Inspirational Player, Coach & Soldier
After a 24-year Army career and a huge impact made on Army rugby, SSgt Lee Soper is standing down.
He will be looking to continue coaching in civilian rugby, having risen through the playing and coaches ranks in the Services.
His playing credentials include: five Army v Navy matches, five more against the RAF, and a total of 11 capped appearances in the red shirt, thanks to a further match against the New Zealand Army. He was also awarded five Combined Services caps against the likes of the Barbarians, Argentina and Romania. Then there was first team rugby with Harlequins, Worcester, Cornish Pirates and London Scottish, 12 appearances for Cornwall and five for England Counties.
Forwards coach for the Army men’s senior team between 2016 and 2020, he helped guide them to three Inter-Services Championship titles, and was forwards coach of the Army Under-23s for four years before that. In 2019 he was head coach of the UKAF team which reached the final of the Forces World Cup in Japan, only losing to a highly experienced Fijian outfit. He was previously forwards coach for the Combined Services Under-23s.
Lee’s Army career has seen a tour of Iraq and two of Afghanistan with 7 Para RHA, as well as driving a Green Goddesses during the 2002 fireman’s strike.
“I’ve always believed that sportspeople make the best soldiers,” he says. “They’re team players and highly motivated. They’re disciplined and have all the attributes you need to be a successful soldier.
“I’ve been lucky from a military point of view and I’ve been very privileged to achieve what I have in rugby. I’ve played at Harlequins and for Worcester, both in the Premiership, as well as for Cornish Pirates and London Scottish. And I’ve gone to the highest level in the Forces.
“I’m also tremendously proud to have had the highest job you can have as a coach in the Forces. It’s been a long road from being a young 19-year-old from Cornwall to being a 43-year-old bloke leaving the Army.”
The tour tour to Iraq took him away from Launceston. The second tour of Afghanistan impacted his time with London Scottish.
“I’ve always had tremendous support from the clubs I’ve been at, both for me and for my family,” he says.
But serving in a war zone has an impact. Having been in “some dangerous situations in Afghanistan”, Lee wanted to be closer to home. “It changes you, both the physical side and the mental side, when you go on tours like that.”
He became a player/coach at Colchester, loved coaching and has stayed ever since. The Army has changed too.
“In 1996 when I did my basic training there were 180,000 personnel, now there are around 76,000. You see that difference in things like the Army Cup when some regiments can’t get a team together.
“So it’s now important for us to encourage and support our elite sportspeople who are representing the Army and Combined Services. Here at 7 we’ve shifted to being a regiment which provides a few players to representative teams, which is more manageable. It’s a great shame because we’re based on team ethics, motivation and key values. It’s constantly being addressed, but if the Army’s getting smaller it’s not going to disappear.”
Lee wants as many talented Army players as possible to get opportunities to play at as high a level as possible in civilian rugby
“The guys need to be playing 20-odd games a season and you’re not going to get that in military rugby,” he says. “So they need to get into the national leagues at a club close to them and we’ve pushed that.
“I got selected to play for the Army in the 1999/2000 season, and after the Army v Navy game was invited to play for Harlequins. I moved on to Worcester after that full-time with permission from my commanding officer. 7 Para is a massive rugby regiment and they were well up for it. Now there’s a structure in place and the ARU take a bit more control.
“In my contracts I had the clause to say that if I was called up for an operational tour then I had to go. During the off-season I would come back to the regiment, do some career courses and generally be a presence around the regiment.”
Despite pressure on numbers SSgt Soper believes that there’s a good set-up within the red shirt development programme. There is a steady flow of both players and coaches, like Capt Mal Roberts with experience of leading the Army Under-23s before taking charge of the Senior Men’s team. Coaching has certainly been an added career for SSgt Soper himself.
“As a coach it’s completely different. I’m hoping that the lads execute everything we’ve worked on and that it will pay off. You’ve got to be calm and cool so the guys don’t go off the wire, even right on that last walk back into the changing room,” he says “It’s great that we have so many lads playing in the Championship, the Premiership, and in National One and the equivalent in Wales. That’s credit to them.”
When a seismic shift happens in life, looking back over the last 25 years is inevitable.
“Regimental wise, winning Army Cups and being part of a legacy of 7 Para rugby is special,” says Lee. “That will live with me for a long time; some great people have worn that shirt.
“Army-wise, the most memorable thing is stealing the lineout right at the end of the 2002 Army v Navy game on our five-metre line. I read it, caught it with two hands and won the game for us. If the Navy had scored it would have made it 18-all with the conversion to come.
“As a coach being the UKAF head coach in Japan was phenomenal, working alongside the RAF and Navy boys as well as the Army. I was so proud of what they achieved as a team at short notice.
“But the biggest thing for me as a coach has been to see the development of the players, who have come up from when I was coaching at the Under-23s to win their senior caps. I think I had nine players in total who came through the ranks and have gone on to win their senior caps. I’m very proud of that.”
To find out more about how you can combine your rugby with a thriving career in the British Army head to www.armyrugbyunion.org.uk
