1881, the beginnings of the wonderful game that we all love, Women's rugby. In Northern England and Scotland, many women played 'exhibition' football games. While many of these followed today's association football rules, a game in Liverpool involved 'touchdowns', and therefore may have followed at least a version of the rugby union rules/laws that we know so well today. This was the first start for women's rugby, although nothing really came of it.
1887, Portora Royal School, Northern Ireland. Emily Valentine joined the rugby team, one that her brothers had helped to set up in 1884. She trained with the team on several occasions before, it's reported, that she scored a try in a match against another school. This was really the start of something wonderful.
1891, the first documented attempt to form a rugby team, solely for women. This took place in New Zealand, and it was really going somewhere until they were forced to give up trying after a storm of public outrage followed the attempted set-up.
1903 & 1913. During this time, we can see that there were several reports of rugby union being played in France (1903) and England (1913). However, these games would have predominantly been played without an audience and not in the media at all, also known as 'behind closed doors'.
In this time period between 1913 and 1962, there were rugby games being played, however, there were never any distinguished teams or clubs from reports.
1962, a year that would go down in history for women's rugby fans today. The first-ever recorded club match would be played in Edinburgh. The first-ever fully documented match, however, took place at Toulouse Femina Sports, France.
Following this, many national associations followed suit and there were several rugby clubs all over the world, all playing rugby union.
1991 saw the first-ever women's rugby world cup, and the United States took home the trophy. This event has been around 30 years, and it would have been the 9th tournament this year, but that'll have to wait until next year!
1995/96, the first Women's home nations tournament, the first of many. This saw England take home the first of 17 titles leading up to today. France have 6 titles, Ireland 2, Scotland 1 and both Italy and Wales with 0.
So, the history of women's rugby might not be as 'in depth' as the men's, but there sure is a lot of it, with so much future history happening right now. So many teams are following England's footsteps and becoming professional teams. We are in an age of development, and I'm all here for it.
I'm up for making history, are you? Join us on our journey to make some special memories. Let's break the viewing records, attendance charts, numbers of people involved in women's rugby.
Let's push for a brighter future.
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