Floyd Steadman: Rugby, Education and the Power of Encouragement

Floyd Steadman built a life in which teaching and rugby continually informed each other. He played for Saracens for a decade, served as captain and became a headteacher, drawing on the demands of sport while taking responsibility for children’s education. ¹

A teacher who opened a door

Steadman’s childhood included experiences of profound insecurity. At ten, he ran away from an abusive father; when the police brought him home, his father refused to take him back. He entered care. Later, his ambition to become a teacher encountered another obstacle: some teachers directed him towards being a mechanic, associating that work with his Caribbean background. He persisted with the educational route he wanted. His later account to Sky Sports describes how a child could need to overcome both the absence of a secure home and adults’ limited expectations. ²

At Kingsbury High School in north-west London, PE teacher Brian Jones introduced him to rugby. The school had a strong team, and Steadman progressed to captaining Middlesex at under-eighteen level. One unbeaten school season included county trophies in both the fifteen-a-side game and sevens. Jones also provided decisive help away from the pitch. When Steadman’s time in a children’s home ended during his A-level studies, Jones and his family offered him somewhere to live for his upper-sixth year. That stability enabled him to complete the qualifications needed for college. ³

He studied physical education at Borough Road College, completing his course in 1980. The breadth of the sports he learned there prepared him to teach, while high-level competition developed his understanding of teamwork. His first teaching years were in state schools, including Edgware and Bishop Douglass. Education was therefore already a working commitment during his playing career. Preparing pupils for lessons and preparing himself for rugby belonged within the same period of his life. ¹

Learning to lead at Saracens

College coach John Hunter also coached Saracens, providing the link into the club. Steadman initially covered for Chris Milford, a doctor whose work kept him away on alternate weekends. Steadman became its regular scrum-half in 1981. His first spell as captain began during the 1981–82 season, after Andrew Harrower moved to the Metropolitan Police. He later relinquished the captaincy while continuing to play, then resumed it in September 1988. He remained captain until retiring as a player in April 1990. Those separate spells placed him in charge at different stages of the club’s development. ³

By the end he had made 469 appearances for Saracens. His final seasons included leading the club back into the top division and taking it into the last round of the 1989–90 campaign with a chance of the championship. Gloucester, Wasps and Saracens all remained in contention. Saracens lost 24–6 at Wasps, who won the title, while Gloucester also lost. Steadman’s team finished fourth. The opportunity had been real, even though the final outcome fell short of it; Saracens had competed closely enough to make the season’s last match consequential. ⁴

After his playing retirement, he coached the club’s under-twenty-one team, working with players including Tony Diprose and Richard Hill. That role continued the movement between performing and teaching. A former captain could bring experience of senior competition into the development of younger players, while remaining involved in the club whose progress he had helped shape. ⁴

Building a career in education

Following nine years in state education, Steadman spent a year in sports marketing in 1989, helping rugby clubs with sponsorship, marketing and hospitality. In 1990 he returned to school life as head of sport at Colet Court, the junior school of St Paul’s. After seven years he became head of juniors, with pastoral responsibility for boys in Years 3 to 6. The role widened his concern from sporting development to the daily welfare of children across that part of the school. ⁵

In 2001 he moved to Belmont, Mill Hill’s preparatory school, as deputy head with responsibility for pastoral care. In 2005 he became headmaster of Salcombe Prep, joining the Cognita group. His later headships included Downsend, Cumnor House Boys and Clifton Lodge. Moving between schools brought the task of understanding different communities and leading the staff responsible for them. The career that had begun with teaching PE now included responsibility for how whole schools worked and how pupils experienced them. ⁵

Asked by Brunel about the everyday work of a headteacher, Steadman described greeting pupils in the morning, a sequence of meetings and appointments, and events that continued into the evening. He identified the opportunity to have a positive effect on every child as a particular satisfaction. That account locates leadership in ordinary contact and decisions: being present at the start of a school day and carrying responsibility through everything that follows. ¹

What pupils remember

Eddie Redmayne remembered Steadman teaching him between the ages of eight and twelve. Speaking for Sky’s 2021 account of his former teacher, the actor recalled an encouraging presence who made an inexperienced rugby player believe that effort could bring improvement. He valued Steadman’s kindness and the authority with which he carried himself. Rugby teammate Jason Leonard also recalled a calm captain. These recollections connect the person encountered on a sports field with the adult whose manner could stay with a child for decades. ²

At Salcombe, Steadman encouraged Maro Itoje to consider rugby after seeing him playing football. Itoje later described that suggestion in a contribution to Steadman’s 2021 memoir, A Week One Summer. He had little knowledge of rugby at the time; an invitation from a former Saracens captain gave the possibility weight. Itoje also remembered that Steadman was the first Black headmaster he had encountered. Seeing him lead a school mattered alongside the specific sporting advice. Steadman’s influence included both a practical suggestion about an activity to try and an example of a Black man exercising authority with assurance. ⁶

Another former pupil, Nash Cohen, wrote in 2025 about contacting his old school coach to thank him. Cohen recalled Steadman’s composure and the impression he had made, and described thinking about that example in his own work with young athletes. Steadman sent him a signed copy of his book. The exchange preserved a connection across more than thirty years: a pupil had become someone responsible for other young people and could recognise how an earlier teacher had shaped his sense of leadership. ⁷

