Dartford Valley walking the diversity walk
No less than 100 Dartford Valley RFC players and coaches were welcomed to Twickenham Stadium recently by England head coach Eddie Jones and former Harlequins and England player Ugo Monye.
The visit and training session on the pitch was a prize set up on social media by Mitsubishi Motors.
There can be few clubs more deserving of spending what they thought would be an hour with Eddie and Ugo at the stadium but ended being closer to four, with Eddie very impressed by the group of largely coaches and daughters and sons. Having operated out of a shipping container for 25 years, they have created and filled a multi-million pound state of the art facility, where club members can stand on the balcony and look down over the Dartford Bridge and the Thames below. It is a stunning location and, with significant support from Dartford Borough Council and the RFU.
The RFU’s London & South East club developer, Mark Finnis, has been a constant help on their journey and the club was awarded an RFU Winter Survival Fund grant, which has also helped enormously during the pandemic.
The club’s Roses women’s team, which two years ago numbered six to ten players, now has an experienced player and head coach Katie Dootson, assisted by Bex Goodwin, driving progress. They are just joining the national league in NC2 and have attracted enough players to put out two teams.
With girls playing in the minis and girls’ squads at U13 and U15 to progress to an U18s squad, then the senior sides, the future of women’s rugby is very bright in a far from traditional rugby area and a town keen on football.
And if the club’s women and girls are looking for role models, they have the youngest female chair of a traditional English rugby club in Sophie Warren. Sophie was club physio and a very active member who knew just about everyone. She was persuaded to take over from Peter Timon, who had put in four years while the club grew and the site was developed, and who, as well as moving house, was about to acquire baby twins to push in a buggy by the touchline watching two daughters and a son playing at the club.
Where Dartford also excel in terms of diversity is that of their 11 leading club roles, six are female.
Luke Stickings, club development director, MD of Stone Valley Lodge Ltd, the company running the facility, and as head of the youth academy, coaching three age groups, explains: “We are walking the walk not just talking the talk and our female administrators certainly keep everything ship shape.”
Luke’s three children and wife also play at the club and daughter Siena, who came through the Dartford youth set up, is being assessed for Wasps Centre of Excellence with aspirations for the England U18s Talent Pathway. Dad Luke could not be prouder. His passion for rugby was built at England 16s and 18s level and joining Saracens, before a knee injury ended his senior ambitions aged 20.
That is what really seems to be working at Dartford Valley, a one-club approach where the men who played in the past, or are still playing, champion equality in access and leadership. Links with their neighbouring Stone Lodge School who use the pitches, also sees pupils joining the club and growing diversity into the future.
No wonder Eddie was impressed.
