Rugby Memorabilia- Signed England Rugby Match Shirt RFU 2002.Ben Kay's 8th Cap signed by the team

This fantastic and very rare signed rugby shirt item is a signed match worn England rugby shirt from the 2002 rugby match against France on 03 March 2002 fully hand signed by 17 of the 21 players.It has been signed on Ben Kay's match worn shirt from the day and shows that it was his 8th cap.It has 17 signatures from the squad including the very rare Johnny Wilkinson. Many of these players went onto play in the 2003 World Cup in Australia where England won the Rugby World Cup.

2002 Six Nation Game France v's England Summary 03 March 2003.

The 2002 Six Nations Championship was the 3rd series of the Six Nations Championship.The tournament was won by France, who completed a tournament grand slam.This game can be summed up by the following commentary;
There are days, and this was one such, when England are not so much reminiscent of a world-class rugby team as the man in the old Hamlet commercial who just cannot get his golf ball out of the bunker. Clive Woodward's team have now seen four successive grand slam opportunities slip through their aghast fingers and the most overused phrase on Saturday night was deja-bloody-vu. And so, after 80 minutes in Paris, the baton passes to the French, who host Ireland and travel to Edinburgh in their remaining fixtures.If England were playing an individual sport the verb "to choke" would apply; in team games the tangled web of collective responsibility means it is not that simple.There was no great tactical mystery to England's defeat. For reasons best known to themselves they cast most of the management's pre-match instructions into the cool damp air, singularly failing to establish the territorial advantage or forward momentum required.It barely seemed possible this could be the same starting line-up who cut Ireland to green ribbons a fortnight ago but, then again, France proved a very different defensive proposition with Serge Betsen, the Cameroon-born flanker wearing an army camouflage scrum-cap, playing like a one-man commando unit.There was enough thunderous commitment in between to give the record 79,502 crowd excellent value but England's dismay was summed up by Healey's post-match admission that he had stood in the showers with Will Greenwood openly debating whether England would ever win a grand slam.

Ben Kay's Bibliography.

Benedict James Kay MBE was born 14 December 1975 is a retired English international rugby union footballer who played Second row forward for Leicester Tigers and England.He was born in Liverpool, the son of Lord Justice of Appeal Sir John William Kay, which later earned him the nickname "M'lud".He first started playing rugby for Waterloo minis going on to play for the Waterloo first team.He also played for his school (Merchant Taylors' School, Crosby) and for Queensland University. He represented England in the 1996 Students World Cup in South Africa and at U18, U19 and U21 level. He attended Loughborough University, where he obtained a degree in Sports Science.
From there he joined Leicester Tigers from Waterloo in 1999 and first played for them during the 1999 World Cup, with Tigers' normal Second rows Martin Johnson and Fritz van Heerden away with England and South Africa respectively. With the help of Johnson and van Heerden, he developed his game, becoming a highly-rated middle line-out jumper.He was a member of Tigers' Heineken Cup winning sides in 2001 and 2002 as his international career blossomed.He made his England A début against France A in Blagnac in 2000 and he led England A to a 23-22 win over France A at Redruth in April 2001, and was called up for England's successful tour of North America and Japan that summer. He made his full England début against Canada on 2 June 2001 displacing Danny Grewcock from the England side.
In 2001/02 he was named as the Tigers Members' Player of the Year, and was a nominee for the Zurich Premiership Player of the Year. He was in the starting line-up for all the Six Nations games in 2002, and scored a try against Ireland. After touring with England to Argentina in the summer of 2002, where he scored his second try,he went on to compete in both the Autumn internationals and the Six Nations, before touring to New Zealand and Australia in June 2003.He confirmed his status as a core part of the England squad in the World Cup when he played every minute of every England game except the game against Uruguay. His line-out skills came to the fore here, particularly during the games against South Africa, when Kay learned to count to ten in Afrikaans in order to crack the Springboks' line-out codes.During the final against Australia, Kay famously knocked-on in a try-scoring position when a try would have almost certainly meant an England win. Fortunately for him, England won regardless, partly as a result of Tigers' team-mate Lewis Moody winning a line-out Kay himself had called.
Sir Clive Woodward selected him for the 2005 British and Irish Lions tour to New Zealand.He came off the bench against Argentina in an official Test prior to the tourand he started in the first Test of the series.
He was the only player to play every minute of England's 2007 Rugby World Cup campaign culminating in their narrow loss in the Final.He was one of only 4 players to have started both the 2003 and 2007 RWC Finals, the other three being Jonny Wilkinson, Jason Robinson and Phil Vickery.He was a used replacement in every game of the 2008 Six Nations.He started both the 2008-09 Heineken Cup final and the Guinness Premiership win the same season. The Tigers won back-to-back Premiership titles the following season, in the 2009-10 Guinness Premiership, by beating Saracens 33-27 at Twickenham, though he did not feature in that game. He decided to retire at the end of the 2009-10 season after 11 years with Leicester Tigers, and went on to become a commentator for ESPN in the 2010-11 season.

The complete list of signatures on this shirt are from the team. Robinson (Sale); Healey (Leicester), Tindall (Bath; Paul, Gloucester, 39), Greenwood (Harlequins), Cohen (Northampton); Wilkinson (Newcastle; Luger, Harlequins, 74), Bracken (Saracens); Rowntree (Leicester; Leonard, Harlequins, 74), Thompson (Northampton; West, Leicester, 74), Vickery (Gloucester), Johnson (Leicester, capt), Kay (Leicester; Grewcock, Bath, 74), Hill (Saracens), Back (Leicester), Worsley (Wasps; Corry, Leicester, 60). 

This is a must for any collector of rugby memorabilia. A very rare piece that will increase in in value.

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