{"id":489398,"date":"2026-03-22T14:29:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T14:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/489398\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T14:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T14:29:09","slug":"jonny-may-to-leave-rugby-for-a-career-in-the-armed-forces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/489398\/","title":{"rendered":"Jonny May to leave rugby for a career in the armed forces"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former England winger Jonny May is preparing for life beyond rugby, even as he continues to play on in France.<\/p>\n<p>Join the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/3s8fWrj\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">RUCK\u2019s WhatsApp community here<\/a>\u00a0and get the latest news sent straight to your messages.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The 35-year-old bid farewell to his second stint with the Cherry and Whites in 2024, having previously played for them before spending three seasons with Leicester Tigers from 2017 to 2020.<\/p>\n<p>May is now entering what is likely the final year of his rugby career. after he signed a two-year contract with Soyaux-Angouleme, a club in France\u2019s second-tier ProD2 last summer..<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever been more excited about signing a contract than this time,\u201d May said in a club statement. \u201cI\u2019m 110 per cent committed to giving my best rugby to this team.<\/p>\n<p>International Retirement and Future Aspirations<\/p>\n<p>Following England\u2019s impressive third-place finish in the Rugby World Cup, May announced his retirement from international duty. <\/p>\n<p>May, who has already taken a step into podcasting, spoke about how he is exploring post-playing opportunities with a move in the fire service with the RAF a possibility.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am still hoping to play for the next couple of years or a year; I\u2019m not quite ready to stop playing yet, but the RAF could help me come in during the off-season,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would help me get a bit of a foot up while I am still playing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>EDITORS PICKS:<\/p>\n<p>Like this:<\/p>\n<p>Like Loading&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"sd-link-color\"\/>\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former England winger Jonny May is preparing for life beyond rugby, even as he continues to play on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-489398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}