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Paul John Ackford was a late-comer to the test arena. He was an England B player at the age of 21 but would spend almost 10 years in the rugby wilderness before joining the police and Harlequins in 1988. After an outstanding match for London Division against Australia in the same year, he was selected for England to play against the tourists, at the age of 30. This was a game which marked the start of the Will Carling era and England's domination of rugby in the northern hemisphere.
The success of Carling's reign, (he was only 22 at the time), was in no small part due to 'wise old heads' like Ackford and Wade Dooley, both policemen, who formed a formidable second-row partnership. Success in his first season for England would earn him a place on the British Lions tour of Australia in 1989, where his line-out excellence and powerful play in the loose resulted in him playing in all three tests against the Aussies. The Lions lost the first test but in the two remaining games Ackford was re-united with his England partner Dooley, and this helped the pack to impose its considerable physical presence upon the Wallabies in tests notable for their ferocious forward exchanges. This was where the series was won.
In 1990, the former English teacher, was famously floored by the 18 year old Argentinean prop, Federico Mendez; an offence the youngster was duly sent-off for. This is widely recognised in rugby circles as being one of the most spectacular knock-outs seen in an international. Ackford was helped from the pitch, buckling at the knees. He later admitted that the English pack was not entirely blameless! In 1991, Ackford helped England win its first Grand Slam for 11 years. Throughout the championship, his big-match temperament was in evidence, notably in the close encounter with the French, where he stole the ball at lineouts and in doing so ensured the dangerous French backline did not get the ball.
The 6 ft 7in lock announced his retirement after the 1991 Rugby World Cup, a tournament which the English hosts could well have won had they not changed their successful forward-orientated game in the Twickenham final against the Australians. (John Lovell)
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