Alison Donnelly has written an immensely important book outlining the birth and growth of women’s rugby around the world.
Of all those who might have written this urgently needed chronicle, she is the ideal choice, since the website she created, scrumqueens.com, is the fountain head of information. She played the game, helped administer it and has written on it with commitment and enthusiasm.
Knowing what to retain and what to discard must have been desperately difficult. She devotes most of her attention to the international scene, casting a discerning glance right across the globe.
First Steps
She introduces us to Emily Valentine, another Irishwoman, who can justly be considered as the standard-bearer for women playing rugby. In 1887 she picked up the ball and ran. Just as important, she recorded her experiences for future generations to savour.
It is a signal fact that Emily was attracted to the game by the example of her brothers, who were already involved. That male influence, still widely in evidence today, runs as a double-edged sword through Donnelly’s narrative. She records the men who accepted the idea of women playing the game and supported their efforts.
The Anti-Brigade
But their numbers were few and far between, greatly outnumbered by the armies of protesters who objected strongly to the acceptance of women in their midst. And their malign influence is still felt today, though to a reduced degree. The rebuffs are still to be found. As she tells her tale chronologically, it is disturbing to find mockery and hostility repeating themselves across what are supposed to be more enlightened times.
Several national unions come in for deserved criticism, not least her own native one, the Ireland Rugby Football Union.
Three Steps forward, two Steps back
It is a strangely misshapen history Donnelly has to tell. On the one hand women’s rugby reaches back far into an unrecorded past; on the other it crams in the huge but irregular advances of the last few decades. She does well to restrict her story to a mere 380 pages. The scope of her researches is remarkable.
One advantage of test rugby’s brief history is that there are plenty of witnesses to it. Donnelly has sought out many of them to give us first-hand reactions to those early steps. It makes for enthralling reading.
She follows the spread of the game through the twentieth century and into the present, highlighting the passionate commitment of a few women to ensure its advance.
As I write, it’s appropriate to mention Donnelly’s detailed account of the first ever women’s international between the Netherlands and France in Utrecht. It took place exactly 40 years ago. Since then over a thousand more have followed. By pure chance I happened to be present at the first international ever played on English soil in 1986.
The story of the first world cup of 1991 is typical of the heroic selflessness of the four women most closely involved, Deborah Griffin, Alice Cooper, Mary Forsyth and Sue Dorrington. At the risk of making a huge personal financial loss – no sponsors – they pursued their dream. When they wrote back to the twelve participating nations to say they wouldn’t be able to offer the facilities they had hoped for, all twelve replied: ‘We’re coming anyway!’
Donnelly details the growing popularity of Sevens and the ongoing problems it creates for national unions and players. It has allowed the game to spread to many countries that couldn’t hope to achieve similar results in Fifteens, but who can enjoy success at world level. But the calendar clashes it brings have yet to be ironed out.
Wisely Donnelly focuses mainly on rugby at international level, exploring how enterprising individuals helped create national unions and how they have fared.
She shows particular skill in recording the ebb and flow of whole sequences of matches, World Cups (both 15s and 7s), Six Nations, and other less familiar contests – no easy task as tournaments follow quick succession.
Building a Library
It is three years since another book on women’s rugby saw the light of day, Catherine Spencer’s ‘Mud, Maul and Mascara’. It created quite a stir, not least because its subject matter was so rare.
Spencer’s approach was autobiographical; Donnelly’s is infinitely broader, though she does paint a brief picture of her own introduction to the game.
Inevitably the first edition reveals minor errors. A few names need adjusting: Heather Lockhart, Lagi Tuima and Selica Winiata among them. And Kay Wilson didn’t score a hat-trick in the opening game of the 2017 RWC, she scored four!
The book is enhanced with a splendid selection of photos. There too we can imagine a lot of soul-searching going on – which to include, which to reject.
It can be warmly recommended. We can only hope that many more books on the subject will appear in the near future.
Scrum Queens, the story of women’s rugby, by Ali Donnelly
Published by Pitch Publishing
Official publication date: July 25, but readily available now (at all good bookshops).
