Maggie Alphonsi: Winning the Fight E-Book

Maggie Alphonsi

• Herausgeber: Polaris
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 409

Beschreibung

Shortlisted for the Sports Book Awards Autobiography of the Year Maggie Alphonsi is not only a national sporting icon, the face of international women's rugby and star player of the England side that won the World Cup in 2014. She is also an inspirational and totemic figure who transcends sport.  The compelling story of her life makes her achievements even more extraordinary. Hers is an against-all-the-odds tale, becoming the best player in the world despite having to battle against racism, sexism, and prejudice. It is a book forged from the raw emotion, passion, and testimony of an iconic player, who rose to the elite of world sport when the world was seemingly stacked against her. It is a moving and revealing story of a woman who was not prepared to be defined by anyone but herself and gives the reader a unique insight into how she met her goals. 'Maggie has changed the way the game is played forever' - The Sunday Times

Leseprobe

POLARIS PUBLISHING LTD

c/o Aberdein Considine

2nd Floor, Elder House

Multrees Walk

Edinburgh

EH1 3DX

www.polarispublishing.com

Text copyright © Maggie Alphonsi and Gavin Mairs, 2023

ISBN: 9781915359018

eBook ISBN: 9781915359025

The right of Maggie Alphonsi and Gavin Mairs to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission of the publisher.

The views expressed in this book do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions or policies of Polaris Publishing Ltd (Company No. SC401508) (Polaris), nor those of any persons, organisations or commercial partners connected with the same (Connected Persons). Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers, or other information or content expressed by third parties are not those of Polaris or any Connected Persons but those of the third parties. For the avoidance of doubt, neither Polaris nor any Connected Persons assume any responsibility or duty of care whether contractual, delictual or on any other basis towards any person in respect of any such matter and accept no liability for any loss or damage caused by any such matter in this book.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library.

Designed and typeset by Polaris Publishing, Edinburgh

Printed in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

PROLOGUE

ONE: Punching my weight

TWO: My rebel yell

THREE: Defying the odds

FOUR: The crusading Saracen

FIVE: Finding Maggie

SIX: Falling from the top of the world

SEVEN: Seven heaven

EIGHT: World in motion

NINE: Maggie the Machine

TEN: We are not men

ELEVEN: Portacabin dreamin’

TWELVE: Breaking Good

THIRTEEN: The tipping point

FOURTEEN: ‘Doctor of Rugby’

FIFTEEN: The state of the union

SIXTEEN: Winning the fight

SEVENTEEN: The Troublemakers

EIGHTEEN: ‘Thank you, Miss’

NINETEEN: Top of the Pops

TWENTY: The Long Shot

TWENTY-ONE: Owning my voice

TWENTY-TWO: My greatest achievement

TWENTY-THREE: Rebel with a cause

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PICTURE SECTION

To my wife, Marcella, our children Artie and Willow, and my mum, Rebecca. You mean everything to me. And to my extended family Christine, Kevin, Siobhan, Jon and Annabel. Thank you for your love and support.

‘Be Comfortable, being uncomfortable’Peter McWilliams

‘If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you’Fred Devito

FOREWORD

BY SIR CLIVE WOODWARD

I think I managed to hugely embarrass Maggie the first time we worked together at ITV. ‘I used to come and watch you play,’ I told her. ‘No, you didn’t, surely not,’ she replied in a self-deprecating manner that belied her status as one of England’s greatest players of all time.

But the truth is that I had always admired her as a player from afar. I told her that I used to go to England matches simply to watch her in action. That’s sport. We all love certain players in different teams. A player who we want to see get the ball or make a big tackle. When I watch the Saracens men’s team play, I like to focus on Owen Farrell. When I watched England Women, I watched Maggie Alphonsi. She was such a disruptive player, I found her utterly compelling.

She is a player I would love to have coached. I would put her in the same bracket as Farrell and Maro Itoje, players from the current era I know I would get on with and could get the best out of.

Maggie, like Owen and Maro, was what I call a ‘sponge’ player. Players who listen and soak up information but are also not ‘yes’ people either.

