Raekha Prasad
We hear the voices telling women that their views, their understanding of the world, are as important as men's. We hear TV and radio stations and newspapers saying they want - need - women journalists, even if only to bump up audience or readership figures. It is a knock, then, to open the first edition of The Journalist's Handbook in the new millennium. The media quarterly is devoted entirely to the media themes and personalities of the 20th century, the centrepiece of which is a collection of profiles of journalistic heroes. There are 23. All of them are men. No Martha Gellhorn, no Katharine Graham, no Kate Adie, Katharine Whitehorn, Mary Stott, Jill Tweedie. Roll, roll, roll on the new millennium.
It's official. Women who play rugby are not from planet butch. In fact they have things in common with, well, normal women. Just look at the evidence. A survey of women rugby players has found that playing rugby does not disqualify wimmin from being seduced, being chatted up and having an ideal date; 28% said they'd want to go white water rafting and 80% said they like a GSOH. So next time you feel confused about whether women playing rugby are really women, do the ultimate gender test and see if she's interested in your oar and laughs at your jokes. How useful! How practical! How depressing. Sidelines has been sent desirable gloves. Desirable, that is, if you're dealing with your cat's litter tray, gutting fish, chopping chillies or doing housework. Yes, three pairs of household gloves without a hint of irony. And to top it off, the bumf tells us when we're scrubbing the toilet rim, these rubber monsters will protect our manicured nails and keep our hands looking young. Nice to know someone cares. Where's the chocolate?
Source Citation
"Women: Side lines." Guardian [London, England] 11 Jan. 2000
Showing posts with label Prejudice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prejudice. Show all posts
Tuesday, 11 January 2000
Sunday, 17 October 1999
Lawrence Dallaglio coaches a women's sevens team for Sky TV
THE FUTURE was looking cloudless for Lawrence Dallaglio back in the spring of 1998 when he agreed to be a Guiding Star for a new series on Sky One. The station had already signed up David Seaman to manage a park football side, and a page three girl to teach wannabe page three girls how to, well, how to get undressed, presumably. Dallaglio, meanwhile, was asked to coach the Bancroft Women's Rugby Union Club as they prepared for a big sevens tournament.
A few days' filming, a nice wedge of green in the pocket of his shorts, and an hour's worth of positive publicity for the lantern-jawed England captain. It seemed too easy to be true. But of course, no sooner was the film in the can than the biggest, blackest cloud Dallaglio had ever seen suddenly appeared on the horizon. What Murdoch giveth with one hand, one of the countless others was about to take away.
And so it was that while last week's Guiding Star still looked like a blatant PR exercise, it felt altogether less cosy than originally intended. Try as you might, you could never forget the awful mess into which this rather quiet, self-conscious giant of a man was about to blunder. The central figure was no longer a talented player on the way up, but a daft one in danger of sliding down the other side.
It meant that it was impossible to watch otherwise innocent moments without smirking. His team, for instance, spent a night during the two-day tournament all tucked up together in a large tent. Lawrence, however, decided to sleep elsewhere, and thank heaven for that. Imagine what the Screws would have made of it. Scrum Down! Saucy No 8 scores seven before breakfast! It doesn't bear thinking about.
At least he didn't describe Bancroft's eventual success in the tournament - in fact, it was in the consolation event for also-rans - as "one of the biggest highs of my life". Or if he did, Sky were kind enough to cut it out. But to be fair to Dallaglio, his team's transformation did seem to be a cause for credit.
The previous year, this bunch of apparent no-hopers had finished 60th in a field of 64. Now, despite some embarrassing defeats on day one, they came through on day two to win three matches in a row, and beat the Army, no less, to take the trophy for the Best Of The Rest. BSkyB, cynics may point out, would do anything for ratings, but surely even they would not corrupt an entire rugby tournament in the quest for sexier television. You have to hope not, anyway.
This wholesale transformation in Bancroft's fortunes seemed to have come about as the result of two training sessions with Dallaglio and a lecture on nutrition and exercise from Wasps' diet guru. "I realise," he told them, "that shopping and McDonald's are slightly higher priorities than [exercise] twice a week on your own." If they hadn't been so out of shape, they would probably have killed him. "What about alcohol?" someone asked. Lawrence decided that he would field that one himself. "The general rule," he told them, "is that we don't touch it for two or three days before a game." Now why couldn't he have said something like that to those nasty people from the News of the World?
Dallaglio's international career, of course, is pretty much back on track. He was in the thick of it on Friday, as England ran 100-odd points past Tonga, in yet another match which forced you to wonder whether ITV really took a close look at what they were signing when they bought the rights to the World Cup.
At least there was a crowd for this one, unlike so many of the first- round games. And yes, Wales against Samoa on Thursday also had an audience, and was thoroughly entertaining too, particularly when the referee adopted the Old Trafford approach to injury time - the home side are behind, so keep playing - and the Welsh still couldn't win. But what both ITV and, more pointedly, their advertisers, must be wondering is whether every empty seat at, say, Murrayfield for Scotland v Uruguay represents 10, 100 or even 1,000 empty sofas in Britain's living rooms.
In the same way that many people only watch the Boat Race in case one of the crews sinks, those who watch the early games are probably waiting only for the fights. The Americans are often derided for calling their baseball final the World Series, but it is no less ridiculous to call a tournament the World Cup when everyone knows that by the time of the semi-finals, it will almost certainly be the Tri-Nations Plus One.
Nine, perhaps even 13, sacrificial victims for the major southern-hemisphere sides might have been bearable. Seventeen is a turn-off, in every sense, but no doubt the organisers felt that they had corporate packages to sell, advertisers to accommodate and potential sponsors to keep happy. And that, of course, rather brings us back to Lawrence Dallaglio.
Source Citation
Wood, Greg. "Sport on TV: Dallaglio's delivery brings a smirk to the cynical." Independent on Sunday [London, England] 17 Oct. 1999
A few days' filming, a nice wedge of green in the pocket of his shorts, and an hour's worth of positive publicity for the lantern-jawed England captain. It seemed too easy to be true. But of course, no sooner was the film in the can than the biggest, blackest cloud Dallaglio had ever seen suddenly appeared on the horizon. What Murdoch giveth with one hand, one of the countless others was about to take away.
And so it was that while last week's Guiding Star still looked like a blatant PR exercise, it felt altogether less cosy than originally intended. Try as you might, you could never forget the awful mess into which this rather quiet, self-conscious giant of a man was about to blunder. The central figure was no longer a talented player on the way up, but a daft one in danger of sliding down the other side.
It meant that it was impossible to watch otherwise innocent moments without smirking. His team, for instance, spent a night during the two-day tournament all tucked up together in a large tent. Lawrence, however, decided to sleep elsewhere, and thank heaven for that. Imagine what the Screws would have made of it. Scrum Down! Saucy No 8 scores seven before breakfast! It doesn't bear thinking about.
At least he didn't describe Bancroft's eventual success in the tournament - in fact, it was in the consolation event for also-rans - as "one of the biggest highs of my life". Or if he did, Sky were kind enough to cut it out. But to be fair to Dallaglio, his team's transformation did seem to be a cause for credit.
The previous year, this bunch of apparent no-hopers had finished 60th in a field of 64. Now, despite some embarrassing defeats on day one, they came through on day two to win three matches in a row, and beat the Army, no less, to take the trophy for the Best Of The Rest. BSkyB, cynics may point out, would do anything for ratings, but surely even they would not corrupt an entire rugby tournament in the quest for sexier television. You have to hope not, anyway.
This wholesale transformation in Bancroft's fortunes seemed to have come about as the result of two training sessions with Dallaglio and a lecture on nutrition and exercise from Wasps' diet guru. "I realise," he told them, "that shopping and McDonald's are slightly higher priorities than [exercise] twice a week on your own." If they hadn't been so out of shape, they would probably have killed him. "What about alcohol?" someone asked. Lawrence decided that he would field that one himself. "The general rule," he told them, "is that we don't touch it for two or three days before a game." Now why couldn't he have said something like that to those nasty people from the News of the World?
Dallaglio's international career, of course, is pretty much back on track. He was in the thick of it on Friday, as England ran 100-odd points past Tonga, in yet another match which forced you to wonder whether ITV really took a close look at what they were signing when they bought the rights to the World Cup.
At least there was a crowd for this one, unlike so many of the first- round games. And yes, Wales against Samoa on Thursday also had an audience, and was thoroughly entertaining too, particularly when the referee adopted the Old Trafford approach to injury time - the home side are behind, so keep playing - and the Welsh still couldn't win. But what both ITV and, more pointedly, their advertisers, must be wondering is whether every empty seat at, say, Murrayfield for Scotland v Uruguay represents 10, 100 or even 1,000 empty sofas in Britain's living rooms.
In the same way that many people only watch the Boat Race in case one of the crews sinks, those who watch the early games are probably waiting only for the fights. The Americans are often derided for calling their baseball final the World Series, but it is no less ridiculous to call a tournament the World Cup when everyone knows that by the time of the semi-finals, it will almost certainly be the Tri-Nations Plus One.
Nine, perhaps even 13, sacrificial victims for the major southern-hemisphere sides might have been bearable. Seventeen is a turn-off, in every sense, but no doubt the organisers felt that they had corporate packages to sell, advertisers to accommodate and potential sponsors to keep happy. And that, of course, rather brings us back to Lawrence Dallaglio.
Source Citation
Wood, Greg. "Sport on TV: Dallaglio's delivery brings a smirk to the cynical." Independent on Sunday [London, England] 17 Oct. 1999
Saturday, 2 May 1998
Women's rugby now accepted by Twickenham?
FRANK KEATING
AS THE old advertising boast for the Virginia Slims women's tennis circuit had it - 'You've come a long way, baby' - so with the distaff branch of international rugby. Only 10 years ago, when Emma Mitchell played her first Test match against Wales at Newport, the England team slept in bunks or sleeping-bags at the Chepstow youth hostel.
