‘Zara’s boy from blacksmith stock,’ read one headline following the Tindalls’s wedding.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ex-England rugby player Mike Tindall<\/a>, who celebrates his 47th birthday today, was compared to Kate Middleton<\/a> when he and Zara tied the knot in the ‘other’ royal wedding<\/a> of 2011.<\/p>\n Born in West Yorkshire, he was described as ‘talking like an extra on Coronation Street<\/a>‘ and his family history of tradesmen was enough to cement his ‘working-class’ title,\u00a0‘mingling those blacksmith’s genes with those of monarchy’.<\/p>\n But like Kate, Mike was privately educated and grew up in an idyllic market town – far from the working-class image the media had crafted of him.<\/p>\n Mike, who co-authored the 2024 book, The Good, The Bad and The Rugby, said: ‘My relationship with the Royal Family began before I started dating Zara<\/a>.<\/p>\n ‘William and Harry were really keen rugby fans in the early 2000s and the England players met them numerous times, and through them I met Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice.<\/a><\/p>\n ‘It helped that Zara’s mum, the Princess Royal, had been a top rider (she won individual gold at the 1971 European Championships and competed at the 1976 Olympics), as had Zara’s dad.<\/p>\n ‘The Princess Royal understood how hard I’d had to work to make as a professional rugby player, and she just loved the game.<\/p>\n Mike and Zara Tindall leave Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh after their wedding on July 30, 2011<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mike, who co-authored the 2024 book, The Good, The Bad and The Rugby, said: ‘My relationship with the Royal Family began before I started dating Zara’<\/p>\n<\/div>\n ‘The Duke of Edinburgh was a keen sportsperson as well, whether it was cricket, polo or carriage driving, so he knew the kind of people sportsmen were and enjoyed chatting with them.<\/p>\n ‘Meanwhile, the Queen was patron of lots of sporting charities and obviously mad about horse racing.<\/p>\n ‘She spoke to trainers, owners and jockeys all the time, so she knew a great deal about what sportspeople had to go through, which is hell in the case of jockeys.<\/p>\n ‘And because all of them understood where I came from, and accepted that completely, I never felt uneasy in their company.<\/p>\n ‘Believe it or not, marrying into the Royal Family was pretty easy for me.\u00a0<\/p>\n ‘They were always nice to me, and I was always nice to them. Simple really.’<\/p>\n Later in the book, Mike wrote that ‘there’s a lot of drama surrounding the Royal Family’, but they ‘aren’t much different to anyone else underneath it all’.<\/p>\n In 2008, Mike called Princess Anne a ‘legend’ and said that Zara’s father, Mark Phillips, was ‘lovely too’.<\/a><\/p>\n He said at the time: ‘My mates in Wakefield are forever asking how I fit in among the Royal Family but they are really down to earth.’<\/p>\n A year later, they were officially a couple and then in 2010 they officiated their relationship by getting engaged.<\/p>\n Speaking to HELLO! the rugby player said: ‘I don’t think it is about whether we will get married but when.’<\/p>\n He continued: ‘I was upstairs, plucking up the nerve to do it, while Zara was downstairs watching television.<\/p>\n ‘It was all about shock value – I wanted to catch her when it was quiet, and she wasn’t expecting anything.’<\/p>\n The couple were at home when he walked in and got down on one knee.<\/p>\n ‘She was in complete shock,’ Mike recalled. ‘Then, when she stopped laughing, she said “yes”. That was a relief.’<\/p>\n![\"Mike,](\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2025\/10\/17\/14\/102247191-15106657-Mike_who_co_authored_the_2024_book_The_Good_The_Bad_and_The_Rugb-a-51_1760707503923.jpg\")
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