I was lucky to have a number of players like that when I was head coach of the England men’s team that won the Rugby World Cup in 2003, such as Martin Johnson and Neil Back. They knew that if something made sense to them, they would just do it. Maggie had a mindset similar to Johnno, always learning, improving her skillset and underpinning it all with a ferocious physicality and commitment to put her body on the line for England. I can pay her no greater compliment.

I have seen her tackle Gareth Thomas in the ITV studio when we’ve done tackling drills and the impact was shuddering. Yet she did it all with a smile on her face. It was priceless TV. I can only imagine what it must have been like to come up against her on the pitch.

What is also remarkable about Maggie is her mental resolve and resilience. I know how tough it is to win a Rugby World Cup. We were well beaten by South Africa in the quarter-finals in 1999 and had to make significant changes going into 2003 in the way we played. Maggie played in two World Cup finals, losing both, before finally and gloriously lifting the trophy at the third attempt. Lesser players might have opted to take an easy path when the going got tough. But by the time of England’s final in 2014, her determination to finish her career with a winner’s medal had only intensified, not diminished. One of my favourite quotes is by the former South African president Nelson Mandela who said: ‘I never lose. I either win or I learn.’ Maggie learnt and found the way to win.

It was England’s victory in 2014, and Maggie’s central role in the triumph, that provided the springboard for the exciting growth in women’s rugby that we are now seeing. She remains at the forefront of blazing a trail for women’s sport and fighting for equality and greater opportunity for people from ethnic minorities, as a council member for the Rugby Football Union and through her media work and leadership talks.

Working alongside her for ITV has given me an insight into her rugby knowledge. When she first started, I would find myself asking her questions to try to bring her into the conversation.

‘What do you think, Maggie?’ I would ask her. Sometimes she looked at me as if to say, ‘Thanks a lot!’ but I wasn’t trying to throw her a hospital pass. Having seen her play, I was intrigued to hear her point of view, both from a female perspective and from her deep knowledge of forward play, particularly the back row. She performs her role as a pundit in the same way as she did as a player: she has always got something to say.

I think she would make a magnificent coach. If we want to develop women’s sport, we should be appointing females to coaching jobs, because it is the coach who gets the most airtime. Look at how well Sarina Wiegman has done with the Lionesses football team. She was appointed by Dame Sue Campbell, the FA’s director of women’s football. It is only until we have women in decision-making roles that we will see more female coaches.

Which is why Maggie’s work to improve diversity and inclusion in rugby is so important. She was a pioneer as a player and now is continuing that fight as an administrator and by showing visible leadership through her media work. I can only wish her well. Knowing Maggie, she will not stop until the fight is won.

PROLOGUE

I could tell from the look in Owen Farrell’s eyes that he wasn’t going to pass the ball. He may have been just eighteen years old, but the future captain of the England men’s team already looked the part, sporting a Justin Bieber-style floppy quiff. I’m sure he regrets it now. But even back then he had an aura about him. Everyone knew that his father was Andy Farrell, the rugby league legend who’d decided to finish his playing career in rugby union, for Saracens and briefly for England. But Farrell junior was the future now. And he knew it.

His teammates no doubt probably thought he was a bit up himself, but I could tell his overly confident demeanour wasn’t misplaced. He was a player going places, and quickly. And he had no intention of letting me get in his way. It didn’t matter to him that he was training against a woman – he quite rightly saw me as nothing more than an opposition player with a weakness that he would find and ruthlessly exploit. All he needed to do was make the pass, but I think when he saw that I was the defender he thought: ‘I’m just going to run at her.’

I knew who his dad was too. But, on that freezing Tuesday night at the University of Hertfordshire grounds in Hatfield, I knew I only had one job. Ringing in my head was the phrase I’d heard, over and over again, from Geoff Richards, a tough-talking former Australia full-back who had been instrumental at the start of my international playing career during his time as head coach of the England women’s side: ‘Make the f**king tackle, Maggie; make the f**king tackle.’

****

If I knew who Owen’s dad was, he certainly didn’t know anything about me. Why would he?