'It was a three o'clock kick-off but we were still slung out by 10am after doing all the chores; the forwards washed up the breakfast things, the backs swept and dusted, and us two half-backs had to clean out the toilets. Then we found a park and 'killed three or four hours mooching about with our rucksacks, sleeping-bags and match kit.'From a Chepstow youth hostel to a swish hotel in Amsterdam . . . that 1988 fixture was only the third international England's women had played. Those pioneers have seen their game develop at such a remarkable pace that yesterday in Holland's capital the Dutch minister of sport, the former Olympic swimming medallist Erica Terpstra, officially opened the third women's World Cup in a jam-packed sell-out new stadium where today England begin the defence of their title against Sweden.
The final will be a fortnight today. Sixteen countries have qualified and although the bookmakers particularly fancy the holders England along with the United States, France and New Zealand, the newly Triple-crowned Scots are seriously optimistic; the Welsh and the Irish also travel with high hopes.
With some enlightened sponsorship, plus Sports Council funding and a Lottery grant, the women's game in England has nervelessly held the gaze and stared back with a bonny smile at the diminishing but still substantial body of men who scoff at their pastime.
The Rugby Football Union has come round at last. After the first women's World Cup in Cardiff in 1991 the International Rugby Football Board refused recognition to a follow-up in Holland, but after it was switched to Edinburgh and become another huge success, England famously winning the final, that haughty body loosened the studs on its starched wing-collars. Although not yet fully integrated the Women's RFU (RFUW) is now accepted under the umbrella of the RFU.
When the engaging scrum-half Mitchell played her first international that afternoon at Newport in 1988 there were reckoned to be about 40 women's sides in England. Today there are 270, and more than 8,500 registered players - which still does not compare, mind you, with the 13,000 players in 600-plus United States teams. Canada boasts nearly 10,000 players. On the other hand, Sweden muster only 100 adult players.
Brought up on men's rugby, you must watch and appreciate the women's game as if through a filter. As in cricket, different qualities predominate. Women's rugby is singularly more nimble and dextrous, and although just as wholehearted it has less of a grudge-driven and bullyingly hard edge.
Training at Lilleshall this week before travelling to Holland on Thursday, the England squad displayed a lightness of touch in mind and spirit that their sombrely grunting male counterparts have long lost. There is a wide blend in ages, although on the practice pitch the mudlarking teenagers are not noticeably in thrall to their two undoubted world stars, the totemesque No. 8 and captain Gill Burns and the equally appealing Mitchell, who set Sky screens alight a couple of weeks ago when playing for Saracens against Wasps in the club cup final.
Like Mitchell, Burns took up the game when chivvied to switch from hockey in her early twenties. 'Rugby took over my life,' says the enthusiast, who teaches PE at Range High School, Formby.
Both women remain chastened by last autumn's first England tour to New Zealand when, after a 28-hour flight, the team had a day's sleep before waking up to play, ludicrously, the full-strength women's All Black XV. Not surprisingly they were beaten, 67 0. It still rankles. In Amsterdam, England are seeded to play New Zealand, who did not attend the World Cup in 1994, in the semi-final on Tuesday week.
'If not quite 67, they were 30 points better than us,' says Mitchell with a delectably determined smile. 'We know we stood off that day and let them come at us, which was fatal.'
At Lilleshall this week the women called in one of the England coaches, the former rugby league stalwart Phil Larder, to galvanise their defences. Larder was a convert inside five minutes and, after two stiff sessions on Monday, stayed over for an extra one on Tuesday. 'I feared the worst, if truth were known. But I've been impressed. I've drilled them one-on-one just like I have with the men, and they compared on a dead-level par. At defence, their technique and ability to hit hard was an eye-opener; they've got the timing as well as the bottle; they've addressed their apparent weaknesses and now I'd be mighty surprised if any other team in this World Cup can possibly defend as well.'
The Worcester club provide two in the Amsterdam party, the full-back Nicky Brown and Mitchell's deputy, the 18-year-old Jo-Ann Yapp, and I offered the last word to Worcester's rugby director Les Cusworth, former England coach and sparkling fly-half. 'The ladies play and enjoy rugby as it should be played and enjoyed. They are fast and skilful, and though the old-fashioned male in me still winces at some of the physical contact, their vision, handling and deftness of touch can teach many a leading male player a trick or two.'
As the Virginia Slims baby had it, they have come a mighty long way. From that Chepstow youth hostel to a plush hotel in Amsterdam . . .
Source Citation
"Rugby Union: Women's World Cup: It's only ruck and roll but we like it: Even the twits at Twickers take the fillies seriously now. It's been a long hard road, but they've finally arrived." Guardian [London, England] 2 May 1998
AS THE old advertising boast for the Virginia Slims women's tennis circuit had it - 'You've come a long way, baby' - so with the distaff branch of international rugby. Only 10 years ago, when Emma Mitchell played her first Test match against Wales at Newport, the England team slept in bunks or sleeping-bags at the Chepstow youth hostel.
'It was a three o'clock kick-off but we were still slung out by 10am after doing all the chores; the forwards washed up the breakfast things, the backs swept and dusted, and us two half-backs had to clean out the toilets. Then we found a park and 'killed three or four hours mooching about with our rucksacks, sleeping-bags and match kit.'From a Chepstow youth hostel to a swish hotel in Amsterdam . . . that 1988 fixture was only the third international England's women had played. Those pioneers have seen their game develop at such a remarkable pace that yesterday in Holland's capital the Dutch minister of sport, the former Olympic swimming medallist Erica Terpstra, officially opened the third women's World Cup in a jam-packed sell-out new stadium where today England begin the defence of their title against Sweden.
The final will be a fortnight today. Sixteen countries have qualified and although the bookmakers particularly fancy the holders England along with the United States, France and New Zealand, the newly Triple-crowned Scots are seriously optimistic; the Welsh and the Irish also travel with high hopes.
With some enlightened sponsorship, plus Sports Council funding and a Lottery grant, the women's game in England has nervelessly held the gaze and stared back with a bonny smile at the diminishing but still substantial body of men who scoff at their pastime.
The Rugby Football Union has come round at last. After the first women's World Cup in Cardiff in 1991 the International Rugby Football Board refused recognition to a follow-up in Holland, but after it was switched to Edinburgh and become another huge success, England famously winning the final, that haughty body loosened the studs on its starched wing-collars. Although not yet fully integrated the Women's RFU (RFUW) is now accepted under the umbrella of the RFU.
When the engaging scrum-half Mitchell played her first international that afternoon at Newport in 1988 there were reckoned to be about 40 women's sides in England. Today there are 270, and more than 8,500 registered players - which still does not compare, mind you, with the 13,000 players in 600-plus United States teams. Canada boasts nearly 10,000 players. On the other hand, Sweden muster only 100 adult players.
Brought up on men's rugby, you must watch and appreciate the women's game as if through a filter. As in cricket, different qualities predominate. Women's rugby is singularly more nimble and dextrous, and although just as wholehearted it has less of a grudge-driven and bullyingly hard edge.
Training at Lilleshall this week before travelling to Holland on Thursday, the England squad displayed a lightness of touch in mind and spirit that their sombrely grunting male counterparts have long lost. There is a wide blend in ages, although on the practice pitch the mudlarking teenagers are not noticeably in thrall to their two undoubted world stars, the totemesque No. 8 and captain Gill Burns and the equally appealing Mitchell, who set Sky screens alight a couple of weeks ago when playing for Saracens against Wasps in the club cup final.
Like Mitchell, Burns took up the game when chivvied to switch from hockey in her early twenties. 'Rugby took over my life,' says the enthusiast, who teaches PE at Range High School, Formby.
Both women remain chastened by last autumn's first England tour to New Zealand when, after a 28-hour flight, the team had a day's sleep before waking up to play, ludicrously, the full-strength women's All Black XV. Not surprisingly they were beaten, 67 0. It still rankles. In Amsterdam, England are seeded to play New Zealand, who did not attend the World Cup in 1994, in the semi-final on Tuesday week.
'If not quite 67, they were 30 points better than us,' says Mitchell with a delectably determined smile. 'We know we stood off that day and let them come at us, which was fatal.'
At Lilleshall this week the women called in one of the England coaches, the former rugby league stalwart Phil Larder, to galvanise their defences. Larder was a convert inside five minutes and, after two stiff sessions on Monday, stayed over for an extra one on Tuesday. 'I feared the worst, if truth were known. But I've been impressed. I've drilled them one-on-one just like I have with the men, and they compared on a dead-level par. At defence, their technique and ability to hit hard was an eye-opener; they've got the timing as well as the bottle; they've addressed their apparent weaknesses and now I'd be mighty surprised if any other team in this World Cup can possibly defend as well.'
The Worcester club provide two in the Amsterdam party, the full-back Nicky Brown and Mitchell's deputy, the 18-year-old Jo-Ann Yapp, and I offered the last word to Worcester's rugby director Les Cusworth, former England coach and sparkling fly-half. 'The ladies play and enjoy rugby as it should be played and enjoyed. They are fast and skilful, and though the old-fashioned male in me still winces at some of the physical contact, their vision, handling and deftness of touch can teach many a leading male player a trick or two.'
As the Virginia Slims baby had it, they have come a mighty long way. From that Chepstow youth hostel to a plush hotel in Amsterdam . . .
Source Citation
"Rugby Union: Women's World Cup: It's only ruck and roll but we like it: Even the twits at Twickers take the fillies seriously now. It's been a long hard road, but they've finally arrived." Guardian [London, England] 2 May 1998
Sunday, 7 December 1997
The champions who are the best-kept secret in England
Anyone seeking proof that money and logic are estranged bedfellows in English sport should take a look at women's rugby union. While millions of pounds are routinely pumped into high-profile male events, some of which are little better than lame ducks, one genuine success story remains a ridiculously well-kept secret.
