That was played at the Arms Park on 15 December, 1917, between Cardiff Ladies and Newport Ladies. It was a game staged to raise funds for the war effort, with all proceeds going to the City Battalion Comforts Fund. In effect, the two teams were ‘works teams’, with the victorious Newport team being raised from the local ironmills firm of John Lysaughts Ltd, whilst their opponents turned out for Wm. Hancock Ltd, the local brewery.
It is unlikely that the 30 ladies who took part understood they were involved in a ground breaking event. You wonder what they might make of the current explosion in women’s rugby around the globe.
It took almost 70 years before Wales made their entry on the international stage, but the three fixtures against the South Africans, Hong Kong and Canada this month illustrate just how far the game has come since the end of WW1.
With so many men away fighting for their country, the women they left behind stepped up to fill many of their work places. WW1 was a turning point in the sheer number of women who took to the factory floors to keep the country running.
With women employed and earning money, many turned to the leisure pursuits previously monopolised by their brothers, husbands and fathers, including sport. Perhaps this is how the famous women’s rugby fixture at the Arms Park, won 6-0 by Newport, came about in 1917.
That 1917 match is one of the earliest women’s games in Wales as yet discovered by Phd student Lydia Furse, who is working on the history of women in rugby union between 1880 and 2016. Anyone with any more information on these players or matches is invited to contact Lydia via ljfurse@gmail.com
The Cardiff Ladies’ full back, Maria Eley, who lived to the grand old age of 106, spoke before she died about her experience of playing rugby.
“We loved it. It was such fun with all of us together on the pitch, but we had to stop when the men came back from the war, which was a shame. Such great fun we had,” she said.
Both teams changed at the Grand Hotel, across the road in Westgate Street from the Arms Park, and then walked to the game. The Cardiff side were led by Miss E. Kirton.
The game wasn’t to everyone’s taste, however, as the great rugby critic of the era, EHD Sewell, pointed out in the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News on Saturday, 22 December, 1917. Reporting on the matches that week, including the game between Cardiff and Newport Ladies, he pulled no punches in his assessment.
“There is little likelihood, happily, of Ladies rugby football ever becoming popular. Indeed, it is a most unedifying spectacle, calculated only to lower the prestige of the game. In the ‘eighties there was a ‘Ladies’ rugby team that used to go on tour, but it was a ghastly sight, and it is a pity anyone has thought of anything like a repetition. The frailer sex has come to stay in many spheres of life, but certainly not on the Rugby football field.”
In the end, how wrong he was!
