Women’s ‘94 World trophy returns after 15 years
It was hard won and brought back to England, but 12 years after Karen Almond the England captain lifted the 1994 Women’s Rugby World Cup trophy it disappeared without trace.
For 15 years appeals have gone out from rugby legend, Gill Burns and other England players but a continuing flutter on twitter turned up nothing.
The antique silver trophy had been in Twickenham’s World Rugby Museum without being part of the official collection, otherwise any trip out on the road would have been logged.
It had clearly, says Burns, been out on a roadshow, put in someone’s car boot and then disappeared.
Just when finding the trophy began to look like a forlorn hope, a previous administrator turned out a cupboard at her parents’ home, discovering a pile of documents and there in a locked box without a key was the trophy!
"It was emotional when I read on facebook messenger that it had been found," said Burns. "We’d begun to lose hope and, without a dog like Pickles who found football’s missing Jules Rimet trophy, all seemed lost. I’d begun to think it had been melted down.
"It was such a special trophy, although the design wasn’t ideal because, with a silver lace top, when we poured a magnum of Champagne into it and tried to drink, it ran out of the holes all over us!
"A group of the players including Sue Day, Deborah Griffin, Sue Dorrington, Shelley Rae, Claire Purdy, are going into the England Women’s camp to take a bit of the history of the women’s game to current players.
"I’m taking the trophy along with me but I think I’ll sleep with it until I’ve taken it safely to Twickenham’s World Rugby Museum. The presentation box is locked and without a key but I’m sure the Museum curator, Phil McGowan, can find a locksmith.”
That 1994 Women’s Rugby World Cup tournament received retrospective recognition from World Rugby but at the time almost failed to go ahead when the then International Rugby Board refused to recognise it.
Holland, the intended hosts, pulled out, together with New Zealand and Spain, but Sue Brodie, who played for Scotland, gathered a group of supporters and saved the day when Scotland hosted the tournament in April 1994.
Having lost to USA in the first ever women’s world tournament in 1991, England beat the defending champions 38–23 in the final.
England Women are currently ranked number one in the world, and face the world champions New Zealand twice, at Sandy Park, Exeter, and Franklin’s Gardens, Northampton, as part of their preparation for the rescheduled 2021 Rugby World Cup. They then take on Canada at the Twickenham Stoop and the USA at Worcester’s Sixways Stadium.