The facts, though, should be screamed from the rooftops. England are the world champions and 8,000 women are turning out regularly for their clubs, always on a Sunday, mind, so as not to clash with men's matches. What's more, the whole operation gets by on a budget of pounds 200,000 - less than the annual salary of many an Allied Dunbar Premiership player.
Amazingly, the Rugby Football Union for Women are quite relaxed about the situation and exude almost a perverse pride at making a little go a long way. However, as England start to build towards their World Cup defence in Amsterdam next May, the current account will feel the strain over the months to come, starting with today's international against Spain in Madrid.
The season continues early next year with games against France, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and by the time the World Cup is over the RFUW will have good reason to thank their latest sponsor, Swiss Life, for underwriting the England team to the tune of pounds 20,000, with a pounds 10,000 bonus to retain the trophy.
Help from the 10 official suppliers to the England team comes in kind as well as cash and is bewilderingly varied - everything from meat to sports bras. But Rosie Golby, formerly the RFUW's secretary and now president, remembers even more straitened times.
"We were self-funding until 1994 and the players paid for everything - shirts, kit, you name it - even at international level. The girls paid to go to the 1994 World Cup and volunteers are still the sport's lifeblood. But, financially, England are women's rugby's most successful team, although the players and management still contribute to their own travel and accommodation.
"Most players take it up at college and carry on playing when they're working. They train at night, often driving hundreds of miles in the process. Obviously, we can never match the men for raw power but women's rugby is fluent and skilful, and great to watch."
England played their first international, against Wales, 10 years ago but did not really come into their own until 1990 when the Great Britain squad split up into the four home countries. Their first defeat was inflicted by the United States in 1991 but their second, a 15-17 setback against France at Northampton, only happened last February.
Several members of the side which beat the US in the 1994 World Cup final in Edinburgh are still playing, including Nicola Ponsford, who is one of only two full-time RFUW employees. A third national development officer has just been appointed and will work from the RFUW's new office in Newbury - the operation is at present based at de Montfort University in Bedford.
The sport may be in its infancy but the Corinthian spirit which drives it on is a throw back to a bygone era when everything was run exceedingly well by enthusiastic and good-humoured amateurs. Women's rugby may be impoverished but it's fun, and it definitely should not be a secret.
Source Citation
Trow, Paul. "Rugby Union: Riches of the poor relations; Paul Trow looks at the champions who are the best-kept secret in England." Independent on Sunday [London, England] 7 Dec. 1997
The facts, though, should be screamed from the rooftops. England are the world champions and 8,000 women are turning out regularly for their clubs, always on a Sunday, mind, so as not to clash with men's matches. What's more, the whole operation gets by on a budget of pounds 200,000 - less than the annual salary of many an Allied Dunbar Premiership player.
Amazingly, the Rugby Football Union for Women are quite relaxed about the situation and exude almost a perverse pride at making a little go a long way. However, as England start to build towards their World Cup defence in Amsterdam next May, the current account will feel the strain over the months to come, starting with today's international against Spain in Madrid.
The season continues early next year with games against France, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and by the time the World Cup is over the RFUW will have good reason to thank their latest sponsor, Swiss Life, for underwriting the England team to the tune of pounds 20,000, with a pounds 10,000 bonus to retain the trophy.
Help from the 10 official suppliers to the England team comes in kind as well as cash and is bewilderingly varied - everything from meat to sports bras. But Rosie Golby, formerly the RFUW's secretary and now president, remembers even more straitened times.
"We were self-funding until 1994 and the players paid for everything - shirts, kit, you name it - even at international level. The girls paid to go to the 1994 World Cup and volunteers are still the sport's lifeblood. But, financially, England are women's rugby's most successful team, although the players and management still contribute to their own travel and accommodation.
"Most players take it up at college and carry on playing when they're working. They train at night, often driving hundreds of miles in the process. Obviously, we can never match the men for raw power but women's rugby is fluent and skilful, and great to watch."
England played their first international, against Wales, 10 years ago but did not really come into their own until 1990 when the Great Britain squad split up into the four home countries. Their first defeat was inflicted by the United States in 1991 but their second, a 15-17 setback against France at Northampton, only happened last February.
Several members of the side which beat the US in the 1994 World Cup final in Edinburgh are still playing, including Nicola Ponsford, who is one of only two full-time RFUW employees. A third national development officer has just been appointed and will work from the RFUW's new office in Newbury - the operation is at present based at de Montfort University in Bedford.
The sport may be in its infancy but the Corinthian spirit which drives it on is a throw back to a bygone era when everything was run exceedingly well by enthusiastic and good-humoured amateurs. Women's rugby may be impoverished but it's fun, and it definitely should not be a secret.
Source Citation
Trow, Paul. "Rugby Union: Riches of the poor relations; Paul Trow looks at the champions who are the best-kept secret in England." Independent on Sunday [London, England] 7 Dec. 1997
Sunday, 3 September 1995
RFU honours England women - men refuse invitations to attend
Jane Elliott
AFTER nine years and two World Cup wins, women's rugby in England has finally merited the ultimate accolade entry into the RFU's hallowed Rose Room at Twickenham. At an honours ceremony marked by a conspicuous lack of support from their male counterparts, who declined invitations to attend, the 67 women who have gleaned such consistent glory for the Great Britain and England sides since 1987 were officially capped.
The dinner celebrated the start of what promises to be yet another glorious season for the England side that notched up a 40-0 victory over the Nomads, the women's equivalent of the Barbarians, in a friendly at Rosslyn Park.
``It really is a historic day for the women's game,'' said England captain and most capped player, Gill Burns. ``The England side really showed their world-class form and recognition at the dinner makes all the time and effort everyone has put in worthwhile.
``In the past, it was all done for pats on the back, mostly from the rest of the side. Now I feel the game is really getting somewhere and fast.''
With the launch of their Home Nations tournament this season and the Five Nations championship next year, there are only two ghosts left for the RFUW the women's version of the RFU to banish. Its record for the lowest crowd at an international match and its image within the male sector of the game. Hundreds, rather than thousands, turned out to watch England's total dominance over the rest of the world and, although the quality of play was high enough to draw burly Rosslyn Park players pitchside from the bar, it was to comments of, ``Dodgy women playing a men's game,'' and ``It is not the sport you play, it is the quality of the way you play it.''
Women's rugby may be several centuries behind the men's game but surely the talent of the England side, unbeaten since 1991, can no longer be in any doubt.
Copyright (C) The Sunday Times, 1995
Source Citation
"Pulling down another barrier; Women's Rugby." Sunday Times [London, England] 3 Sept. 1995:
AFTER nine years and two World Cup wins, women's rugby in England has finally merited the ultimate accolade entry into the RFU's hallowed Rose Room at Twickenham. At an honours ceremony marked by a conspicuous lack of support from their male counterparts, who declined invitations to attend, the 67 women who have gleaned such consistent glory for the Great Britain and England sides since 1987 were officially capped.
The dinner celebrated the start of what promises to be yet another glorious season for the England side that notched up a 40-0 victory over the Nomads, the women's equivalent of the Barbarians, in a friendly at Rosslyn Park.
``It really is a historic day for the women's game,'' said England captain and most capped player, Gill Burns. ``The England side really showed their world-class form and recognition at the dinner makes all the time and effort everyone has put in worthwhile.
``In the past, it was all done for pats on the back, mostly from the rest of the side. Now I feel the game is really getting somewhere and fast.''
With the launch of their Home Nations tournament this season and the Five Nations championship next year, there are only two ghosts left for the RFUW the women's version of the RFU to banish. Its record for the lowest crowd at an international match and its image within the male sector of the game. Hundreds, rather than thousands, turned out to watch England's total dominance over the rest of the world and, although the quality of play was high enough to draw burly Rosslyn Park players pitchside from the bar, it was to comments of, ``Dodgy women playing a men's game,'' and ``It is not the sport you play, it is the quality of the way you play it.''
Women's rugby may be several centuries behind the men's game but surely the talent of the England side, unbeaten since 1991, can no longer be in any doubt.
Copyright (C) The Sunday Times, 1995
Source Citation
"Pulling down another barrier; Women's Rugby." Sunday Times [London, England] 3 Sept. 1995:
Monday, 31 July 1995
Prejudice in New Zealand: John Kirwan
AFTER the speeches are made, the festivities can begin in unbridled earnest. The bartenders are kept busy as the senior players mingle with the multitudes, flirting capriciously in a sea of supporters and peers. Amidst the pre-eminent company, women's rugby is only a temporary conversation piece. An older woman appears bemused. She is holding a beer for one of the All Blacks, a responsibility she is thrilled to have. 'Why would you want to play the sport?' she asks. 'It's so violent.' Behind her, a male player chats with one female admirer while surreptitiously groping the backside of another. A drink is spilled, but no one notices. John Kirwan, the number 14 who has become an All Black institution - 'the best winger in the world,' some say - approaches a young American woman who has joined Marist during her two-month stay in New Zealand. He towers over her. He, too, wants to know why she plays rugby. 'And don't give me any of that feminist bullshit,' he adds curtly over the noise of the hired band. She seems puzzled by the question. 'I love the game,' she answers. Her reason is almost depressingly logical - why else would women subject themselves to such an under-appreciated role? - but Kirwan refuses to accept this response and insists on further justification. 'I don't believe in women's rugby,' he says. 'Why don't you leave something to us?' . . . The band is soon replaced by someone's CD collection, and Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing comes on during the fraternising and flirtation. Meanwhile, the American is having an animated conversation with a New Zealander who is also the former coach of the Dartmouth College women's rugby team. 'I was sceptical at first too,' he is explaining. 'I was like a lot of the guys here. I couldn't stand the idea of smart, attractive girls going out on the field to rough up their faces and bodies.' The coach seems delighted to have fallen on someone who can relate to his overseas experience and will appreciate his change of heart. 'Isn't it great,' he raves a bit drunkenly but with admirable intentions, 'that you and I can have an intelligent conversation about the game, and I can ask you things like do you use your outside shoulder on a tackle and how do you run your lines, without bringing sex into it?'
