Colleen had just rung from a phone box in Wigan town centre. She was laughing, even though it felt like both our worlds had just ended.
“Why are you laughing?” I asked her. “It’s not funny.”
But Colleen wasn’t laughing because it was funny. It was a nervous reaction. She, like me, was terrified. Colleen was pregnant. We were far too young to deal with this.
The pregnancy test had confirmed our worst fears. Colleen had been late, and we had been trying to figure it out and work out dates. I was on the phone to Colleen when I called out to my mum to ask her how many weeks it had been since they had gone for a night out in town. They didn’t do that very often. Colleen was worried that the question would make my mother suspicious.
The only thing Colleen was sure about was that she couldn’t tell her parents. I didn’t blame her. I was terrified of her telling them. I was terrified of telling mine too.
For a while we both stuck our heads in the clouds and pretended nothing had changed. I got on with my training. Colleen was a fantastic athlete and even more competitive than me. She loved her team sports, netball and hockey, but excelled at running. She ran for Wigan Harriers and was up at the track every night.
Andy and Colleen in 2022
DAVE ROGERS/GETTY
We couldn’t avoid the reality of the new situation for very long. Everything went through our heads. Should we get an abortion? Should we run off together? We were so young we didn’t know what we were thinking. We were meant to be studying for our GCSE exams, while I was also edging towards making my senior debut for Wigan.
Eventually we worked up the courage to go to the maternity unit at Billinge Hospital. I sat outside as Colleen went in to speak to the health visitor. She asked Colleen if she was going to tell her mum and dad. Colleen said she couldn’t. The health visitor advised her to have a think about things. She wrote “no home correspondence” on her notes, and asked Colleen to come back and see her.
It was an “awful day” for Farrell when his future father-in-law, O’Loughlin, found out Colleen was pregnant
BOB THOMAS/GETTY
Colleen and I were at my house a few weeks later when the phone rang. It was Colleen’s dad [Keiron O’Loughlin, the former Wigan rugby league player]. “He wants to speak to you,” I said and passed her the phone. Moments later, her face dropped. She kept asking, “Why, Dad?” When the conversation finished, she turned to me. “Dad wants me to come home, immediately,” she said. “But he wouldn’t say why.” We both knew something was up, so I decided to go with Colleen for support.
We caught two buses to get to her house on the other side of town. Her mum was standing at the front door, waving a letter. On the front of it was a stamp with a stork and the words “Billinge Maternity Unit”.
“Colleen, are you pregnant?” she asked.
“No, I’m not,” Colleen replied.
“Colleen, I am going to ask you one more time. Are you pregnant?” “No.”
“Well, what’s this then?” she asked, holding up the letter.
“It is my friend Anna, she has used my name,” Colleen replied.
“Colleen, I am going to ask you one more time…”
With that, Colleen burst into tears. She couldn’t take it any more. I had one foot inside the door and didn’t know what to do. Maybe I should just leave?
Then Keiron boomed at me, “Andrew, get inside now.” I was not going to argue.
Owen was “part of the furniture” at Wigan when his dad was winning Super League titles
SIMON WILKINSON/REX
It was an awful day but it was remarkable how quickly her parents’ reaction turned from shock and anger to support. I look back now, as a parent, and understand what they must have been feeling. Their disappointment and worry must have been terrible. Keiron had been brilliant at helping me with my rugby development. Now his daughter was pregnant. We had been so naive.
Before the pregnancy, we had had a plan to go to Leeds University to train as physical education teachers in case my rugby career didn’t work out. Now we had to reassess everything.
When I turned 16, I left school and got a job as an apprentice carpenter for Wigan council. We were fortunate to know that our parents would help us look after and support our baby. Taking the job was more about keeping myself busy and doing something useful as I strove for a full-time contract with Wigan.
I loved it, spending time in the van with the lads, putting a shift in. But I was a dreadful carpenter. When I signed my first full-time rugby contract, I remember happily handing my tools over to my mates. And the prospect of a baby coming only made me more determined to succeed at Wigan.
When Colleen had gone into labour, I hadn’t known what to do with myself. I wasn’t used to holding a baby — probably no 16-year-old boy is. But the amazing thing was that as soon as he was born, the first time I held him, it felt entirely natural. I was instantly obsessed with my son.
Andy’s mother, Carol, Colleen and Owen accompanied him to Buckingham Palace to receive his OBE in 2005
JOHNNY GREEN/PA
When Colleen returned to her parents’ house, I often spent the night there, though I wasn’t allowed to sleep in the same room as her and the baby.
It was a tough time for Colleen. Owen was a terrible sleeper from the start — in fact he didn’t sleep through until he was five! One night, Colleen was so desperate she went to her mum and dad’s bedroom in floods of tears because she couldn’t settle him down. Her dad said to bring him up, but her mum said no, that Colleen had to learn, and went with her to get him off to sleep.
