My Day Off
We took a trip up to Manchester to get a haircut from Sale Sharks’ resident barber and scrum-half
QUICK HANDS helped Raffi Quirke become one of the youngest nines ever to play for England – but they’re also helping him earn some pocket money outside the game. The Sale Sharks livewire took up the scissors in lockdown and now charges team-mates a very reasonable £15 for a post-training trim. His barbershop is the academy coaches’ changing room and he is often very high in demand. Luckily for us, he has managed to slot me in. While I sit in the chair, he tells us: “I got into barbering in 2020. I was just training with Tom Curtis and (Tom) Roebuck at a local rugby club. I always wanted to take up barbering. I always thought it was a cool little skill to have.” With the Covid restrictions forcing all barbershops to close, Quirke was given a carte blanche by his team-mates. He learnt on the job and insists there were no disasters even at the start. A natural. “I just started doing Roebuck’s and Curtis’s hair and obviously in lockdown, it didn’t matter if it was a s*** haircut. They trusted me to go at it a bit. They were the original guinea pigs. Funnily enough, neither of them trust me to do it now! They’ve got their barbers but a lot of boys at the club just find it a lot more convenient (with me) as straight after training they can just get in the chair. “I actually didn’t give that many bad haircuts. I used YouTube videos mainly and now my barber Chris, who has been my barber since I was dead young, has opened up a shop with his brother in Whitefield. Sometimes I just go there and try and learn a little bit off him.” So if he’s learning from the pros, would Quirke ever consider a shift in the shop? “I don’t like standing on my feet all day. Barbers are just used to it but I can’t. Some days after training, if someone’s booked in and I’m f ****d, I’ll just say can we rearrange please.” That clears that up then. It’s very much a hobby/side hustle. But undoubtedly a creative output for Quirke, whose other big passion is cooking, although he admits he hasn’t got round to regularly posting more content to his dedicated food Instagram account (@pitchtoplate). Anyway, back to matters at hand as I get asked the classic barbering question of: “So, what are we doing then?”
Perhaps bravely I decide to leave it up to our resident expert and give him free rein to do as he pleases. That ends up being a taper and leaving the back to grow out into a mullet with a trim on top. If you follow youth rugby you’ll be fully aware of the mullet’s renaissance among the country’s rugby-playing youngsters