'Rugby mad' Ming Nagel's reminiscences of her time with the Marist Old Boys women's rugby team in Auckland, New Zealand, published in the American zine Girljock - slogan 'Fuck the well of loneliness, good-bye to all that. We're here to have fun'. The Marist women's team was unbeaten last year, with four of its players representing the national women's team.
Source Citation
"Jackdaw." Guardian [London, England] 31 July 1995
'Rugby mad' Ming Nagel's reminiscences of her time with the Marist Old Boys women's rugby team in Auckland, New Zealand, published in the American zine Girljock - slogan 'Fuck the well of loneliness, good-bye to all that. We're here to have fun'. The Marist women's team was unbeaten last year, with four of its players representing the national women's team.
Source Citation
"Jackdaw." Guardian [London, England] 31 July 1995
Wednesday, 22 February 1995
RFU loses sex discrimination case
RANK KEATING
BEVERLEY DAVIS, a Cornish dentist, won her sex discrimination case against the Rugby Football Union yesterday.
The 35-year-old honorary secretary of Helston RFC plans to stand for election as Cornwall's representative on the RFU's national general committee but claimed that the all-male RFU at Twickenham was damaging her chances in the poll by questioning whether its rules would allow her to sit on the committee, should she win the local vote.
At Brentford county court Judge Bishop granted Davis an injunction restraining the RFU from raising doubts about her eligibility until after the election. The RFU had written to the Cornish RFU last year quoting its rule 17 and hinting at doubt about women members serving on the committee.
The RFU said Davis could stand for election but, even if she won, it had not yet decided whether it would admit women. 'I am not prepared to be disadvantaged because I am female,' said Davis, who feared clubs might think a vote for her 'could turn out to be a wasted vote'.
Judge Bishop agreed with her yesterday, saying the RFU had had ample time to sort out its rules and that the delay in doing so had clearly been to her electoral disadvantage. 'The defendants have appeared to treat her less favourably than the men,' he said and he refused the RFU leave to appeal.
The RFU claimed that as a private club it was not covered by the Sex Discrimination Act. It said it could interpret its own rules as it wished - but anyway it had yet to decide whether its rules precluded women from the committee. But Lindsay Bryning, a solicitor for the Equal Opportunities Commission, claimed the RFU was not a private club, for it provided public services, and that there were many female members of RFU clubs, so they should be allowed to be represented nationally.
Twickenham's male diehards say any committee member should fulfil the same eligibility requirements as England rugby players; and, because RFU rules bar a girl over 13 playing in the same matches as boys, such a requirement could never be met. In addition, since the national women's rugby body had always made clear its desire to remain separate from the 'male' RFU, this should be reflected in the committees of the two organisations.
The Helston club, of which Davis is secretary, was formed in 1965, so has none of the history of famed Cornish teams. But the name of Helston resounds uniquely in sport, for the little hill town was the birthplace, in 1862, of Britain's only world heavyweight boxing champion Bob Fitzsimmons. Obviously the tradition of breeding fighters continues.
One by one sport's male bastions have fallen. Might the clubhouse at St Andrews or MCC's pavilion and committee room at Lord's be stormed next? All 'masculine' trophies are presented on the pavilion balcony and it jarred after the 1993 women's World Cup final that the presentation was on the outfield grass.
It reminded some of the Durban Open Golf Championship at the height of South Africa's awfulness when the Indian winner Sewgolum received his trophy outside in pouring rain while the white competitors he had beaten watched from inside the clubhouse.
In the Sixties the Jockey Club was forced to give way when the trainer Florence Nagle won in the Court of Appeal and put an end to its chauvinist fiction by which training licences were granted to women only 'in the name of their stables' male head-lad'. Now the club accepts women members and women jockeys.
Many golf clubs are still riddled with discrimination through the male-dominated 'private' get-out, and the men fight on with petty, dyed-in-the-wool misogyny.
In the first dozen years since the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act, the Equal Opportunities Commission received some 2,000 complaints about the lower status and treatment of women members of private sports clubs. Davis's case will be another landmark.
Source Citation
"Rugby Union: RFU loses sex discrimination case in court." Guardian [London, England] 22 Feb. 1995
BEVERLEY DAVIS, a Cornish dentist, won her sex discrimination case against the Rugby Football Union yesterday.
The 35-year-old honorary secretary of Helston RFC plans to stand for election as Cornwall's representative on the RFU's national general committee but claimed that the all-male RFU at Twickenham was damaging her chances in the poll by questioning whether its rules would allow her to sit on the committee, should she win the local vote.
At Brentford county court Judge Bishop granted Davis an injunction restraining the RFU from raising doubts about her eligibility until after the election. The RFU had written to the Cornish RFU last year quoting its rule 17 and hinting at doubt about women members serving on the committee.
The RFU said Davis could stand for election but, even if she won, it had not yet decided whether it would admit women. 'I am not prepared to be disadvantaged because I am female,' said Davis, who feared clubs might think a vote for her 'could turn out to be a wasted vote'.
Judge Bishop agreed with her yesterday, saying the RFU had had ample time to sort out its rules and that the delay in doing so had clearly been to her electoral disadvantage. 'The defendants have appeared to treat her less favourably than the men,' he said and he refused the RFU leave to appeal.
The RFU claimed that as a private club it was not covered by the Sex Discrimination Act. It said it could interpret its own rules as it wished - but anyway it had yet to decide whether its rules precluded women from the committee. But Lindsay Bryning, a solicitor for the Equal Opportunities Commission, claimed the RFU was not a private club, for it provided public services, and that there were many female members of RFU clubs, so they should be allowed to be represented nationally.
Twickenham's male diehards say any committee member should fulfil the same eligibility requirements as England rugby players; and, because RFU rules bar a girl over 13 playing in the same matches as boys, such a requirement could never be met. In addition, since the national women's rugby body had always made clear its desire to remain separate from the 'male' RFU, this should be reflected in the committees of the two organisations.
The Helston club, of which Davis is secretary, was formed in 1965, so has none of the history of famed Cornish teams. But the name of Helston resounds uniquely in sport, for the little hill town was the birthplace, in 1862, of Britain's only world heavyweight boxing champion Bob Fitzsimmons. Obviously the tradition of breeding fighters continues.
One by one sport's male bastions have fallen. Might the clubhouse at St Andrews or MCC's pavilion and committee room at Lord's be stormed next? All 'masculine' trophies are presented on the pavilion balcony and it jarred after the 1993 women's World Cup final that the presentation was on the outfield grass.
It reminded some of the Durban Open Golf Championship at the height of South Africa's awfulness when the Indian winner Sewgolum received his trophy outside in pouring rain while the white competitors he had beaten watched from inside the clubhouse.
In the Sixties the Jockey Club was forced to give way when the trainer Florence Nagle won in the Court of Appeal and put an end to its chauvinist fiction by which training licences were granted to women only 'in the name of their stables' male head-lad'. Now the club accepts women members and women jockeys.
Many golf clubs are still riddled with discrimination through the male-dominated 'private' get-out, and the men fight on with petty, dyed-in-the-wool misogyny.
In the first dozen years since the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act, the Equal Opportunities Commission received some 2,000 complaints about the lower status and treatment of women members of private sports clubs. Davis's case will be another landmark.
Source Citation
"Rugby Union: RFU loses sex discrimination case in court." Guardian [London, England] 22 Feb. 1995
Monday, 13 February 1995
England v Wales
Gerald Davies reports on a skilful women's international in which England beat Wales 25-0
The old world changes, and so do attitudes. Years ago, a friend of mine used to say, in his fashion, that, for so rough a game, he could not get over the extraordinary number of women who followed rugby. Were he still with us today, he would find that the women are not only there sitting beside him in the stand, but out there on the pitch, too. For so politically correct an age, this masculine view of the feminine world may be interpreted as dangerous talk. But there we are. We cannot deny the fact.
Quite what my old pal would say in seeing the women of England actually playing the game against the women of Wales, I am not sure. But knowing him, he would doubtless approve, particularly as he would have seen a match of high skill and wholehearted endeavour at Sale yesterday. He would have been less content, however, since he wore his Welsh heart so firmly on his sleeve, to see Wales go down to so disciplined and well-organised an England team by five tries without reply.
Those who object to women playing rugby are much the same as those who once objected to women running marathons: the over-protective male attempting to shelter what is perceived to be the sensitive femininity of a woman. This is the male chauvinist in patronising mood.
Jeff Probyn put his foot in it recently by wishing, at the first hint of danger and physical harm, to outlaw women from rugby altogether and giving scant acknowledgement that women, like men, can make up their own minds as to what is and what is not dangerous. Adopting such a posture is much like subscribing to Dr Samuel Johnson's view that ``a man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner at his table, than when his wife talks Greek''.
Had the venerable good doctor known about rugby, he might have added the laws of rugby union as another subject to be kicked into touch. The dissection of rugby's intricacies can often seem like so much ``greek'' in any case.
While England were too powerful for Wales to make it a proper contest, the skills displayed and the overall commitment of both teams were qualities to admire. The feistiness with which women's rugby has been foisted on an unsuspecting and deeply suspicious public deserves to be richly rewarded. Unless that sounds too patronising.
The dominating personality was England's captain. Gill Burns dominated the lineout and like Dean Richards although comparisons are not wholly valid she drew her forwards around her to clear any threats at the base of the scrum. Not far behind her was Jenny Chambers. Suzy Appleby was a neat and busy scrum half, who, with an accurate pass, seemed to turn up everywhere when the need was called. These three set a high standard.
For Wales, Amanda Bennett, at stand-off half, seemed to have studied the videos of when Wales's factory was in full production. She had a fine game, as did Lisa Jones at No8.
Sara Wenn's try from a drive at the lineout close to the Welsh line and Burns's push-over try gave England the half-time lead. Superior power in attack led to three more tries after the interval by Mills, Appleby and Edwards.
