By Alison Donnelly.
Last week that we reported on some research which had stumbled upon the earliest recorded mention of a female playing rugby.
After a lot of digging from www.scrumqueens.com writer John Birch we have uncovered even more about the remarkable Emily Valentine, whose memoirs were passed onto us by her family this week.
What we know is that Emily was born in Ireland around the 1877 year mark and she lived in Enniskillen with her brothers and sisters where her father was a teacher at the local Portora Royal School.
Her memoirs tell a fantastic tale where Emily tells us about an afternoon in 1887 when as a ten-year-old she got her first taste of rugby, the words speak for themselves below.
Emily’s story is remarkable because there are no other records at all of any other female rugby players in the nineteenth century. Although there is some vague suggestions that the women’s rugby teams may have been played in France, and possibly New Zealand, in the 1890s it is not until 1917 that we know of another female player – 16 year-old Mary Eley – who played for Cardiff Ladies (a team formed from women working at a local brewery) who beat Newport Ladies 6-0 at Cardiff Arms Park on 16th December 1917.
It was not until 1990 – over 100 years after Miss Valentine fought to get her school team started – that Ireland’s first women’s club was formed.
We would like to find out more on the remarkable history of the women’s game which has been hidden for so long so please read John’s blog here for more information on how you can help.
Meanwhile the passage from Emily Valentine’s blog below tells you just what a fascinating woman she was.
From the memoirs of Emily Valentine.
“I loved rugby football, but seldom got a chance to do more that kick a place kick or drop goal, but I could run in spite of petticoats and thick undergarments, I could run. My great ambition was to play in a real rugby game and score a try. I used to stand on the touchline in the cold damp Enniskillen winter, watching every moment of play, furious when my side muffed a ball, or went offside, bitterly disappointed when a goal was missed.
One day I got a chance. It was just a school scratch match and they were one "man" short. I was about ten years old. I plagued them to let me play, "Oh, all right. Come on then." Off went my overcoat and hat - I always wore boys' boots anyhow, so that was all right.
I knew the rules. At last my chance came. I got the ball - I can still feel the damp leather and the smell of it, and see the tag of lacing at the opening. I grasped it and ran dodging and darting, but I was so keen to score that try that I did not pass it, perhaps when I should; I still raced on, I could see the boy coming toward me; I dodged, yes I could and breathless, with my heart pumping, my knees shaking, I ran. Yes, I had done it; one last spurt and I touched down, right on the line. I lay flat on my face for a for a moment everything went black. I scrambled up, gave a hasty rubdown to my knees.
A ragged cheer went up from the spectators. I grinned at my brothers. It was all I hoped for. I knew I couldn't kick a goal, but that didn't worry or disappoint me; what I had wanted to do I had; the desperate run, the successful dodging, and the touchdown.
On the way home, muddy and hot. "You didn't do badly, Em, but you should have..." and so on. Later on at tea my brothers grinned at me, passed me the jam politely, and kicked me under the table. My mother remarked that she hoped I hadn't felt cold watching the game. "I'm glad you won the match boys, " she said . My brother raised his cup, looked at me, and drank then winked. "Good luck, wasn't it mum?"
So there it is. The first recorded mention of any girl playing rugby, probably anywhere in the world so far as anyone has found to date. For more information see here.
* Emily went on to become a nurse, marrying a military doctor - William "Ricky" Galwey - in 1909, before going with him to India until about 1915. She had two children, and now has a dozen or more descendents across Britain and beyond. She died in 1967.
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