First & Last: Karen Almond
Karen Almond was the first England rugby captain to lift a XVs World Cup.
She discovered rugby as a middle distance track and field athlete at Loughborough University and went on to become a truly outstanding fly half.
Karen, having earlier played football, had a complete set of skills: passing, tackling, running and kicking - both for territory and points. That combination saw her selected for the first Great Britain side that played France at Richmond 1986.
The following year she was part of the very first England women’s team, taking on and defeating Wales at Pontypool Park.
Captain for six years
Her lines of running, attacking passion and the way she read a game singled her out for the England captaincy in 1988 and saw her lead the team for six years.
A founder member of Wasps, in 1990 she helped them win a league and cup double, before leading England to the inaugural Women’s World Cup final in 1991, when the USA won.
She then joined Saracens and claimed league, cup and sevens titles, before taking England to a World Cup final for a second time and becoming the first England captain to lift a world XVs trophy.
After the tournament, she went on a Saracens tour to New Zealand and gave up her teaching job to stay out there and travel around. After a stint back in the UK supply teaching in London, she returned to New Zealand to teach and got permanent residency. England toured to New Zealand in 1997, when Karen played her last game for her native country. She had decided to return to the UK to try for a place in the squad for the following year’s World Cup.
Injury ended her career
“Then I ruptured my anterior cruciate ligament, it was late in my career and took longer to deal with in those days, so I stayed in New Zealand, had a year getting over it and then dislocated my ankle on the same leg. It was pretty horrific and from that day I never played rugby again,” said Karen.
She played for Canterbury in the provincial competition before injury, going on to play football for Christchurch Ladies where she met her wife Kelly, who had eight-year-old twin sons. A decade in football saw her captain Canterbury, as well as playing touch rugby and later Masters touch.
“I came back to watch the 2010 Women’s World Cup in England,” she said. “ New Zealand beat England 13-10 in a final with a crowd of more than 13,000 and a global TV audience of half a million. It was unbelievable to see the progress from what we started with a few university teams and nobody other than volunteers making international women’s rugby happen.”
First - 15 October 1988 at Waterloo England 40-0 Sweden
“Back in 1988, we only played Wales, who we had beaten convincingly, and France, who were definitely a challenge. We organised everything ourselves, paid for everything ourselves, and Burnsy (Gill Burns) got the game on at Waterloo.
“Carol Isherwood was our captain. She was a legend and destined to lead England way into the future but she injured her knee pretty badly. I remember Carol and, Jim Greenwood, our first ever coach, calling me over at our Loughborough training camp. They said they wanted me to step up and take over as captain. I was thinking ‘Oh my God!’ Of course, I didn’t say that. It was an honour but I was a shy introvert and hated attention.
“The first person I told was my Dad who was the biggest supporter of my sporting career and came to all the games he could. He’s 85 now and Gill Burns just organised for us to get our GB caps after all these years. Mine was delivered to Dad in Hull and he’s going to frame it and put it on his wall!
“Having Jim as our coach, because he was held in high esteem in the men’s game, was very good for the women’s game. Jim was ahead of his time, wanted a total rugby approach, integrating forwards and backs which was quite foreign at the time. He was a bit of a gruff prickly bear until you got to know him and discovered he was a lovely guy who would do anything for you. As captain, I had to talk a few players around and explain it was just Jim’s way!
One man and his dog
“A lot changed over my six years as captain and I recently checked how many of us in that team against Sweden were still there for the ’94 World Cup. There were six of us, which is pretty good. At the start at our international matches it was just one man and his dog watching, along with players’ mums and dads. The others who turned up were there to see the spectacle of women playing rugby because they hadn’t seen it before but most came away impressed. We were true pioneers in those days.
“I seem to recall a national anthem, with us singing, and a feeling of huge responsibility. That was the secondary aspect, the need to make a good impression. We absolutely loved playing rugby, we paid for our travel, our accommodation, our short shorts and big baggy shirts and we’d do it in a heartbeat for the honour of playing for our country.
“We had no idea what to expect from Sweden, we hadn’t a clue how strong they were. On the Waterloo pitch, it turned out to be a pretty one-sided game. Our backs ran rings around them but to be honest games were so few and far between that it was great to be able to play international rugby, to be involved, and we played our hearts out at every opportunity we got.
“Our first aim was to do the best we could, to be the best team we could be. But we were always out to prove that we could play, to impress whoever might be watching. We would maybe get one article in the papers and when we did we wanted to come across well. Women’s rugby was often seen as a curiosity and we wanted to promote the sport rather than, as I recall, three of us having to do a photoshoot wearing dresses.
Last - 24 April Raeburn Place, Edinburgh England 38-23 USA
“We’d lost to America in the ‘91 World Cup final and for many of the players this was a second world tournament.
“Steve Dowling had taken over the coaching from Jim Greenwood. One of our players knew Steve as Head of PE in a Hertfordshire school and he came to our house to talk about coaching us. He was clearly very knowledgeable, very switched on. He was no sergeant major and women players responded well to his approach. Steve Peters was his assistant coach.