It was March 2009 and Farrell was the rising star in the Saracens academy that was being compared to rugby union’s equivalent of Manchester United’s legendary Class of ’92 that included David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville and Paul Scholes. Saracens’ equivalent was similarly sprinkled with stardust; Farrell’s teammates included future England and Lions forwards Jamie George and George Kruis, as well as Jackson Wray and Will Fraser, who would go on to play in the Premiership and in Europe.

They were all thriving as part of an uncompromising regime headed up by an equally uncompromising Eddie Jones. The future England head coach was in charge of Saracens then, and that night I was also given a unique insight into his forthright and challenging approach that would ultimately cost him his job with the national side more than a decade later.

To be fair to Eddie, he’d welcomed me into the fold. At the start of the 2008/09 season, the Rugby Football Union for Women (or the RFUW, as it was known until we merged the RFU in 2010) had felt that the England Women’s squad would benefit from taking part in training with the club academies from the men’s game. As I already played with the Saracens’ women side – along with veteran internationals Amy Garnett and Karen Andrews – I’d been invited to take part in the training session with the Saracens academy. There was just one condition. When the coaches asked Eddie if it was okay for me to take part in the session, he said: ‘Yes, it’s fine but she’s got to do everything that the boys do, though.’

I had no problem playing against the boys. In my wilder, childhood years, I’d squared up and fought against boys much tougher than that Saracens bunch on the patch of ground at the back of my block of flats in the Edmonton estate in north London, where I grew up. It was just the way of life back then. You had to stand your ground, even for those of us like me who didn’t join a gang, whether you were a boy or a girl, because reputation was more important than your gender.

I’d also developed a bit of a relationship with the lads because I’d been to a few sessions before, and they appreciated that I was there to develop my skills. The problem was that on the very night that Eddie turned up, neither Karen nor Amy had been able to make it. I was on my own.

I travelled to the sportsground already in my kit so there was no awkwardness about changing before training, but I can remember getting out of my car and thinking: ‘Do I really want to do this?’

Rugby players, men and women across the country will recognise the feeling. One of those nights when you don’t fancy it. But as I knew I was the only woman turning up, I knew I had to. There was a burning ambition too. This was the sort of opportunity that I knew was special and that if I wanted to develop my game and progress further I had to do it.

I kept talking myself up as I slowly pulled on my boots: ‘I can do this; I can do this.’ When I saw Eddie was there too, I knew my reputation and that of the women’s game was also on the line. Come on Maggie, you’ve got this.

****

It was a bloody hard session. Lots of running, a lot of hitting the floor and getting up again. If anyone dropped the ball, our punishment was to do some laps of the artificial pitch. I was embedded as one of them. In a weird way it was a good thing I was the only woman that day because I knew I had to step up and be visible – and I wanted to step up.

The tackling sessions were no problem. It might be hard to understand if you’re a woman who has never tackled a man or a man who has never tackled a woman on the rugby pitch, but I’d been used to playing against some really big and physical women so I knew I could look after myself.

When people meet me nowadays for the first time, quite often they will comment on how small they think I am. And I grew up wanting to be like players such as Selena Rudge, who played for Wasps and won forty-seven caps for England. She was so strong and combative, like a mixed martial arts fighter blessed with rugby skills who would never take a backward step. Put it this way, you would never want to get into a ring with her. And she had thighs like Joe Cokanasinga, the Bath and England centre. When I tried to tackle her, it was like trying to stop a bus, she would pretty much run people over.

I was twenty-six when the RFUW had us train with the Saracens academy, so tackling eighteen-year-old men didn’t strike me with any fear.

But Farrell was big for his age. He was taller and had a way bigger stature than me. The drill was three attackers versus two defenders. The defenders were outnumbered but had to make the right decision and make the tackle. When Farrell received the ball, it was my turn to defend. Make the tackle Maggie. Make the tackle.

He had one player outside him. He ran at me hard. I lined him up, with the perception that he was going to pass, but in the moment, I knew that he had no intention of passing. I can understand why.