Now that England and Scotland are associate members of their respective rugby unions, with Wales and Ireland soon to follow, the future of women's rugby can be nothing less than bright. Any remaining prejudice must fly out of the window.
SCORERS: England: Tries: Wenn, Burns, Mills, Appleby, Edwards.
ENGLAND: P George (Wasps); J Molyneux (Waterloo), J Edwards (Blackheath), A Wallace (Leeds), A Cole (Saracens); D Mills (Richmond), S Appleby (Novocastrians); J Mangham (Waterloo), N Ponsford (Clifton), E Scourfield (Leeds), J Chambers (Richmond), S Wenn (Wasps), H Stirrup (Wasps), H Clayton (Waterloo), G Burns (Waterloo). Cole replaced by L Mayhew (Leeds, 68min). Burns temporarily replaced by K Henderson (Clifton, 56).
WALES: K Richards (Old Leamingtonians); A Lewis (Ystradgynlais), P Evans (Swansea), W Shaw (Aberystwyth), K Yau (Waterloo); A Bennett (Wasps), B Evans (Cardiff); J Watkins (Cardiff), N Griffiths (Cardiff), C Lloyd (Cardiff), J Morgan (Cardiff), S Jones (Cardiff), K Knoak (Swansea), S Butler (Richmond), L Jones (Cardiff). B Evans replaced by C Thomas (Waterloo, 28); Griffiths replaced by B Jones-Evans (Waterloo, 68), S Jones replaced by H Carey (Swansea, 56).
Referee: J Fleming (Scotland).
Copyright (C) The Times, 1995
Source Citation
"National pride dispels prejudice; Women's Rugby." Times [London, England] 13 Feb. 1995
The old world changes, and so do attitudes. Years ago, a friend of mine used to say, in his fashion, that, for so rough a game, he could not get over the extraordinary number of women who followed rugby. Were he still with us today, he would find that the women are not only there sitting beside him in the stand, but out there on the pitch, too. For so politically correct an age, this masculine view of the feminine world may be interpreted as dangerous talk. But there we are. We cannot deny the fact.
Quite what my old pal would say in seeing the women of England actually playing the game against the women of Wales, I am not sure. But knowing him, he would doubtless approve, particularly as he would have seen a match of high skill and wholehearted endeavour at Sale yesterday. He would have been less content, however, since he wore his Welsh heart so firmly on his sleeve, to see Wales go down to so disciplined and well-organised an England team by five tries without reply.
Those who object to women playing rugby are much the same as those who once objected to women running marathons: the over-protective male attempting to shelter what is perceived to be the sensitive femininity of a woman. This is the male chauvinist in patronising mood.
Jeff Probyn put his foot in it recently by wishing, at the first hint of danger and physical harm, to outlaw women from rugby altogether and giving scant acknowledgement that women, like men, can make up their own minds as to what is and what is not dangerous. Adopting such a posture is much like subscribing to Dr Samuel Johnson's view that ``a man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner at his table, than when his wife talks Greek''.
Had the venerable good doctor known about rugby, he might have added the laws of rugby union as another subject to be kicked into touch. The dissection of rugby's intricacies can often seem like so much ``greek'' in any case.
While England were too powerful for Wales to make it a proper contest, the skills displayed and the overall commitment of both teams were qualities to admire. The feistiness with which women's rugby has been foisted on an unsuspecting and deeply suspicious public deserves to be richly rewarded. Unless that sounds too patronising.
The dominating personality was England's captain. Gill Burns dominated the lineout and like Dean Richards although comparisons are not wholly valid she drew her forwards around her to clear any threats at the base of the scrum. Not far behind her was Jenny Chambers. Suzy Appleby was a neat and busy scrum half, who, with an accurate pass, seemed to turn up everywhere when the need was called. These three set a high standard.
For Wales, Amanda Bennett, at stand-off half, seemed to have studied the videos of when Wales's factory was in full production. She had a fine game, as did Lisa Jones at No8.
Sara Wenn's try from a drive at the lineout close to the Welsh line and Burns's push-over try gave England the half-time lead. Superior power in attack led to three more tries after the interval by Mills, Appleby and Edwards.
Now that England and Scotland are associate members of their respective rugby unions, with Wales and Ireland soon to follow, the future of women's rugby can be nothing less than bright. Any remaining prejudice must fly out of the window.
SCORERS: England: Tries: Wenn, Burns, Mills, Appleby, Edwards.
ENGLAND: P George (Wasps); J Molyneux (Waterloo), J Edwards (Blackheath), A Wallace (Leeds), A Cole (Saracens); D Mills (Richmond), S Appleby (Novocastrians); J Mangham (Waterloo), N Ponsford (Clifton), E Scourfield (Leeds), J Chambers (Richmond), S Wenn (Wasps), H Stirrup (Wasps), H Clayton (Waterloo), G Burns (Waterloo). Cole replaced by L Mayhew (Leeds, 68min). Burns temporarily replaced by K Henderson (Clifton, 56).
WALES: K Richards (Old Leamingtonians); A Lewis (Ystradgynlais), P Evans (Swansea), W Shaw (Aberystwyth), K Yau (Waterloo); A Bennett (Wasps), B Evans (Cardiff); J Watkins (Cardiff), N Griffiths (Cardiff), C Lloyd (Cardiff), J Morgan (Cardiff), S Jones (Cardiff), K Knoak (Swansea), S Butler (Richmond), L Jones (Cardiff). B Evans replaced by C Thomas (Waterloo, 28); Griffiths replaced by B Jones-Evans (Waterloo, 68), S Jones replaced by H Carey (Swansea, 56).
Referee: J Fleming (Scotland).
Copyright (C) The Times, 1995
Source Citation
"National pride dispels prejudice; Women's Rugby." Times [London, England] 13 Feb. 1995
Sunday, 15 January 1995
London Scottish force removal of women's team's honours board from clubhouse
TO represent your country is an honour, to do so and conquer the world an achievement worthy of national pride unless, it seems, you are a member of Richmond women's rugby team.
Having produced 27 international players in eight years, including five members of the World Cup-winning England side, Richmond WRFC proudly erected an honours board on their clubhouse wall. However, an objection from London Scottish, the men-only club with whom Richmond share premises, led to it being consigned to a cupboard.
The reason for the objection: ``They didn't ask permission and we don't want their board to be in the same sort of position as London Scottish players who have represented Scotland, or Richmond players who have represented England.''
Source Citation
"Pressure on Evans grows ever greater; Inside Track." Sunday Times [London, England] 15 Jan. 1995
Having produced 27 international players in eight years, including five members of the World Cup-winning England side, Richmond WRFC proudly erected an honours board on their clubhouse wall. However, an objection from London Scottish, the men-only club with whom Richmond share premises, led to it being consigned to a cupboard.
The reason for the objection: ``They didn't ask permission and we don't want their board to be in the same sort of position as London Scottish players who have represented Scotland, or Richmond players who have represented England.''
Source Citation
"Pressure on Evans grows ever greater; Inside Track." Sunday Times [London, England] 15 Jan. 1995
Sunday, 1 January 1995
RFU excludes candidate from election to an RFU committee... because she is a woman
Stephen Jones
Stephen Jones takes some outdated attitudes to task as the RFU board rules that if you can't play for England, then don't bother to apply.
IT IS impossible to be left unimpressed by the outer face of the Rugby Football Union. The vertiginous monster that is Twickenham, creeping under the tower cranes, is much more than a stadium-rebuilding project. It is the most eloquent statement of confidence in the future. All the more reason to be disturbed by the recent discovery of medieval ruins on the same site.
I suppose it was inevitable that there would be a flurry of publicity when Beverley Davis, secretary of Helston rugby club, announced her candidacy to become Cornwall's representative on the committee of the RFU. There is always a fuss about the first woman anywhere in space, in parliament, in rugby. When the first female physiotherapists appeared at rugby clubs, everyone duly trotted out the jokes about treating groin injuries. These days, with all that out of the system and with almost every major club in the land having a female physio on their medical team, they are left to get on with their (priceless) work.
A new respect for women in rugby in England has allowed the sport to emancipate itself from a largely scandalous past. All the more shocking then, that the RFU has revealed its old colours. It has ruled that Davis is ineligible for its committee, not by raising a valid regulation, but by cowering behind one.
The offending regulation states: ``The qualifications which govern the Union's selection of players for England...shall apply to all persons nominated for constituent body representation on the Committee.''
It is obvious this measure was intended purely to exclude non-English people. If you can't play for England because you are not English, then you can't possibly sit on the RFU either.
But for the RFU to pretend that the regulation was ever meant to exclude women, for it pointedly to use it as a cheap shot precisely to exclude one woman in particular, and to say that Davis cannot stand for the committee purely because she has no chance of being chosen to play for the England team, is just too insultingly preposterous for words.
And even if you can bring yourself to ignore the breathtaking sexism of it all, does anyone really believe that for the future of a game in rapid turnover, the administration at the top level is so outstanding that it can deny the potential of half the population of the country.
Consider the potential loss. There are now 72 women secretaries of English rugby clubs, there are thousands more acting elsewhere on the committees or as coaches, commercial managers, referees, press officers and rugby journalists. There are no roles in the game that women cannot fill. Rosie Golby, the best-known administrator in the wondrous explosion that is women's rugby, decorated in The Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year Awards, could move effortlessly into any senior role in the men's game. Davis has a distinguished record in rugby administration, including eight years representing her club, and the Cornwall RU.
What of the damage to the game's image. Until the RFU manoeuvre, rugby had become a far more comfortable environment for women. The RFU had led the way in royal treatments of wives and families of players, and the wonderful Leicester club, which has more than 3,000 members, has been the gem of the new images.
But we are now reminded of the desperate old grimness, the image which rugby, especially English rugby, had of rampaging sexism that was not only widespread but well earned. There were few innocent bystanders.
I still have a copy of my college's Freshers' Handbook, which solidly warned new female students about the activities of the College Rugby Club. I have always been ashamed that those of us who joined the club to play never spoke out more loudly against those who fastened on simply to cause criminal damage, to verbally abuse any woman within earshot and to sing those staggeringly appalling rugby songs, which some half-wits even used to produce in book or cassette form. Just as I am ashamed that last week I left a Berkshire golf club festooned with Men Only signs on most of its doors, only after playing a round and having lunch. Other sports have their monstrosities, too.
The good news is that the RFU can easily reassert the sport's progress, can banish the impression that a body which now deserves to be called progressive, still has an unpleasant clique at its heart. All they have to do is stop hiding behind a regulation of convenience, to allow the candidacy of Davis to stand or fall simply on the wishes of her electorate in Cornwall and to realise that the future is not a stadium but a state of mind.
Copyright (C) The Sunday Times, 1995
Source Citation
"Davis tackles an RFU in the Dark Ages; Rugby Union." Sunday Times [London, England] 1 Jan. 1995
Stephen Jones takes some outdated attitudes to task as the RFU board rules that if you can't play for England, then don't bother to apply.
IT IS impossible to be left unimpressed by the outer face of the Rugby Football Union. The vertiginous monster that is Twickenham, creeping under the tower cranes, is much more than a stadium-rebuilding project. It is the most eloquent statement of confidence in the future. All the more reason to be disturbed by the recent discovery of medieval ruins on the same site.
I suppose it was inevitable that there would be a flurry of publicity when Beverley Davis, secretary of Helston rugby club, announced her candidacy to become Cornwall's representative on the committee of the RFU. There is always a fuss about the first woman anywhere in space, in parliament, in rugby. When the first female physiotherapists appeared at rugby clubs, everyone duly trotted out the jokes about treating groin injuries. These days, with all that out of the system and with almost every major club in the land having a female physio on their medical team, they are left to get on with their (priceless) work.
A new respect for women in rugby in England has allowed the sport to emancipate itself from a largely scandalous past. All the more shocking then, that the RFU has revealed its old colours. It has ruled that Davis is ineligible for its committee, not by raising a valid regulation, but by cowering behind one.
The offending regulation states: ``The qualifications which govern the Union's selection of players for England...shall apply to all persons nominated for constituent body representation on the Committee.''
It is obvious this measure was intended purely to exclude non-English people. If you can't play for England because you are not English, then you can't possibly sit on the RFU either.
But for the RFU to pretend that the regulation was ever meant to exclude women, for it pointedly to use it as a cheap shot precisely to exclude one woman in particular, and to say that Davis cannot stand for the committee purely because she has no chance of being chosen to play for the England team, is just too insultingly preposterous for words.
And even if you can bring yourself to ignore the breathtaking sexism of it all, does anyone really believe that for the future of a game in rapid turnover, the administration at the top level is so outstanding that it can deny the potential of half the population of the country.
Consider the potential loss. There are now 72 women secretaries of English rugby clubs, there are thousands more acting elsewhere on the committees or as coaches, commercial managers, referees, press officers and rugby journalists. There are no roles in the game that women cannot fill. Rosie Golby, the best-known administrator in the wondrous explosion that is women's rugby, decorated in The Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year Awards, could move effortlessly into any senior role in the men's game. Davis has a distinguished record in rugby administration, including eight years representing her club, and the Cornwall RU.
What of the damage to the game's image. Until the RFU manoeuvre, rugby had become a far more comfortable environment for women. The RFU had led the way in royal treatments of wives and families of players, and the wonderful Leicester club, which has more than 3,000 members, has been the gem of the new images.
But we are now reminded of the desperate old grimness, the image which rugby, especially English rugby, had of rampaging sexism that was not only widespread but well earned. There were few innocent bystanders.
I still have a copy of my college's Freshers' Handbook, which solidly warned new female students about the activities of the College Rugby Club. I have always been ashamed that those of us who joined the club to play never spoke out more loudly against those who fastened on simply to cause criminal damage, to verbally abuse any woman within earshot and to sing those staggeringly appalling rugby songs, which some half-wits even used to produce in book or cassette form. Just as I am ashamed that last week I left a Berkshire golf club festooned with Men Only signs on most of its doors, only after playing a round and having lunch. Other sports have their monstrosities, too.
The good news is that the RFU can easily reassert the sport's progress, can banish the impression that a body which now deserves to be called progressive, still has an unpleasant clique at its heart. All they have to do is stop hiding behind a regulation of convenience, to allow the candidacy of Davis to stand or fall simply on the wishes of her electorate in Cornwall and to realise that the future is not a stadium but a state of mind.
Copyright (C) The Sunday Times, 1995
Source Citation
"Davis tackles an RFU in the Dark Ages; Rugby Union." Sunday Times [London, England] 1 Jan. 1995
Sunday, 11 December 1994
Prejudice: another response to Probyn
SALLY JONES
WHEN the England women's rugby side run out for their international against Holland at Wasps next Sunday they will be desperate not just to win, but to win in the sort of style that will make Jeff Probyn eat his words.
After a student suffered a neck injury, which did not prove serious, in a recent women's club match the former England prop and several other members of the establishment's macho brigade declared that rugby was too rough a game for women and implied that female players were a pack of harridans with broken noses and cauliflower ears.
The comments provoked an uproar, with howls of outrage or derision from most of Britain's 5,000 women players, particularly those who took part in England's splendid World Cup final victory against the United States in April. Even the unreconstructed chauvinists of the men's game began, in public at least, to duck below the parapet.
Probyn agreed to hold a somewhat tongue-in-cheek coaching session, televised by the BBC's Rugby Special, for the women's squad at Richmond Rugby Club, which boasts the biggest female section in the world. Much of the programme's obligatory joshing was for once at the expense of Probyn himself rather than the women's game.
Watching the powerful Richmond first team, who are unbeaten in the National League this season, on a wet, freezing night, rucking and mauling under floodlights, the sheer commitment and technical skills were striking.
For two of the players, Deirdre Mills at fly-half and the flanker, Jenny Chambers, there was an extra incentive as they will be on England duty next week.
Mills, 31, a stalwart of the game and a fine all-round athlete, became hooked on rugby in the last year of her degree at University College, London. She spent 10 years in the international shadows as the understudy to Karen Almond before gaining her first cap this year in England's World Cup victory over Russia. She then made her name as a place-kicker with a handful of fine conversions and a memorable long-range penalty in the match against Scotland, to the delight of the 5,000-strong crowd.
As one of a string of newcomers, Mills, a softly spoken accountant with the Birmingham Midshires Building Society, is keen to build on her growing reputation. 'It's moments like the big kick against Scotland that stay with you,' she says. 'I remember placing the ball five yards inside the touchline on the wrong side for me (she's a right-footed kicker), looking up and thinking 'Wow, that looks a helluva long way'. Then I stepped up and went boof and it was there. The team went wild because we all knew that the match against Scotland was going to be tough.'
Her kicking prowess is a legacy of childhood. 'I've got three brothers and I was always kicking a ball around with them as a child, so it's second nature really,' she says.
'These days I spend a lot of time practising place-kicking on the two evenings a week that I train with Richmond, then there's all the weights, circuits and treadmill-running at the gym on the other nights, so it's a pretty big commitment.
'The game's great, though. I love the rough and tumble of it and how as fly-half I have a huge influence on adapting our tactics to outwit different opponents. We're well trained and pit players of equal strength against each other, so I don't see why anyone should try to stop us playing. Life itself can be dangerous. In fact, it's generally fatal! I think the Probyn comments were just a cheap publicity stunt and ironically the women's game has benefited from all the coverage they got.'
Jenny Chambers, 32, a former army officer in charge of PTI training, is equally bullish about the future of women's rugby, despite Probyn's jibes. 'Since I started playing six years ago,' she says, 'the game's mushroomed incredibly with over 200 clubs and growing numbers of teenagers and young women taking it up. At the top level, the game is tactically and technically virtually as good as the men's, although there's still a lot of prejudice to overcome. I had to wait until I left the army to play it because it had a big image problem with my superior officers, who nearly fainted when I suggested starting an army side.'
However, by the end of her first practice session Chambers, who now runs a leisure centre near Heathrow, was a rugby addict and began training every day. At 5ft 9in and 10st 10lb, Chambers admits she is light for a flanker, but with her pace and abundant natural talent, she has improved rapidly. She gained her first cap last year and was on the bench for the World Cup final, coming on early in the match to play as a replacement lock for an injured team-mate.
'It sounds arrogant to say it,' she says, 'but at the final whistle, I just felt utter relief. I knew we ought to win the match after all the work we'd done on skills and tactics over the previous three years, but it was wonderful to fulfil that dream. After that performance and all the media coverage it got, we suddenly found we were being taken a lot more seriously and even the Probyn comments have worked in our favour.'
Chambers, who is a qualified coach, was unimpressed by the session Probyn took, believing it was designed to humiliate rather than instruct.
'His first drill was chip-kicking a tackle bag, tackling the bag then recovering the ball from beyond it. It was a bit chaotic, but any sensible coach would have started a session with basic warm-up skills and I think the only reason he chose such a complicated manoeuvre was to make us look inept.
'He also taught our forwards how to pull the opposing prop's elbow down to prevent her seeing the ball as it's put into the scrum. He wouldn't admit it, but that's a dangerous manoeuvre that could cause the scrum to collapse. It's also bending the laws of rugby and if I'd been there I'd have protested.
'Sadly his attitude is typical of a lot of the top male players, although there are honourable exceptions like Rory Underwood and Brian Moore who's coached us and is incredibly supportive. We don't need anyone's approval to take part, though. We'll be going out against Holland to play our own brand of fluent, attractive rugby. I'm convinced we'll win and win well.'
Source Citation
"Rugby Union: Sisters who pack a heavy punch - Sally Jones finds England's women on a forward roll as they prepare to meet Holland." Observer [London, England] 11 Dec. 1994
WHEN the England women's rugby side run out for their international against Holland at Wasps next Sunday they will be desperate not just to win, but to win in the sort of style that will make Jeff Probyn eat his words.
After a student suffered a neck injury, which did not prove serious, in a recent women's club match the former England prop and several other members of the establishment's macho brigade declared that rugby was too rough a game for women and implied that female players were a pack of harridans with broken noses and cauliflower ears.
The comments provoked an uproar, with howls of outrage or derision from most of Britain's 5,000 women players, particularly those who took part in England's splendid World Cup final victory against the United States in April. Even the unreconstructed chauvinists of the men's game began, in public at least, to duck below the parapet.
Probyn agreed to hold a somewhat tongue-in-cheek coaching session, televised by the BBC's Rugby Special, for the women's squad at Richmond Rugby Club, which boasts the biggest female section in the world. Much of the programme's obligatory joshing was for once at the expense of Probyn himself rather than the women's game.
Watching the powerful Richmond first team, who are unbeaten in the National League this season, on a wet, freezing night, rucking and mauling under floodlights, the sheer commitment and technical skills were striking.
For two of the players, Deirdre Mills at fly-half and the flanker, Jenny Chambers, there was an extra incentive as they will be on England duty next week.
Mills, 31, a stalwart of the game and a fine all-round athlete, became hooked on rugby in the last year of her degree at University College, London. She spent 10 years in the international shadows as the understudy to Karen Almond before gaining her first cap this year in England's World Cup victory over Russia. She then made her name as a place-kicker with a handful of fine conversions and a memorable long-range penalty in the match against Scotland, to the delight of the 5,000-strong crowd.
As one of a string of newcomers, Mills, a softly spoken accountant with the Birmingham Midshires Building Society, is keen to build on her growing reputation. 'It's moments like the big kick against Scotland that stay with you,' she says. 'I remember placing the ball five yards inside the touchline on the wrong side for me (she's a right-footed kicker), looking up and thinking 'Wow, that looks a helluva long way'. Then I stepped up and went boof and it was there. The team went wild because we all knew that the match against Scotland was going to be tough.'
Her kicking prowess is a legacy of childhood. 'I've got three brothers and I was always kicking a ball around with them as a child, so it's second nature really,' she says.
'These days I spend a lot of time practising place-kicking on the two evenings a week that I train with Richmond, then there's all the weights, circuits and treadmill-running at the gym on the other nights, so it's a pretty big commitment.
'The game's great, though. I love the rough and tumble of it and how as fly-half I have a huge influence on adapting our tactics to outwit different opponents. We're well trained and pit players of equal strength against each other, so I don't see why anyone should try to stop us playing. Life itself can be dangerous. In fact, it's generally fatal! I think the Probyn comments were just a cheap publicity stunt and ironically the women's game has benefited from all the coverage they got.'
Jenny Chambers, 32, a former army officer in charge of PTI training, is equally bullish about the future of women's rugby, despite Probyn's jibes. 'Since I started playing six years ago,' she says, 'the game's mushroomed incredibly with over 200 clubs and growing numbers of teenagers and young women taking it up. At the top level, the game is tactically and technically virtually as good as the men's, although there's still a lot of prejudice to overcome. I had to wait until I left the army to play it because it had a big image problem with my superior officers, who nearly fainted when I suggested starting an army side.'
However, by the end of her first practice session Chambers, who now runs a leisure centre near Heathrow, was a rugby addict and began training every day. At 5ft 9in and 10st 10lb, Chambers admits she is light for a flanker, but with her pace and abundant natural talent, she has improved rapidly. She gained her first cap last year and was on the bench for the World Cup final, coming on early in the match to play as a replacement lock for an injured team-mate.
'It sounds arrogant to say it,' she says, 'but at the final whistle, I just felt utter relief. I knew we ought to win the match after all the work we'd done on skills and tactics over the previous three years, but it was wonderful to fulfil that dream. After that performance and all the media coverage it got, we suddenly found we were being taken a lot more seriously and even the Probyn comments have worked in our favour.'
Chambers, who is a qualified coach, was unimpressed by the session Probyn took, believing it was designed to humiliate rather than instruct.
'His first drill was chip-kicking a tackle bag, tackling the bag then recovering the ball from beyond it. It was a bit chaotic, but any sensible coach would have started a session with basic warm-up skills and I think the only reason he chose such a complicated manoeuvre was to make us look inept.
'He also taught our forwards how to pull the opposing prop's elbow down to prevent her seeing the ball as it's put into the scrum. He wouldn't admit it, but that's a dangerous manoeuvre that could cause the scrum to collapse. It's also bending the laws of rugby and if I'd been there I'd have protested.
'Sadly his attitude is typical of a lot of the top male players, although there are honourable exceptions like Rory Underwood and Brian Moore who's coached us and is incredibly supportive. We don't need anyone's approval to take part, though. We'll be going out against Holland to play our own brand of fluent, attractive rugby. I'm convinced we'll win and win well.'
Source Citation
"Rugby Union: Sisters who pack a heavy punch - Sally Jones finds England's women on a forward roll as they prepare to meet Holland." Observer [London, England] 11 Dec. 1994
Monday, 28 November 1994
Prejudice: response to Probyn
Sally Jones
Winning the 1994 World Cup is just one reason why frail little flowers can play rugby, says Sally Jones.
It had to happen. After 12 years of growth in relative obscurity, women's rugby is in the dock thanks to one unfortunate neck injury in a club match and some ill-judged remarks from that celebrated penseur and wit, Jeff Probyn, the former England prop.
The injury, to a 20-year-old student, was caused when a scrum collapsed during a match between Portsmouth University and Worthing. The woman was airlifted to Odstock Hospital in Salisbury, where the neck injury was found to be painful but less severe than at first feared, with one bone broken, the vertebrae bruised but apparently no irreparable damage to the spinal cord.
Probyn used the incident to launch an attack on women's rugby as a whole, saying that the game was unsuitable for women and that its rapid expansion would result in more injuries. On BBC radio he declared: ``Women have a place in society, and that's a certain place, and I don't think it includes playing on rugby fields.'' He claimed that women were not physically capable of a game where the collapse of a scrum might bring half a ton of people down on one player.
``Bah, humbug!'' was the typical reaction from leading women rugby players over this piece of misplaced gallantry. So what gives Probyn the right to try to deny over half the population the chance to take part in one of the most exciting team games known to man (and, increasingly, to woman)? And why should it be perfectly acceptable for men to break their necks and pull their hamstrings, but not women?
Admittedly, rugby is a potentially dangerous game. According to Sports Council statistics, rugby players run a higher risk of injury than competitors in any other sport. On average, each player runs a one-in-ten chance of sustaining at least a minor injury on every outing. Most seasons bring a small crop of tragic incidents of players (thankfully, no women so far) crippled for life after breaking their necks or backs.
With such a high incidence of injury, nobody who plays rugby can be unaware of the risks. The England international, Carol Isherwood, one of the founders of the Women's Rugby Football Union (WRFU) and a highly-experienced coach, admits: ``All sport carries an element of danger and you can only reduce that so far. What we do is make sure that people are adequately coached and have the technique to deal with everything from scrums to lineouts. We'd never dream of putting slight teenage newcomers in sides with a lot of powerful experienced players, and we have a very good injury record indeed because of this.
``It's outrageous for Probyn to lay down the law on what is acceptable and what is feminine. Perhaps he should redefine his concept of femininity and also his ideas about commitment. We ran a World Cup on less than the Twickenham champagne budget, and the game's taken off safely and successfully, despite us having to operate on a shoestring. The likes of Probyn have no idea how far we've come on negligible resources and his remarks belittle everything we've achieved.''
Carolyn Carr, development officer of the Women's Sports Foundation, was equally indignant: ``Why should it still be so unacceptable in some quarters for women to play a physical contact sport? It's certainly rooted in all the traditional prejudices, and the way the men treasure the macho bit of being a big, tough, he-man rugby player. Maybe they think that image loses a bit of its impact when more and more women are showing that they too can play.''
Certainly women's rugby has grown rapidly in popularity since the WRFU was founded in 1983 from a hard core of around 200 players representing 12 clubs. More than 5,000 women play regularly, as well as hundreds of girls under the age of 12 playing the less physical New Image rugby in mixed teams as part of the initiative of the Rugby Football Union (RFU) to introduce youngsters to the game.
At international level the home nations are improving fast. England, beaten finalists in the first women's World Cup in Cardiff three years ago, went one better in May, taking the world title in spectacular style over the defending champions, America.
Slowly the women's game is attracting wider and more enlightened media coverage. The BBC televised highlights of both World Cups, and there are growing numbers of features in which journalists discuss the game and its stars on their merits rather than treating the very idea of women playing rugby with the same sniggering prurience that Les Dawson once brought to jokes about female mud wrestlers.
I still vividly remember covering England's first international against France at Richmond in the late Eighties and overhearing a male reporter asking one of the home side whether the players would swap shirts after the match. The reply from this highly trained, dedicated athlete at the start of the most important match of her career was to the point and quite unprintable.
Of course, large pockets of this type of patronising chauvinism remain, particularly among the more bovine male players who like to imagine rugby as an exclusively masculine ritual, and any woman who tries to muscle in is at best unfeminine and at worst lesbian a major term of abuse in such circles. During a recent edition of Rugby Special, a clip of women's rugby was shown. After much guffawing one of the male studio guests declared that he would never date a woman rugby player, as though they were members of a different breed, like a particularly brutal species of Martian.
It is the same knee-jerk male chauvinism that until recently dictated that we frail little flowers who are perfectly capable of bearing children and who, in the old Eastern bloc countries, are doing most of the hard dirty manual jobs were too delicate to run marathons, train as fighter pilots or compete at 400-metres hurdles. Try telling that to the likes of Sally Gunnell and Rosa Mota.
