A former rugby player has hailed the growing popularity of women’s sport on Merseyside, but insists her club is doing more to encourage even more participants.
Aysha Gunal leads women’s teams at Liverpool Cricket and Sports Club, which has embraced more teams over the past 15 years.
Women’s rugby has grown in popularity recently in the Merseyside area, thanks to the work and commitment of former player Aysha Gunal, now leading all women’s teams at the club.
For years, Liverpool Cricket and Sports Club has been home to 7 different sports, creating numerous opportunities for everyone to embark on their journeys.
She said: “I started about 15 years ago at Liverpool Cricket Club, I was a rugby player. The club was very welcoming towards women’s sports, there was a lot of funding at the time. It was a welcoming place to be, the sport was quite new back then, obviously rugby has started growing recently, but back 15-20 years ago it was quite rare, so it was hard to get players. But the facilities are really good, so it was good at the beginning of my career.”
“The perception towards women’s sports has absolutely changed, especially in rugby, we have the World Cup next year, the women’s England team are the best in the world, with all the promotion around it. As a club, we’re doing promotion as well on social media.”
The situation at the club has been changing over the course of time, while new teams are being built to encourage new generations to take on the sport.
By providing opportunities for participation and development, the aim is to build a sustainable future where passion can thrive across all ages.
New events take place every year in Merseyside to involve more people in playing, even if they haven’t been in contact with rugby ever before in their lives.
“We do “pitch up and play” events every year, for people who have never played rugby before, to come and give it a try. So, we go into universities to get students and younger players involved. We specialised in training for women who never played rugby before so that’s really important. We welcome anybody, we’re incredibly inclusive so it doesn’t matter if you have played for years or not, how old are you, or if you have disabilities, anybody is more than welcome.”
Gunal said: “We would encourage everyone to come along and give it a try because you don’t have to do contact to be a part of the sport, so if somebody is scared because of the tackles, we don’t force people to do that. You can just train with us if you want, you don’t necessarily have to play. So, people come also for fitness, and it helps to relax people’s minds.”
Encouraging women to engage with sports is essential, as each woman that steps on the field marks a point in the battle to empowerment and equality.
She said:“We’re hopeful to get a women’s second team, so we’ve got a first team, but we’re trying to get another one. We’re also getting more girls involved in the sport as-well, so we just set up an under-11 girls’ team and the hope is that overtime we will have all the girls above the age of 18, so our long-term goal is that overtime we will have all the girls involved. We will add more girls’ sessions, of course.”
“I want to see it keep growing, more at the young age group, so under 18s. Girls tend to drop off, so I think in the future the goal is to encourage those groups to play or develop teams and all that helps grow the sport more.”
