly huge when compared with England. My brother used to tell me of the away trips (taking place in Ben's final season) and that they would routinely take the entire day. The concept of 'terroir' as the soil that must be defended was interesting to hear about and links with the well-known stereotype (not unfounded) that French teams are much better when playing at home. In these lower divisions the crowd pressure on the referee (impartial attitude not always a given) made for some interesting decisions and rowdy games.
The mercenary trappings of French rugby at present is no less apparent at this level of rugby - there are players of many nations in lots of lower division teams, though Rouen had probably a larger proportion than others due to its links with England. It was great to get an insight into a team stuck between amateurism and professionalism as it attempted to make the change. The leadership and staff were not always helpful or consistent in this regard, it would seem.
The book itself is not perfect. I found the length of some of the paragraphs very odd. This was noticeable early on as sometimes a single sentence makes a paragraph. Sometimes this is done for impact and in those instances I fully understand that. At other times it looked a little sloppy. There are also a few times, mainly later in the book, when I felt that I was rereading something I had read earlier. Repetition is a bit of a problem but not enough to take any enjoyment from the reading of this. I think the editing could have been a bit more scrupulous in these regards. The other reviewer complains of the poor grammar. As a self-confessed grammar Nazi, I didn't notice that many errors (either meaning I missed them and am not as observant as I thought or that there really aren't that many). A few words were omitted or misspelled but certainly not that many. That all said, the writing itself is of a high quality and is better than many biographies of other sportspeople. The air of authenticity rings true and there is no ghostly presence to churn this out (no ghost writer - just clarifying if that wasn't plain).
Overall, I recommend Fringes as an alternative viewpoint on rugby and professional sport generally. I have to commend Ben for writing the book and to do so this soon after retiring as a player shows incredible drive. Fringes offers a new and different perspective on rugby (and sport) focusing on divisions and teams which otherwise have very little coverage making it a worthwhile read. I blitzed through it in a few days but it is a decent length to keep you entertained.
March 16, 2024
Like many, I came to Fringes because of Mercer's incredible book recommendations and mini-reviews; and while it is universally true that every great writer is a great reader, the reverse is not always applicable.
Over any other note, I think the most obvious and the most bothersome was that this book sorely needed an editor. The writing was weak at times when it had absolutely no reason to be. The structure of chapters or jumps in time were often inconsistent or senseless. There were many words throughout that Mercer clearly knew the dictionary definition of, but was woefully ignorant of their correct usage. Once or twice is one thing-- but the number of times I found myself thinking: 'That is.... not how you use that word...' was astonishing.
Further, the reader was assumed to be rugby-literate, with subsequent game reviews or team analyses sorely lacking context or explanation. The game-replays were similarly dull, receiving little attention to stakes and reducing them to a ill-explained series of plays, where each was as underwhelming as the last, leading even the would-be action sequences to fall flat.
An editor would have caught and ameliorated these issues.
But on a less technical note, I didn't appreciate the way he spoke about his teammates and coworkers. As someone who has also spent a majority of my life on teams, I had less and less respect for Mercer as we went through. It's not that there were any searing revelations or scathing criticisms, but the constant, denigratory droning with which he disparaged his teammates seemed odd to me-- especially because it seemed to have no narrative purpose: he just wanted us to know that he found these players big and stupid, these others whiny and childish. If I was one of those players and I read Fringes for myself, I would be both entirely offended and utterly confused, given that his coworkers drive no emotional plot of their own. I think that speaks more broadly to the emotional flatness of the book.
Sports are emotional, because people are emotional. Gameplay brings out a primal rage, an atavistic need to win and an almost familial reliance on those around you. Even in the moments that were supposed to be sentimental or ruminative, it was missing a fundamental sensitivity that might have loaned the monograph some emotional stakes, which I felt were sorely lacking.
Ultimately, I was pretty disappointed in Fringes . I know some folks living their lives in the fringes of professional sports, I think the field is SO ripe for the taking and is rich with narrative potential-- but it wasn't realized here.
Still staying tuned in to Mercer's career (perhaps as he goes into fiction?) but with the hopes that he finds an agent + editor + publisher to help realize his writerly vision.