But of all my abilities on the rugby pitch, tackling was my core strength. It had been drilled into me from my first days in rugby. It would go on to earn me the nickname ‘Maggie the Machine’ for my defensive work in the World Cup final in 2006, coined by former England internationals, Stuart Barnes and Dewi Morris who were on commentating duties that night when the game was broadcasted live on Sky Sports.

Before every tackle I made, I would always run through my options. Do I go low and just make the leg tackle? But that felt too risky. What if he stepped me? Do I hit him near the hips? But there was risk involved in that too, as he could simply offload to the extra attacker. No, there was only one option. I was going to have to go for man and ball. Literally. It may not have been the most amazing tackle in the world, but I remember hitting him and, in the collision, stopping him in his tracks before grabbing and pulling him down in the tackle.

I still remember to this day the coaches on the sidelines gasping: ‘Oh my God, she has just taken down Owen Farrell.’ The other lads loved it too.

The assumption was that Owen wasn’t too happy about being tackled. Owen should have passed, and he didn’t run at me again.

But at the time there was no other major reaction. I’d just done my job. I was meant to have made the tackle, just like Geoff Richards would have wanted. When you’re with the lads, you just get on with it. There was no pat on the back. The reality was that I’d been supposed to make the tackle. All I cared about was not missing it. That one was for you, Geoff.

****

Looking back now I recognise that session as one of the defining moments of my career. I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and, in the moment, I’d stepped up. I learned something about myself that night and grew from it.

To have executed the tackle in front of Eddie Jones made it all the more special. He’s not renowned for giving out praise.

When I used to talk to some of the Saracens men’s players back then and England players when he was coach of the men’s national side about their experiences of playing for Eddie, it mirrored my memories of him. He doesn’t say many words, he’s very to the point and he has a massive presence for a small man. I knew who he was, I knew what his history was and what he was going through with Saracens at the very time, but he only said a few words. Instead, you could find his judgement in his facial expression and his eyes. It made you feel you had to go out of your way to impress him.

But in the feedback from the session to the RFUW he said the words that I desperately wanted to hear: ‘She fitted in like she was one of the lads. She did well.’

I’m not sure Owen or Eddie remember the moment now, but it stayed with me for the remainder of my career. Nowadays when I meet Eddie, I still have no idea if he knows it was me who made the tackle that night.

But on that Tuesday night in Hatfield, I felt I’d earned his respect. Owen’s too, and the respect from the other lads who were in attendance that night. It was another staging post for me and left me with a feeling that fired me on through the highs and lows of my career.

I just remember thinking that night, not for the first time, ‘I’m just going to be one of the lads. I’m going to train harder, run harder and tackle harder than any of them. There’s no gender. I’m going to stand my ground and never take a backward step.’ You don’t mess with Maggie. Even if you’re a boy.

ONE

PUNCHING MY WEIGHT

The first time I felt invincible was the first time I got into a fight with a boy. And I managed to hit him. Twice. His name was Ian and I hit him hard, in his torso. And followed it up with another blow. I knew immediately from the look in his eyes that my blows had landed and hurt him.

Amid the flurry of fists and cheers from the crowd that had gathered around us, it was in that moment that I first became aware of my strength. It was exhilarating. I felt dominant and powerful and alive; a heady mix of emotions that I would come to love years later in a setting I couldn’t ever have imagined on that hot afternoon in north London: playing rugby union for England.

My physical enlightenment instead took place on the patch of ground where I used to play football after school, the playing fields behind the block of flats in Edmonton, in north London. Football was king in my estate. No one ever talked about rugby. You were Spurs or Arsenal and I was one of the few girls who the boys didn’t mind taking part in the after-school matches.

I’d deliberately chosen to fight Ian to make a point. We were both thirteen years old. Fighting was a rite of passage for kids growing up in the estates in Edmonton.

It wasn’t a gang thing. Well, not in my case anyway. Despite the fact that my mother, as a single parent, had to work long hours – sometimes juggling two jobs at a time to raise me – she made sure I had a strict Nigerian upbringing. Yet, like every kid in the area, I had known that the day would come when I’d have to prove that I could look after myself. This was that day.