I was not much use at nights. As I had to get up early for training, I rarely helped her with him. It was an old-fashioned approach. A few times when Colleen was really exhausted we would swap places. But Colleen will tell you she could count the number of times that happened on one hand.
As we were not married at the time, Colleen’s mum asked her what surname we were going to give Owen. Understandably, there was concern from her family about what would happen if we didn’t stay together. Colleen suggested a compromise: we would name him Owen O’Loughlin for now, but “If we get married, I’ll let him be a Farrell,” she said with a smile.
As if to soften the blow, she said we would give him the middle name Andrew. Fair enough. And so, on the original birth certificate, his name was registered Owen Andrew O’Loughlin. And my occupation? Apprentice joiner. God help us all!
The abuse he got as a child was disgusting
A teenage Owen was once shoved to the ground and berated by one of the rival team’s parents during his early playing days
REX
Most players choose to have their kids near the end of their playing careers, but Owen was part of the furniture at Wigan from the age of four. Owen grew up on the touchlines, watching training and matches.
I never forced him into it. He couldn’t wait to come to training with me and would fetch the balls when we were doing kicking practice. Before long, he was doing the kicking himself. Every child is different. Owen made a decision to commit to the game and then off he went: it became part of his life, as it was mine. He, like me, grew up only wanting to play the game for the love of it. Not to be a big personality off the pitch or revel in the celebrity of it all. Being a character on the field and earning the respect of your peers is what mattered to us both. The apple definitely didn’t fall far from the tree.
Owen in action for England Under-18
ALAMY
Sadly, too, he was subjected to abuse as a young boy simply because he was my son. Owen had taken to rugby league even more quickly than I had. Having spent so much time with me at training, when he got to year five he was already playing a year up on the Wigan town team, and when he was eight he also joined Wigan St Patrick’s rugby league club.
He loved the game, but at times it was hard for him because of my profile. Once when he was playing for Wigan St Pat’s against Blackbrook, a scuffle broke out and one of the parents ran on to the field and pushed Owen to the ground. On another occasion, I was training at Wigan and Owen was playing in a game around the corner from the stadium. Colleen phoned me in a bit of a state.
“You need to get here now; there is a fella on the sideline who is absolutely abusing Owen,” she said.
Owen joined Andy at Saracens, as an academy player, at 16 — the same age his father was when he was born
TOM SHAW/GETTY
I remember screeching out of the car park to drive over to Wigan St Judes, where the game was being played. Even as I got out of the car I could hear this guy screaming at Owen. “He’s rubbish,” he shouted. It was disgusting. You would get arrested nowadays. That was the world that was rugby league at the time.
Some kids might have thought to themselves, “This is not worth it”. But it obviously was worth it to him. It is right that people now have a sense of how it was for Owen, because it was brutal and it would have shaped him to a degree.
Owen broke down in tears when I tried to pick him for Lions
I made it clear to Ben Calveley [the Lions chief executive] that I had no interest in picking anyone because it was deemed politically correct to do so. How could I look a player in the eye and tell him he was not selected only because of the country he was playing for?
There had to be no bias whatsoever. And that included the consideration of whether to pick Owen.
I couldn’t shy away from that decision professionally. I wanted to bring him, despite his difficult and injury-disrupted season in Paris. I knew he would add the type of leadership skills we would need with a squad containing only a handful of players who had been on the last proper Lions tour, in 2017, when there were midweek matches. This would be Owen’s fourth tour, including the last one in Australia in 2013. I knew he would get it immediately and would help bring the best out of the others around him.
Farrell wanted to bring his son on the Lions tour to Australia from the very start — it was Owen who initially did not think it was the right call, but joined the tour after an injury to Elliot Daly
WILLIAM WEST/AFP
Every other coach favoured picking Owen too. Ordinarily, that would have been it: we would have simply named him along with the others. But I knew it was not yet a done deal. I told the coaches I would have to ring Owen first. I needed to know whether he wanted to go and what he thought about stepping back into the international spotlight after all he had to put up with during the 2023 World Cup.
• Book extract: Inside story of how we won crucial second Lions Test
This was a very hard phone call. When I asked Owen if he would come, he broke down in tears. He said he did not think it would be right for him, for the squad, or for me as head coach.
It was a tough thing to hear. I told him to think it through, to take his time, and if he changed his mind then I would put him on the standby list to cover an injury.
Extracted from The Only Way I Know by Andy Farrell, which is published by Sandycove on Oct 16 at £25
At the press conference at the O2 arena, after my appearance on stage, I was asked if Owen had been under consideration. Obviously, I didn’t feel I could tell the full story.
Andy will be in conversation with Joe Molloy in the Bord Gais Energy Theatre in Dublin on 12 Oct