Over any other note, I think the most obvious and the most bothersome was that this book sorely needed an editor. The writing was weak at times when it had absolutely no reason to be. The structure of chapters or jumps in time were often inconsistent or senseless. There were many words throughout that Mercer clearly knew the dictionary definition of, but was woefully ignorant of their correct usage. Once or twice is one thing-- but the number of times I found myself thinking: 'That is.... not how you use that word...' was astonishing.
Further, the reader was assumed to be rugby-literate, with subsequent game reviews or team analyses sorely lacking context or explanation. The game-replays were similarly dull, receiving little attention to stakes and reducing them to a ill-explained series of plays, where each was as underwhelming as the last, leading even the would-be action sequences to fall flat.
An editor would have caught and ameliorated these issues.
But on a less technical note, I didn't appreciate the way he spoke about his teammates and coworkers. As someone who has also spent a majority of my life on teams, I had less and less respect for Mercer as we went through. It's not that there were any searing revelations or scathing criticisms, but the constant, denigratory droning with which he disparaged his teammates seemed odd to me-- especially because it seemed to have no narrative purpose: he just wanted us to know that he found these players big and stupid, these others whiny and childish. If I was one of those players and I read Fringes for myself, I would be both entirely offended and utterly confused, given that his coworkers drive no emotional plot of their own. I think that speaks more broadly to the emotional flatness of the book.
Sports are emotional, because people are emotional. Gameplay brings out a primal rage, an atavistic need to win and an almost familial reliance on those around you. Even in the moments that were supposed to be sentimental or ruminative, it was missing a fundamental sensitivity that might have loaned the monograph some emotional stakes, which I felt were sorely lacking.
Ultimately, I was pretty disappointed in Fringes . I know some folks living their lives in the fringes of professional sports, I think the field is SO ripe for the taking and is rich with narrative potential-- but it wasn't realized here.
Still staying tuned in to Mercer's career (perhaps as he goes into fiction?) but with the hopes that he finds an agent + editor + publisher to help realize his writerly vision.
June 1, 2024
This was an honest reflection on life on the “Fringes” of professional rugby . Mercer wrote from the heart, and the book is worth a read for an insight into the less glamorous side of professional sports. I think Mercer did well writing about the team dynamics, as well as factors that motivate (or de-motivate) a team.
The book definitely could have been improved by professional editing, this would have tightened some of the chapter arcs, which at times became a little rambling. It also may have added a touch more empathy into the book, particularly in describing some of the individuals he encountered in his 4 years playing rugby in France.
Overall, if you enjoy rugby, or wish to read a book from a different perspective to that of normal sporting memoirs/biographies this is worth a read.
The book definitely could have been improved by professional editing, this would have tightened some of the chapter arcs, which at times became a little rambling. It also may have added a touch more empathy into the book, particularly in describing some of the individuals he encountered in his 4 years playing rugby in France.
Overall, if you enjoy rugby, or wish to read a book from a different perspective to that of normal sporting memoirs/biographies this is worth a read.
August 6, 2020
Honest and insightful
Ben's tale of professional rugby from below the stratosphere provides a realistic assessment of how the sport is played by the majority. While talking about the game and life in France, he touches upon important social issues, addressing them poignantly whilst revealing a very witty personality. A great gift for any rugby fan.
Ben's tale of professional rugby from below the stratosphere provides a realistic assessment of how the sport is played by the majority. While talking about the game and life in France, he touches upon important social issues, addressing them poignantly whilst revealing a very witty personality. A great gift for any rugby fan.
May 8, 2020
Terrific Read!
As a retired Brit living in France and a former rugby player in the amateur era, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Ben's experiences in the pro game and his time living in France. A terrific read, highly recommended!
As a retired Brit living in France and a former rugby player in the amateur era, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Ben's experiences in the pro game and his time living in France. A terrific read, highly recommended!
June 30, 2020
A good book, could really benefit from getting someone to edit the story. A good tale of rugby in France but nothing earth shattering.
July 20, 2020
Enjoyed it - some interesting insights and some funny bits.
January 7, 2021
This book was initially hard to get into but overall I enjoyed reading it. I like what the author has done, I just feel it would have benefited from some professional editing.
February 1, 2022
loved the book, but needs a good editer
May 16, 2023
Really interesting book. Great to get a glimpse of pro rugby as most players see it. Definitely recommend for anyone interested in pro sport.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews