It is late September, the autumn chill beginning to bite, and Phil Vickery is standing outside a small theatre in Milton Keynes wearing a skimpy pair of black pants.
His old mate from the gym, Lee, stands beside him with a bottle of True Tan, scanning his hulking body, ready to slather any white bits into a gloriously artificial shade of bronzed orange. Someone has to do it.
‘Budgie smugglers, full tan, waxed, no hair… you’re s****ing yourself,’ says Vickery, reflecting on the dramatic leap from a rough-and-ready, World Cup-winning prop to a pristinely chiselled bodybuilder at the Ultimate Physiques British Open.
‘Pump, stage, lights, pose. It’s totally unnatural, totally outside my comfort zone, a totally alien place. I’d shaved bits of my legs and shoulders for taping as a rugby player but this was a whole different world.
‘Afterwards, I stropped in the service station, got out the car and I’m bright orange. People must’ve been…
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