BY JULIA LEE
THE University of Huddersfield’s Heritage Quay is where the rugby league archives are held, and the women’s game is now beginning to exhibit.
In 2017 we found we had no information whatsoever about the women and girl’s game, and even though there is evidence of three teams in Cumbria in the 1950s, this is the 40th year of it being formalized and we now have over 4,000 pieces of information.
We really want to share that and tell the stories of the pioneers who were involved, particularly those who were constantly being told they shouldn’t play.
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There have been 27 people who have donated memorabilia so far, but the women’s game wasn’t talked about, it was a hidden history, and because of that we’re putting the jigsaw pieces together.
We’ve learned that Dame Crossfields were the winners of the first ever Challenge Cup, we found the Anne Gibson Aggregate Cup, who was a director at Keighley, and that British Coal asked for women to be included in their 9s at Central Park in 1987, but they had to wear men’s kit!
Some of the trophies have got male images on them before they had female players to reference.
We’ve uncovered the second, handwritten fixture list of the Ladies Amateur Rugby League Association.
They became WALA in 1990 but were only ever associate members of the British Amateur RL Association.
The women’s game was run by passionate volunteers but was not without its fallouts – it wouldn’t be rugby league otherwise – and there is still a Women’s Rugby League Association that play in the winter and remain as committed about what they’re doing.
There’s a display of the early Cumbrian and North West clubs. Cumbria was a stronghold, Barrow in particular, and a team in Carlisle, we’ve unearthed a documentary with women being tackled by men live on Granada television.
Mainly, though, these were pockets of activity, teams moved around from one year to the next, from Widnes to Wigan St Pats, Hindley and then Warrington.
What we discovered is that if you had a male ally in a particular club, so Dudley Hill for instance or Guiseley, that were accepting of women and fighting for their rights it happened more quickly, and the clubs really found that difficult in the North West.
Not that there weren’t still issues, even at Dudley Hill they were always the last team out on a Sunday – often on the worst pitch – and they only had one bath so there was very little hot water and quite often extremely dirty changing rooms.
In the Yorkshire cabinet, we wanted to give examples of the club newsletters that are full of so much information, which was often built around a bit of a drinking culture.
In some of the pictures, the women are having to put on cycling shorts because they’re wearing men’s ones that showed their rear.
Halifax is a really interesting club who often used to play as a curtain raiser before the men’s game and there was a real camaraderie between the men’s and women’s team, who became a real force in the game.
They played a curtain raiser before a men’s Great Britain international against France at Thrum Hall.
Women’s county games were played at Old Trafford in 1990 for ten minutes between the Divisional Premiership Finals and we’ve unearthed a clip with Ray French and Alex Murphy commentating and them mentioning the hair styles.
The women had to pay for everything and we’ve some of the receipts for things like physios, and even when they were advertising, they had to give the clothes they wore in the photo shoots back.
Internationally, women were banned from playing in Australia until the mid-90s. They were allowed to coach and referee but there was enough underground activity that, by 1995, they had a national side.
There were no stats recorded and one of the women told us it was, “like a dirty secret.”
Here, the first tour was to France in 1989 by coach but when the party arrived in Toulouse, they found out that women didn’t play contact there, so, the first game against an U17 boys team.
There was then one in Perpignan as a curtain raiser to a French men’s representative game against Queensland Residents and the French found seven women who had the courage to play.
The rest of GB party made up their side, and they won!
The first Ashes tour was in 1996 and encompassed six games, but the women had to fundraise and organise everything themselves.
They won the Ashes Series 2-1, the Aussies really feted them, but they came home to no recognition whatsoever.
There were World Cups in 2000 and 2003 that weren’t given status or inscribed on the trophy until we recovered all the records that Jackie Sheldon – pioneer in the women’s game as player, coach and development officer – retained, it was as if those games didn’t exist.
Exhibitions like this give these women a voice that they never had.