Celebrating South Asian Heritage Month: Ravi'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. To start the month, we heard Manjinder's story and this week hear from Ravi Sibal, who chaired the Anselmians club at a pivotal time, with another to follow later this month.
Ravi's early days in rugby
He began playing rugby at St Anselm’s College and played through the age groups to the First XV, coached by the legendary Martin Regan. With his brother and three cousins at the school, most playing rugby, Ravi was the one who stuck with the sport into university.
When not studying for his business degree, he played both rugby union and league for Staffordshire University as well as coaching their women’s team which included Vicky Macqueen who went on to earn 34 England caps and become a TV commentator and now Leicester Tigers head of women’s rugby.
Dusted off his boots to coach
Having graduated he played for Anselmians, but was largely focusing on a career with Bentley Motors, starting as a temp in the logistics department and progressing to product management lead for the Continental GT. He then joined PA Consulting, where he focused on strategy consulting, before joining Capital One Bank, and eventually IBM as transformation director.
Helping global firms with their transformation strategy and delivery, he was frequently travelling between home in the Wirral and London, Europe, America, India and Australia.
That saw him stop playing rugby in his thirties and step back, until ten years ago when he took his son Adi to his old club Anselmians and within a year was asked to lead as Chairman. He helped to create a club with “fantastic facilities, for the whole community including a youth hub, run by the local council; we have had the honour of hosting several Cheshire final days,” he says.
During his time as Chair at Anselmians RUFC he oversaw a £2.5million clubhouse and grounds redevelopment, before serving three years as President.
Ravi was asked to join the Cheshire RFU board as the Diversity Equity & Inclusion lead, where he had a view of the range of challenges facing the sport, across grassroots and senior levels, within the club and school set up.
This made him very aware that there are many youngsters and communities on the Wirral that rugby has yet to embrace and he wants rugby and rugby clubs to encourage different socio-economic and diverse groups into playing the game.
He’d love to see succession planning and inclusion of diverse leaders who would encourage different community groups into the rugby club environment and get them involved in playing, supporting, managing and leading the game. He has a vision of businesses as part of “a virtuous circle” by funding rugby for diverse teams of youngsters whose parents can’t afford the subs or the kit.
“It would cost only £1,000 to fund a young team for a year, bringing kids from different socio-economic backgrounds together, a tiny amount for a business that they could easily invest while gaining social media exposure and building bonds with the sport and bringing communities together," he said.
Vision of diverse players and leaders
“I think I’ve been one of a very few club chairs from an ethnic minority background and, while I know there’s a journey to go on and you can’t change everything in a day, we do need to bring people in from different socio economic and ethnic backgrounds," said Ravi.
"We also need people with a slightly younger profile, who are still in the midst of their working lives, which would require some change to accommodate.”
Still coaching the team his son plays for, a combination side of Anselmians and Hoylake players called the AH Lions, he says: “We started out as a ragtag bunch but now can compete with the best on the Wirral. There’s plenty of diversity and half a dozen lads who have got to DPP level.”
He now runs his own strategy and transformation consultancy called Square Clouds Consulting as well as running his own property startup NeoProp, which consume a lot of his time.
Despite stepping back from his role at Anselmians and Cheshire, he still wants to see rugby performing an increasing diversity role, welcoming in the next generation of children from diverse backgrounds.
“Before you know it, they could be the ones pulling the club up and keeping it sustainable and representative of the community we serve.”
