Celebrating South Asian Heritage Month: Manjinder's story
From 18 July, South Asian Heritage Month recognizes and celebrates the contributions those communities have made to the UK.
With inclusion and diversity critical to building a successful and thriving sport, the RFU wants to ensure people’s experience, both in the game now and those coming into it, are positive.
Three former players from South Asian backgrounds have also taken on leadership roles in rugby. Here is the story of one, and two more will feature during the month.
Rugby was unusual for an Asian woman
Manjinder Nagra started playing rugby in her first year at the University of Bath. “I was persuaded to go to training by a group of female Bath Uni players I met on an evening out, turned up to Thursday training and was playing on the Sunday!”
Throughout her time studying Economics & Politics, she played loosehead. “I played twice a week, for the university team every Wednesday and on Sundays for Bath with the ‘townies’, as we called them. I can’t remember winning any silverware, sometimes we’d win, other times we might lose 70-0!”
But as a talented player, Manjinder was soon selected for England Students and stands as the first Sikh woman to achieve this. At times her life felt a bit like a rugby version of Bend It Like Beckham, she laughs. “An Asian woman playing rugby was very unusual. I grew up in Slough, in an Indian household and had no connection with rugby whatsoever.”
She continued playing for England Students as she embarked on a Law conversion course at the College of Law, Chester and ran out for Waterloo. Then, returning home unemployed with loans to repay, she really wanted to progress to a London team and see where that could take her.
However, with neither the support nor the money to pursue her rugby ambition to play for the England team, for a long time during her peak athletic years, she stopped playing rugby entirely to focus on securing a training contract to qualify as a solicitor.
A training contract helped along by rugby
“When I went home after my studies, I could hardly ask my mum to fund my rugby. I didn’t have an income, wanted to please the family, and had to concentrate on getting a training contract and a proper job.”
The path to qualification wasn’t straightforward. There were barriers and she questioned whether her cultural background was holding her back. At one point, she even considered anglicising her name on her CV to avoid it going straight in the bin because the hiring manager couldn’t pronounce it. Luckily, she never had to go through with it.
Driven by a sense of commitment and family responsibility, she persisted. After a few years of relentless effort and countless rejections, when she did get an interview for a training contract in Hove: “Their first question was about my representative rugby, and I was asked what it was like to wear the red rose” she recalls. “I don’t think I’d have qualified as a solicitor without rugby on my CV!”
Now a contracts and procurement lawyer with Brighton & Hove City Council, and mum of three, Manjinder joined Hove women’s team in 2001 and was captain as they were promoted to the Championship.
“Having played for almost 20 years, I knew retirement was on the cards, and recognising the pivotal role of sports in empowering young girls, I really wanted to create a girls’ section at the club. We started with half a dozen girls and now have around 80 U12-U18 girls. We’re a club with a thriving girls’ section.
“Rugby has given me resilience and confidence in abundance. It permeates other areas of life and has afforded me opportunities I may not otherwise have had,” said Manjinder, who helps coach the U12 girls and has been appointed Senior Vice President of her club, as well as serving on the Sussex RFU Disciplinary Panel. She’s also President of the Sussex Law Society.
Manjinder was also recently approached to become a Global Ambassador for the Sikh Games, which will be hosted in the UK in August but doesn’t as yet include rugby.
Included among other Global Ambassadors are cricket Legend Monty Panesar and five time All England and British Powerlifting Champion Karenjeet Kaur Bains (aka the Gladiator, Athena) “And then there’s me,” she laughs.
She recently set up a group called British Asian Women in Rugby. “With seven or eight already interested, maybe we could field a sevens team,” she jokes. “Seriously though, having often been the only Asian woman in my rugby teams, it’s amazing to have contact with others. That’s really exciting!”
