Coached by my mum as a junior.

MICKY YOUNG'S first rugby coach was... his mam!

While dad taught his older brother Chris, mam put little Micky through his paces.

Surprising? Maybe, but the Young family were wrapped up in the sport and in the West Hartlepool club.

So much so that Micky became a ball boy when West played in the Premiership before endless relegations sent them hurtling through rugby's pyramid system.

"I began playing at West when I was five and mam coached our team, the Under-8s," Young told me.

"My brother Chris, who is three years older than me was coached in the Under-11s, by my dad.

"It may seem unusual, a woman coaching rugby, but my mam did it for years, right away through to last year in fact.

"She's from a footballing background as well, but I guess marrying my dad meant an automatic conversion to rugby.

"I ended up a ball boy when all the big Premiership clubs came to West. It was fantasy stuff for a kid."

Chris Young, a flanker, badly broke his leg when he was just 18 and was out of the game for almost three years.

Nowadays he channels most of his energy into forging a career in law while playing social rugby for West's seconds.

Success came early for Micky, who was part of the Durham School side that reached the final of the Daily Mail Cup at Twickenham.

"It was like being a full-time rugby player," Young told me. "We trained every day. Paul Gerrard, our coach, was terrific for me. We're still friends and I went through to see him and watch a game the other week."