Pride in the Pod
Plymouth Dolphins RFC, the city’s LGBTQ+ rugby club, celebrated their first season playing by coming third in the IGR southern development league, having started out with a handful of players.
The team, a mix of veterans and complete newcomers, played their first ever home game last November when they delighted supporters with a 14-10 win over Coventry Corsairs.
The founding group had a prior history of founding and participating in inclusive clubs and International Gay Rugby and wanted to bring this inclusivity to Plymouth, and create a welcoming community with a focus on the individuals that collectively make up a club and team.
Now a thriving club, they have enjoyed highlights like an away 36-22 win at Kings Cross Steelers and hosting the IGR Southern Leagues finals. In these finals, the Dolphins secured their fourth home win, beating Cardiff Lions in a hard-fought 12-5 victory. This was all the sweeter as it coincided with the Dolphins’ first anniversary celebrations.
Sponsorship and community involvement
The pod has grown thanks to social media promotion and several new players’ sessions and the club’s Rainbow Lottery helps to subsidise away matches.
They also have some much-appreciated support from sponsors OMG, Plymouth’s premier LGBTQ+ venue; Dart Gallery, a Dartmouth independent gallery specialising in contemporary British artists; and Suez UK, a company managing waste and turning it into renewable energy.
The Dolphins have their own inimitable energy, welcoming everyone who wants to play and offering fun, friendship and increasingly competitive rugby to many who may have felt excluded from sport in the past.
They are becoming very much part of their local community. Players Ciaran Murphy and Pete Richards ran the Plymouth half marathon for St Luke’s Hospice in Plymouth and this month (June) the club was taking part in Saltash Pride.
The Dolphins train weekly in Plympton on Wednesdays from 18:15 – 20:00 and are partnered and hosted by long-standing local club Plympton Victoria RFC, sharing their clubhouse and home pitch at St Mary’s field. There is also a sharing of knowledge and experience among players and coaches, and newcomers are always welcome to get involved both during the season and at the off-season's fitness and touch training.
A sense of worth
Martin Rodham, club chair says: “Four of us set the club up in late 2021 and we advertised our initial training session for the first week of January 2022 when ten people turned up and we were over the moon. We’ve provided that safe space for the LGBTQ+ community and our allies to come together and learn a new sport. We pride ourselves that training is fun, and we’ve grown to over 35 members in a very short time. Here’s to next season and our goal of being part of Bingham Cup in Rome 2024.”
For Ciaran Olford, who has been team captain, the club has provided rugby and so much more.
“After seeing Plymouth Dolphins advertised on Facebook I thought after five years away from the game I'd go down and see what it was about,” he says. “At my first session I was made to feel so welcome, and the term inclusive really does mean something with the Dolphins, you’re always made to feel included.”
“The family that the Dolphins have created has really made me fall back in love with the game, and to see how we keep growing in everything we do is honestly such an amazing feeling! Without the Dolphins I wouldn’t have the sense of worth that I now have.”
