Open Letter: Brett Gosper

Dear Brett

We’re writing with the aim of highlighting to you an omission which we hope will soon be rectified by the IRB.

Since the IRB Hall of Fame was established in 2006, 79 players, teams, clubs and other institutions involved in the game from the 19th century to the present day have been inducted.

None have yet been women.

When the IRB opened the Hall of Fame the stated aim was “to recognise the proud history and traditions of the Game, including its origins”, and in addition since 2012 to “celebrate rugby’s expansion to become a global sport played by millions of men and women worldwide”.

I am sure you would not only acknowledge the hugely important role women have played as players, officials, coaches and administrators to our great sport, but also the often hidden history of the struggle women had in the previous century to be allowed to play the game at all.

Scrumqueens.com believes their absence within this accolade is out of step with the enormously positive changes and growth in the women’s game itself, and indeed the influence of women across the wider game.

When we asked our readers to suggest women who they would love to see inducted into the Hall of Fame, the responses highlighted that the IRB would not be short of options.

This weekend it’s International Women’s Day and what better time to shine a spotlight on some of the legendary women in our sport.

We are hopeful that in this World Cup year the current status quo will indeed change but also feel strongly that honouring the achievement of women in rugby should not require a once-in-four-years World Cup – this should happen anyway and should have happened long ago.

Please find below our list of twelve worthy candidates of Hall of Fame status, many put forward by the Scrumqueens.com readers.

This is not in any way a complete list. We feel that these women, teams and their stories are just a first, small representation of the personalities behind the growth of women’s rugby. We are certain that many more will be revealed when the IRB begins to include women in its Hall of Fame inductions.

The IRB is investing as never before in the women's game and we hope the Hall of Fame Committee will consider their contribution to the game when they next meet.

Yours

Scrumqueens.com

Our Hall of Fame suggestions

Part One: 19th Century – 1960: The hidden century

The first 100 years of rugby union was an era where the heroes of women’s rugby were the women who managed to get onto the field and play at all. Faced with social barriers and bans on participation, those women who did attempt to play rugby did so in the teeth of opposition, attracted little publicity, or did so in secret. As a result the story of the first century of rugby union is, for women, a largely silent story – except for a few exceptions, of which these are the leading examples:

Emily Valentine (Ireland). The first inductee into the IRB Hall of Fame was William Webb Ellis. However, whereas his achievement in breaking the rules by “picking up a ball and running with it” is now regarded as purely mythical, there is no doubt that the story of the first known girl to do likewise is very much fact. That she managed to get onto a rugby field and play for her school (Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, Ireland) in 1887 is remarkable enough, that she also scored a try is astonishing. Emily also represents the many other women and girls in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who wanted to play rugby, and even did – secretly – but whose stories will never be known

Maria Eley (Wales) and the Cardiff and Newport Ladies (1917).Maria was played as full-back for Cardiff Ladies against Newport Ladies in 1917, and died in 2007 at the age of 106 – possibly the oldest rugby player of either sex. The teams, made up of women working in local breweries and munitions factories, were organised to raise money for the troops. Maria and her team-mates stand for the many women who, during the First World War, were able to play the game they loved for the first time – and would have continued to play after the war but for attitude of sporting authorities.This photograph (right) - discovered by the websiteQuiet Women's Row- was taken in Newport and probably features one of the teams, as it matches descriptions of how they appeared. The date in the caption, added later, is almost certainly incorrect. It is the oldest known photograph of a women's rugby team.

“Barette” and the Fédération des sociétés féminines sportives de France (1920s).Attempts by women to play any code of football after the First World War were frustrated by opposition and bans around the world – except in France where the FFSF organised a range of women’s sports throughout the 1920s, including a form of 12-a-side women’s rugby called “Barette”. National championships attracted teams from across France until various economic and political factors in the 1930s gradually closed the opportunities with all forms of women’s football finally being banned by the Vichy Government in 1941.(To see memorbilia from this period, including team pictures, a championship medal, and film of women playing the game in 1920s France - seehere)

1960-date: The modern world

Changes in attitudes to the role of women, starting in the 1960s, gradually increased opportunities for women in society – and rugby.

Violets Bressanes (Bourg en Bresse, France).The birthplace of modern women’s rugby. The club – which still exists (and may therefore claim to be the oldest women’s club in the world) - was initially formed by students from at Lyon and Toulouse for a series of charity games, starting in 1965, and was the base from which French – and therefore European – women’s rugby grew. The club was the home for many years of the AFRF (the French women’s  rugby union).

WageningenUniversity (Netherlands).In 1975 students at Wageningen organised a women’s rugby match, as a “fun” means of raising money for charity. The women received basic coaching but – after the games – the carried on playing. And encouraged other universities to form teams. As a result in 1982 Netherlands were able to take on France in the first women’s rugby test match.

Carol Isherwood (England).Carol has been at the centre of the every major development in women's rugby in England from the 1960s to the present day, both as a player and as an administrator. She began by setting up the first women's team at the University of Leeds, which in turn became a founder-member of the WRFU and then the RFUW, both of which Carol was instrumental in establishing. She also played for Great Britain and England, and in 2003 was awarded with an OBE - one of the first to be awarded in recognition of the development of the women's game. Finally in 2009 she became the first woman to be elected to the IRB's Rugby Committee.

The Wiverns (USA).An American women’s touring team that was unbeaten throughout a tour of the UK and France in 1985 - the first major overseas tour by any women’s team, The Wyverns included a core of players who would go on to become part of the USA team that became the first World Champions six years later, attracting some of the first significant positive publicity for the women’s game along the way. They also showed the newly-formed Women’s Rugby Football Union how far women’s rugby in the UK was behind North America

Kathy Flores (USA)First captain of USA, member of both the Wiverns and the USA’s World Cup winning team in 1991. National coach from 2002-2009, and in 2003 IRB Women’s personality of the year “for her contribution to the game first as a player and then in her capacity as an administrator”. The great north American pioneer of the game.

Gill Burns (England).MBE for her services to sport (2005).  She made her debut against Sweden at Waterloo, a game in which she not only played, but also organised and finished her international playing career against New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup Final in 2002. President of the Rugby Football Union for Women.

Dr Farah Palmer (New Zealand).ONZM. Captained New Zealand to three World Cups between 1998 and 2006, never missing a Black Fern game between 1996 and 2005, she played 35 tests, winning 34. IRB Women’s Personality of the Year 1996, NZRU Women’s Player of the Year 1998.

Donna Kennedy (Scotland).Women’s rugby’s most capped play – 117 from 1994-2010, including five world cups, and a Grand Slam, playing from Scotland’s first international to the 2010 World Cup. Now coaching in the English women's Premiership.

Anna Richards (New Zealand). Most capped Black Ferns player. Played in five World Cups, winning in 1998, 2002 2006, and 2010, he Canada Cup in 1996, 2002 and 2005 and she was a member of the 2004 Churchill Cup-winning side. Unbeaten in the NPC with Auckland. Now coach of Hong Kong.