Women’s and girls’ rugby is growing apace at East Kilbride RFC and has just been boosted by an award and a grant.
Recently Royal London, the UK’s largest mutual pensions, protection and investment provider, announced the first winners of its annual Championing Women and Girls’ Rugby Award.
Four grassroots rugby clubs, one from each home union, are to receive a trophy and a £10,000 grant to invest in their women and girls’ rugby programmes each year going forward.
Set up in partnership with The British & Irish Lions, the Championing Women and Girls’ Rugby Award and grant scheme is designed to celebrate outstanding initiatives by local rugby clubs from across the four unions in supporting women’s rugby.
And, on October 11, East Kilbride was named as this year’s Scottish recipient of the award and grant along with Guisborough RUFC from England, Cooke RFC from Ireland and Clwb Rygbi Caernarfon from Wales.
“I noticed an advert online with the opportunity to apply,” Elaine Martin, the East Kilbride director of women’s and girls’ rugby, said regarding the award and grant.
“It was a complete surprise that we were chosen over the other hundreds of teams that applied you always think it isn’t going to be you, but it was a nice surprise.
“We are going to upgrade the showers in the changing room the ladies use at the club and possibly get some waterproof tops for the girls’ section to use in the winter with the money.”
The award and grant organisers said of East Kilbride: “East Kilbride RFC has seen significant growth in women’s and girls’ rugby since 2022, particularly due to its outreach, onboarding, education and social programmes, including special support of parents.
“The club works hard to develop female coaches and referees, with significant female representation in these roles as well as on the committee.”
Elaine tells us more about the section: “Well, the girls’ section started eight years ago when we got the girls together who were playing for the local high school which was a ‘School of Rugby’ and then we developed different age groups from there.
“Unfortunately, during Covid times there was no rugby and the under-16 team disbanded as the girls found other things to do after the restrictions were lifted.
“Then, in May 2022 I decided to run a charity festival for inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) after one of our original players passed away from this terrible disease and i thought it was a good opportunity to run a girls’ and women’s festival.
“I contacted ex-players who could play senior rugby to make up a team and invited clubs who were just starting out.
“It went well, drummed up interest, raised funds and we held another fund raiser this year in May again and it raised £3000.
“Fast forward to the present day and we have an under-14 girls’ team and we now have around 50 registered players for the women’s team which is very health considering it only began in May 2022.
“It’s amazing to see things growing at the club and there are women of all ages playing and enjoying a team sport and making friendships they would never have made if they hadn’t come to rugby.”
Elaine, who watched rugby before and then her son got involved before she decided to coach the girls and then the women’s team, added: “The whole club is benefitting from the women’s team, we support the senior men’s team and all the academy games.
“We now have the help of three other ex-players with the coaching side as around 85 percent of our players have never played rugby before and these coaches are giving the new players valuable coaching regarding the game in attack and defence.
“These are exciting times at the club.”
The women’s senior team currently play in Arnold Clark West Three.
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