Speaking plainly about racism

Steadman’s professional achievements did not remove the prejudice he encountered. In a November 2020 essay published by Anthony Millard Consulting, he described experiences of unequal pay, discrimination by employers and assumptions about his intelligence. He also wrote about being treated with suspicion by police and security staff, and about the pressure of feeling that he represented his race. These were his accounts of specific ways that racial judgement entered working and everyday life, including circumstances far removed from a rugby match or a school assembly. ⁸

His explanation of white privilege focused on the additional obstacles attached to skin colour. It allowed room for the hardships that white people might experience while identifying a form of disadvantage they would not face because they were white. Steadman used conversations with colleagues, friends and family as the setting for that explanation. An experienced educator was bringing experiences that could remain unspoken into discussion, asking people to recognise pressures that success and professional status had not automatically removed. ⁸

Family life and the story in print

His connections with Cornwall grew through his wife, Denise, who came from Madron. They had three sons, and he also had a sporting link with the area, making nineteen appearances for the Pirates. Denise died from cancer in November 2016. She had encouraged him to write his autobiography and suggested its title, A Week One Summer. Published in 2021, the book was dedicated to her memory. The account therefore carried a family history alongside the rugby and education. Writing about the life they had shared also fulfilled an idea that Denise had wanted him to pursue. ⁹

Former teammate Mark Evans contributed the memoir’s foreword, while Itoje described the encouragement he had received. By then Steadman had moved to the Penzance area. The book brought together people who knew him through different parts of his life, placing family experience alongside a club’s history and a former pupil’s gratitude. ⁹

Supporting young people leaving care

His work with the Drive Forward Foundation connected his own experiences with practical questions about employment. At a November 2019 event for smaller London businesses, he joined a panel that included young ambassador Rihards Simanovics, business founder Maggie Collier and the charity’s Lucy Elamad. The discussion considered how employers could help young people who had grown up in care pursue their career goals. It brought businesses into contact with people whose experiences might be poorly understood through an application form alone. Steadman was taking part in this work while still leading Clifton Lodge, before retirement from headship. ¹⁰

Drive Forward’s approach included mentoring, help with interview preparation and relationships with employers willing to make recruitment more accessible. The setting gave encouragement a practical form. A conversation could lead to preparation for an interview, contact with someone in a profession or an employer understanding a candidate’s circumstances more fully. Steadman’s participation placed an experienced school leader within an effort to build the support that can be missing when young people leave care and enter working life. ¹⁰

He also took part in the foundation’s first Care to Career Festival on 10 July 2024. The programme combined speakers with experience of care, including keynote speaker Fatima Whitbread, with discussions involving employers and young people. Steadman joined a panel discussion. The festival also presented a partnership between Drive Forward and Camden Council offering six young people paid internships lasting eighteen months. This wider setting connected personal stories with actual routes into employment, while giving young participants space to explain their own experiences and ambitions. ¹¹

Recognition and continued teaching

In the 2023 New Year Honours, Steadman was appointed OBE for services to rugby union, education and charity. The wording brought together activities that had developed across his adult life. His public recognition encompassed the work done in schools and with young people as well as his years in senior rugby. ¹³

Brunel awarded him an honorary doctorate in education in December 2024. The recognition returned his story to the institution connected with his training at Borough Road College. Alongside that honour, he continued to speak and deliver training about unconscious bias, drawing on experiences from teaching and sport. His career had given him material that could be discussed with staff and organisations as well as with pupils, extending the educational work beyond the responsibilities of an individual headship. ¹⁴

At Falmouth School, he delivered three assemblies covering every year group, including the sixth form. He discussed his childhood in care, rugby and the prejudice he had encountered in becoming a headteacher, asking students and staff to examine their own assumptions. The school’s account describes an invitation to think about empathy and to use conversation to challenge discrimination. For the pupils listening, his life offered questions about how people judge ability and who receives encouragement. Steadman was still doing the work of a teacher: bringing experience into a room and helping others consider what they might do with it. ¹²

Sources

1. Brunel University — From Borough Road College student to OBE recipient, 12 April 2023.

2. Sky Sports — Mike Wedderburn: The Floyd Steadman Story, 28 October 2021.

3. Berkshire RFU — Interview with Floyd Steadman, 15 October 2021.

4. Saracens — Where Are They Now: Floyd Steadman, 29 November 2021.

5. Anthony Millard Consulting — Floyd Steadman team biography.

6. Saracens — A Week One Summer: Floyd Steadman, 7 November 2021.

7. Anthony Millard Consulting — Nash Cohen: The Power of Great Leadership, July 2025.

8. Anthony Millard Consulting — Floyd Steadman: What does White Privilege mean?, November 2020.

9. Cornish Pirates — Phil Westren: Floyd’s Story, A Week One Summer, 26 October 2021.

10. Drive Forward Foundation — Building responsibility into your business, 11 November 2019.

11. Drive Forward Foundation — Care to Career: A Celebration of Community, 9 August 2024.

12. Falmouth School — Floyd Steadman speaks to students.

13. UK Government — New Year Honours List 2023, Prime Minister’s List, page 50.

14. Anthony Millard Consulting — Congratulations to Floyd, February 2025.