Keswick Rugby Club is the perfect place for Deborah Griffin OBE to visit, and one of the key reasons lies in the legacy she helped to create. This article reflects on how her work to develop and promote women’s rugby has helped create the opportunities that clubs like Keswick now offer to players at every level of the game.

Deborah Griffin embodies pioneering spirit and determination, and so do we. In the 1970s she played in the first women’s rugby game whilst at university. In the 1980s she captained the first women’s rugby club outside of a university team. That club was not best pleased having women there and after 2 years they refused to admit women to their club. Deborah moved the team to Richmond (London). That’s where I was fortunate enough to meet her in the 1990’s.

Deborah was one of many strong, upstanding and positively influential women there. I don’t know if they realised at the time, just how influential they were to people like me. The club was a collection of supportive, encouraging and indomitable women, it was the perfect environment to have your first experience of playing, at 17. They instilled in me (and others I’m sure) a spirit of determination to succeed, the need to continually make positive steps forward, and always showing up for the team.

I reflect on those years and now realise how lucky I was to experience that, not every club has that spirit, that environment. I see it in Keswick too. Everyone is welcome, rugby has a place for us all, one big supportive family. Every success comes from the decision to try, and from that first step in the right direction.

In the 1980’s women weren’t allowed in the RFU, so Deborah (along with others) set up the Women’s RFU. Later it needed to be renamed to the RFU for women as the WRFU acronym was already taken! The RFUW volunteers organised everything that the fledgling set up needed. Momentum was gathering and it was what the game needed, the next step. Determined to succeed, doing whatever was needed to be done, together.

The first women’s game was played in 1987 at Twickenham as a one-off event; it was a club match between local rivals Richmond and Wasps. The RFU for Women finally combined with the RFU in 2010, which was the next (albeit perhaps overdue) logical step. This giant leap forward was the boost that the women’s game needed.

Deborah was one of 4 women who organised the first ever women’s world cup in 1991, in fact she was the chair of the organising committee. This was a tough ask as there was no financial or organisational backing from the IRB or RFU. The international game was crying out for an international tournament.

There were hurdles at every step, and eventually 12 teams competed in Wales, who were the perfect hosts (so glad they let go of the whole WRFU thingy). In 1998 we had the first Women's Rugby World Cup that was fully sanctioned by the IRB. The pioneering trailblazing, the very hard work, the determination and resilience, had resulted in the next much needed step, again.

While these developments were taking place nationally and internationally, their impact was gradually being felt at grassroots level in clubs such as Keswick. The opportunities that pioneers like Deborah worked to establish made it possible for more girls and women to enter the game, develop their skills and build teams of their own. For example, our own Abbie Scott (now Ward) started playing rugby aged 10 in 2003. In this same year England women’s first ever match was played at Twickenham, and my personal highlight of that season was being in Rugby World magazine.

These first England matches at Twickenham were free and played after the men’s matches. I remember arriving in Twickenham and walking towards the ground against the flow of people. I was only there to watch the women’s game, and the vast majority of the crowd did not want to stay for the women’s game despite it being free. Now the situation is very different. When I watched in 2023, Twickenham was open for a women’s game only and the crowd were all moving towards the venue.

Deborah became the RFUW chair in 2005, whilst in Keswick, the clubhouse was so badly flooded that we couldn’t use it for months (it was also similarly flooded 5 times between 2009 and 2021). We held our first girl’s tournament in 2008, 19 clubs attended, and we were awarded Cumbria’s most improved club.

Deborah helped organise the Rugby World Cup in England in 2010 and this was also the year that the RFU for Women combined with the RFU. Just a few years after this (2013) some of our current U18 girls started playing rugby aged just 5, Teagan Quigley, Ruby Ratcliffe and Emily Grave. All of whom have recently played for the senior Falcons side, showing that we have established a visible player pathway to be proud of. Deborah earned a seat on the RFU Council and was an RFU Board Member from 2014-20, and in 2018, she created history when she became one of the first female representatives on World Rugby’s Council.

Keswick Rugby Club first had a women’s team in 2021, this is when contact training first started, and our first game was a year later where we beat Penrith (just thought I’d drop that in). In that first season, there were 15 players who had played at our club as a mini/junior. Keswick rugby club launched The Big Build project in 2023 to raise funds for the new clubhouse. This was opened in May 2025 by our own pioneering trailblazer Abbie Ward. My personal highlight of 2023 was being invited to Twickenham as a pioneer of women’s rugby and being televised by the BBC wearing my Falcons top.

Looking back at our own club’s history, we bought Grove Park in 1956, our first clubhouse was opened 2 years later, having been built by members, and the bar added a further year later, with the grandstand added a couple of years after that in 1961. From the 2010’s to 2020’s the increased membership at the club meant that the old clubhouse was struggling to accommodate the numbers of players and teams using it. I wonder if those original members knew their clubhouse would last so long and see us outgrow it.

Our first U18 girls’ team (albeit clustered with DMP, where Abbie Scott played 2014-2017) were formed in 2024 and a year later the first U18 girls team played at Keswick. We now have a thriving junior girls section with some players who have graduated from the girls U18 team playing for the senior Falcons (and bossing it), and a thriving touch rugby squad that is the envy of local clubs, as we have large numbers to training on wet, windy evenings and have the most fun. We are now part of an award nominated local touch rugby league.

We held a Falcons training session in March 2025 with Senior contact Falcons, non-contact Falcons and U18 Falcons all training together, with approx. 70 players in attendance. At that time our clubhouse was a tent, just as it had been in 1879. Also in 2025 Deborah Griffin became the first female president of the RFU, one in a long line of so many firsts. When we opened the new clubhouse in 2025, we honoured the work of all those that went before us, just as I am now.

When I look back on myself aged 17 in 1991, it was a hope, a dream, that in my lifetime girls would be taught rugby at school, that they would play in mini junior sections at clubs, that we would be in the RFU and England would play at Twickenham. 34 years later, I am impressed that all of this has actually been achieved. Honestly, I didn’t think it would. There was such resistance. Everything we wanted to do and everything we did was against the flow. I had, however, hoped we would be steps closer.

Women like Deborah Griffin who played for my first team Richmond in London, are the cornerstones that women’s rugby was built on. They were the trailblazers of their time much like we at Keswick are. They have never stopped pushing forward, looking for the next improvement or the next step forward; neither have we at Keswick. Their determination, resilience and willingness to challenge the status quo created opportunities that continue to benefit players today. The growth of women’s rugby at Keswick Rugby Club is part of that ongoing legacy, which is why it is such a fitting place for Deborah Griffin OBE to visit.

Author Angela Webb-Shirley (was Webb), very proud player and coach.