As Sue Dorrington, the England hooker, declared wearily: ``No one sees the likes of Jason Leonard and Jeremy Guscott getting injured and sidelined for months on end and says `men shouldn't play rugby', so why should they say that to us? I've had my share of knocks and bruises we all have but we're responsible adults and we accept that. I don't need anyone's approval to play this game. Rugby has given me a wonderful social life, a level of fitness most other people can only dream about and some of the greatest moments of my life. To deny me that because I might get hurt is paternalistic and utterly ludicrous.''
RUGBY FACT BOX
How to join.
Women's rugby: There are more than 250 clubs in Britain. For details of your local one contact Rosie Golby, The Rugby Football Union, Twickenham TW1 1DZ (081-892 8161)
Mini-rugby: David Shaw, the RFU's National Coaching and Youth Development Officer, says: ``Contact your local rugby club and see if mini rugby is provided. You must check that they operate with a qualified coach. It is also worth choosing a club which gives a caring impression.''
There are 2,500 registered rugby clubs in England and 8,000 mini rugby teams. For more information contact The RFU National Coaching and Youth Development Office, Nortonthorpe Mills, Scissett, West Yorkshire. HD8 9LA. Similar schemes are run by the rugby authorities in Wales and Scotland.
The cost: Will vary, but Saracens charges Pounds 40 per year for family membership which includes the insurance. You do not pay extra if you have more than one child in the scheme.
Kitting out Claire Humphreys cost: Boots Pounds 20. Safety studs Pounds 4. Shorts Pounds 10. Shirt Pounds 15. Socks Pounds 5. Gumshield Pounds 3.
Copyright (C) The Times, 1994
Source Citation
"Good try, lads, but we're still playing; Women's Rugby." Times [London, England] 28 Nov. 1994
Winning the 1994 World Cup is just one reason why frail little flowers can play rugby, says Sally Jones.
It had to happen. After 12 years of growth in relative obscurity, women's rugby is in the dock thanks to one unfortunate neck injury in a club match and some ill-judged remarks from that celebrated penseur and wit, Jeff Probyn, the former England prop.
The injury, to a 20-year-old student, was caused when a scrum collapsed during a match between Portsmouth University and Worthing. The woman was airlifted to Odstock Hospital in Salisbury, where the neck injury was found to be painful but less severe than at first feared, with one bone broken, the vertebrae bruised but apparently no irreparable damage to the spinal cord.
Probyn used the incident to launch an attack on women's rugby as a whole, saying that the game was unsuitable for women and that its rapid expansion would result in more injuries. On BBC radio he declared: ``Women have a place in society, and that's a certain place, and I don't think it includes playing on rugby fields.'' He claimed that women were not physically capable of a game where the collapse of a scrum might bring half a ton of people down on one player.
``Bah, humbug!'' was the typical reaction from leading women rugby players over this piece of misplaced gallantry. So what gives Probyn the right to try to deny over half the population the chance to take part in one of the most exciting team games known to man (and, increasingly, to woman)? And why should it be perfectly acceptable for men to break their necks and pull their hamstrings, but not women?
Admittedly, rugby is a potentially dangerous game. According to Sports Council statistics, rugby players run a higher risk of injury than competitors in any other sport. On average, each player runs a one-in-ten chance of sustaining at least a minor injury on every outing. Most seasons bring a small crop of tragic incidents of players (thankfully, no women so far) crippled for life after breaking their necks or backs.
With such a high incidence of injury, nobody who plays rugby can be unaware of the risks. The England international, Carol Isherwood, one of the founders of the Women's Rugby Football Union (WRFU) and a highly-experienced coach, admits: ``All sport carries an element of danger and you can only reduce that so far. What we do is make sure that people are adequately coached and have the technique to deal with everything from scrums to lineouts. We'd never dream of putting slight teenage newcomers in sides with a lot of powerful experienced players, and we have a very good injury record indeed because of this.
``It's outrageous for Probyn to lay down the law on what is acceptable and what is feminine. Perhaps he should redefine his concept of femininity and also his ideas about commitment. We ran a World Cup on less than the Twickenham champagne budget, and the game's taken off safely and successfully, despite us having to operate on a shoestring. The likes of Probyn have no idea how far we've come on negligible resources and his remarks belittle everything we've achieved.''
Carolyn Carr, development officer of the Women's Sports Foundation, was equally indignant: ``Why should it still be so unacceptable in some quarters for women to play a physical contact sport? It's certainly rooted in all the traditional prejudices, and the way the men treasure the macho bit of being a big, tough, he-man rugby player. Maybe they think that image loses a bit of its impact when more and more women are showing that they too can play.''
Certainly women's rugby has grown rapidly in popularity since the WRFU was founded in 1983 from a hard core of around 200 players representing 12 clubs. More than 5,000 women play regularly, as well as hundreds of girls under the age of 12 playing the less physical New Image rugby in mixed teams as part of the initiative of the Rugby Football Union (RFU) to introduce youngsters to the game.
At international level the home nations are improving fast. England, beaten finalists in the first women's World Cup in Cardiff three years ago, went one better in May, taking the world title in spectacular style over the defending champions, America.
Slowly the women's game is attracting wider and more enlightened media coverage. The BBC televised highlights of both World Cups, and there are growing numbers of features in which journalists discuss the game and its stars on their merits rather than treating the very idea of women playing rugby with the same sniggering prurience that Les Dawson once brought to jokes about female mud wrestlers.
I still vividly remember covering England's first international against France at Richmond in the late Eighties and overhearing a male reporter asking one of the home side whether the players would swap shirts after the match. The reply from this highly trained, dedicated athlete at the start of the most important match of her career was to the point and quite unprintable.
Of course, large pockets of this type of patronising chauvinism remain, particularly among the more bovine male players who like to imagine rugby as an exclusively masculine ritual, and any woman who tries to muscle in is at best unfeminine and at worst lesbian a major term of abuse in such circles. During a recent edition of Rugby Special, a clip of women's rugby was shown. After much guffawing one of the male studio guests declared that he would never date a woman rugby player, as though they were members of a different breed, like a particularly brutal species of Martian.
It is the same knee-jerk male chauvinism that until recently dictated that we frail little flowers who are perfectly capable of bearing children and who, in the old Eastern bloc countries, are doing most of the hard dirty manual jobs were too delicate to run marathons, train as fighter pilots or compete at 400-metres hurdles. Try telling that to the likes of Sally Gunnell and Rosa Mota.
As Sue Dorrington, the England hooker, declared wearily: ``No one sees the likes of Jason Leonard and Jeremy Guscott getting injured and sidelined for months on end and says `men shouldn't play rugby', so why should they say that to us? I've had my share of knocks and bruises we all have but we're responsible adults and we accept that. I don't need anyone's approval to play this game. Rugby has given me a wonderful social life, a level of fitness most other people can only dream about and some of the greatest moments of my life. To deny me that because I might get hurt is paternalistic and utterly ludicrous.''
RUGBY FACT BOX
How to join.
Women's rugby: There are more than 250 clubs in Britain. For details of your local one contact Rosie Golby, The Rugby Football Union, Twickenham TW1 1DZ (081-892 8161)
Mini-rugby: David Shaw, the RFU's National Coaching and Youth Development Officer, says: ``Contact your local rugby club and see if mini rugby is provided. You must check that they operate with a qualified coach. It is also worth choosing a club which gives a caring impression.''
There are 2,500 registered rugby clubs in England and 8,000 mini rugby teams. For more information contact The RFU National Coaching and Youth Development Office, Nortonthorpe Mills, Scissett, West Yorkshire. HD8 9LA. Similar schemes are run by the rugby authorities in Wales and Scotland.
The cost: Will vary, but Saracens charges Pounds 40 per year for family membership which includes the insurance. You do not pay extra if you have more than one child in the scheme.
Kitting out Claire Humphreys cost: Boots Pounds 20. Safety studs Pounds 4. Shorts Pounds 10. Shirt Pounds 15. Socks Pounds 5. Gumshield Pounds 3.
Copyright (C) The Times, 1994
Source Citation
"Good try, lads, but we're still playing; Women's Rugby." Times [London, England] 28 Nov. 1994
Sunday, 13 November 1994
Prejudice: Jeff Probyn
ENGLISH women's rugby union has come a long way since an after-dinner speaker at London Irish said they could do with more players who look like Farrah Fawcett-Majors and play like Wade Dooley instead of the other way round. Victory in 24 of their 25 international matches should surely have convinced the England team's male counterparts of the validity of the women's game? Sadly not.
On a BBC Rugby Special programme broadcast last month, the England prop Jeff Probyn criticised their appearance and told 1.5m viewers he was not in favour of women playing from any point of view.
The women's First Division leaders, Richmond, invited Probyn to a training session in an attempt to change his mind. After two and a half hours in the mud and rain, Probyn said: ``I still don't think they should play. Girls with cauliflower ears aren't attractive and the risk of lower-abdomen injury can't be good for them in terms of having babies.''
In fact, there was a distinct lack of cauliflower ears among the women on the field but if, as Probyn believes, looks are important perhaps he should take a look in the mirror.
Source Citation
"Fouroux told to send in the clowns; Inside Track." Sunday Times [London, England] 13 Nov. 1994
On a BBC Rugby Special programme broadcast last month, the England prop Jeff Probyn criticised their appearance and told 1.5m viewers he was not in favour of women playing from any point of view.
The women's First Division leaders, Richmond, invited Probyn to a training session in an attempt to change his mind. After two and a half hours in the mud and rain, Probyn said: ``I still don't think they should play. Girls with cauliflower ears aren't attractive and the risk of lower-abdomen injury can't be good for them in terms of having babies.''
In fact, there was a distinct lack of cauliflower ears among the women on the field but if, as Probyn believes, looks are important perhaps he should take a look in the mirror.
Source Citation
"Fouroux told to send in the clowns; Inside Track." Sunday Times [London, England] 13 Nov. 1994
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