“We contacted the RFU who interviewed him and gave Steve the job. Great job, no salary attached and you have to pay for everything yourself! But he was awesome. We played America in Toronto in the first Canada Cup final in 1993 in such dense fog you could hardly see across the pitch. And we won, which was a defining moment because America were our nemesis from the previous final. That instilled real belief that we could beat them.
Hotel paid for
“We thought we were living the life of luxury because we actually had a manager and stayed in a hotel which was paid for instead of being in a hostel and cleaning the lavatories.
“I didn’t start in either of our Pool games against Scotland and Russia. We had a strong squad and a different approach. Steve was keen to keep players rested. I was part of that decision but I found it difficult sitting on the bench, especially as Deidre Mills, my replacement, played so well that I got fidgety thinking she might keep my place!
“We beat France 18-6 in the semi-final and I managed to score a try. The girls came off feeling good because we’d beaten a French team that had played well. You certainly knew it when you’d been tackled by one of their forwards!
“I’d been agonising about the pre-match team talk, what was I supposed to say to our forwards, especially when I knew it was the forwards who were going to win us the game. So I asked Carol Isherwood to come in and talk to individual players because our forwards really respected her. Then I talked to the whole team about self-belief, how hard we had worked since the last time and how many of us remembered the feeling of losing, about how we had already beaten them in Canada.
“It’s what’s in your head that’s the most important thing. It’s about who wants to win the most. I’ve looked at the video, watched us walking out of that changing room, every single face said we’d come here to do a job. We had a long walk out, across another pitch but we were really focused.
Fans travelled to watch
“We were playing at Edinburgh Academicals and my Dad was there with bells on. There were people there from other clubs who’d come to support England, fans who’d travelled to Scotland to watch a World Cup final. I thought ‘People are actually here supporting us!’. I think there was a crowd of nearly 5,000.
“At the time my kicking had gone a bit off the boil and with responsibility for kicking and as captain I was pretty nervous, while trying to keep everyone else calm. Fortunately, I had my kicking boots on and I scored 13 points, five conversions and a penalty. I don’t think I missed one. The first kick left my boot and sailed over which gave me so much confidence.
“We scored an amazing team try which was even more rewarding because we had practised it repeatedly in training. We won a lineout, Jacquie Edwards ran the ball up, sucked in the opposition, carried on and passed to Giselle Pragnell (now Mather), who sent it to Jane Mitchell our full back to score in the corner. I’m on the sidelines thinking ‘That’s miles away and on the edge of my range’. Dad was in the stand yelling ‘Come on you can do it!’ I remember it so clearly. I thought ‘Yes, I can do it!’ and over it went. It gave a great lift both to me and the rest of the team. It was fairly early on and for our backs to score against the Americans, who were outstanding, was great.
Forward dominance
“The game was dominated by our forwards. Every chance we got we took a scrum, we had lots of scrums and scored penalty tries by pushing them backwards until they collapsed. Our forwards were amazing. I remember asking ‘Are you guys OK?’ and they just looked at me as if to say ‘If you change what we are doing we are going to kill you!’
“The USA scored amazing tries and after one I said ‘We knew this was going to happen. We just have to score more tries than them to win.’ I had to do a fair bit of kicking and my game had to be tactical, get into their 22. On one occasion I screwed up and sent it straight into the arms of their full back who set off with her backs outside her. Jacquie Edwards had chased my kick, intercepted and raced 20 metres to score. I loved her!
“Until that try it was 31-23 and very, very close. That try made a big difference. I look at the final score 38-23 and think the scoreline doesn’t reflect how close that game felt. At the final whistle it was euphoria, relief, pride. People were going crazy, the bench ran over, the spectators ran onto the pitch, including my Dad and brother Mike. After getting our medals we had team photos singing ‘We are the champions!’ It was a crazy time and the photos are pretty cool.
Fire alarms & Eddie the Eagle
“We didn’t have a podium or fireworks but it was amazing. The crowd parted and David Sole, a former Scotland captain, awarded the Cup. I don’t like the limelight so I grabbed Janis Ross to come with me and we turned round and held the Cup up. Then they took it back to present again at the dinner, which was very weird and formal. I had to make a speech and always wrote down everyone I had to thank and was a bag of nerves until it finished.
“Then the fire alarms went off as we were mingling with the other teams and we all had to go outside. We were so exhausted I don’t think we celebrated after that but just went to bed. It seemed unreal and didn’t sink in for a few days. We got a bit of good publicity and I realised what we’d achieved when I got asked to do interviews. I remember a TV interview with Derek Jamieson when I was on with Eddie the Eagle and Dannii Minogue. I got picked up and taken to the TV studios in a chauffeur driven car and wondered what on earth was going on!
“I was very fortunate to have been playing with so many legends of the game. A key strength of that ‘94 team was our togetherness. I was also tremendously lucky in the incredible partnership built up over the years between me, scrum half Emma Mitchell and No 8 Gill Burns, as well as the amazing support from my vice-captain Janis Ross.
“Lifting that world trophy with Janis remains one of the proudest moments of my life!”