The fight took place after school. We were both smart enough to do it on neutral ground out of the sight of any teachers, and I knew that mum was still at work – she never got home before 7.30 p.m. – so there was no danger that she’d see us from the window of our two-bedroomed flat, where she still lives today.

Mum would have been furious with me if she knew what I’d got myself into, but it was she who had unwittingly led me to this point. As a child I had generally been submissive, apologising to everyone for everything and it had made me a soft target for bullying.

It had all changed the day Mum asked if I wanted to go to the shops at the bottom of our flat to buy some sweets. Life at times on the estate was challenging. There were people who I would see and think: I really don’t want to grow up and be like that person. Clusters of people would hang out around the estate. Some sat in their flat all day playing loud music.

I’d been told to never answer the door to our flat when I was on my own or speak to anyone and I didn’t feel comfortable going out at night.

But sometimes the threats came in daylight too, as I was about to find out. As I ran down the stairs, I bumped into a girl called Sonia, who went to my school and was a couple of years older than me.

‘When you come back, I’m going to beat you up,’ she said, with cold menace. I didn’t understand what I’d done to her. She was big, white, had dark blonde short hair and wore thick glasses but it didn’t cross my mind that her threat could have been racially motivated. And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.

Sonia had picked on me before, but it had never really bothered me and, as I headed to the shop, I hoped that she’d lose interest in me by the time I returned. This time she hadn’t.

Sonia wasn’t athletic, but she was a big strong girl, a lot bigger than me at the time, and I took quite a beating. When I got back to my flat, my mum was horrified. And angry.

Mum may have been strict, but she has always supported me, and this was the first time I’d seen her reveal her emotions. Sonia lived in our building on a different level and Mum went to her flat and I could hear her unleash a barrage of words at Sonia and her mum.

‘Don’t ever let anyone bully you or pick on you,’ she instructed me when she returned. ‘You have to always stand up for yourself in this world. You can’t let people walk all over you.’

In a very different way, Mum that day had revealed herself to be a fighter too, even if it wasn’t in the physical sense. And from that day on I vowed never to let anyone dominate me again.

She couldn’t have known it, but Mum’s reaction that day awoke a rebellious streak in me that had, up to that point, been held in check by my strict, religious upbringing.

I didn’t actually hang out with anyone who deliberately looked to get into fights, or didn’t join any gangs. But from that day on, I would never again take a backward step. If anyone started on me, I’d retaliate. If you wanted a fight, you’d get one.

****

And now Ian was getting one. He’d been angling for a scrap with me but by taking him on I was setting the bar high: if I could hold my own, my reputation would be secured. The message in the corridors of Salisbury School would be: ‘Don’t mess with Maggie’. Ian was black, had trimmed hair and was about 5ft 6ins. He didn’t need to worry about his reputation because his sister was in a gang at our rival school, Edmonton County.

As I wrestled him to the ground, he threw punches back at me. But fighting a boy wasn’t a problem for me. I’d never seen any difference between boys and girls. I’d never been a girly girl. We were all just kids in my mind.

I’m pretty sure Ian felt that same way. He probably would have been bossed around at home by his sister, as she was quite a hard lady, so gender mattered little for him when it came to fighting. The only thing that mattered was to prove that you were hard, that you could look after yourself. It didn’t matter if you were a boy or a girl, if someone started on you, you gave it back.

I managed to land at least two decent punches and the scuffle finally ended when someone pulled us apart. It had been a fair fight. There was no winner, but that mattered little to me.

My reputation was now secure. The word went around that I had been in a fight with Ian – yes, Ian whose sister is in a gang – and from then on everyone knew that I could look after myself. From then on, I appreciated my physical strength. My popularity grew. Ian and I eventually became friends.

If I ever see him when I get back to Edmonton to visit my mum, we have a laugh about that day when everything changed for me. From now on everyone knew: You don’t mess with Maggie. Even if you’re a boy.

****

One of the wonderful things about my upbringing was the mix of people who lived in my building. In the twenty-two floors, there were families with an African or Caribbean background, Turkish and Greek families, and about a fifth were white; a melting pot that ensured that race wasn’t an issue. Some were unemployed and hung around the estate, but it wasn’t all doom and gloom, there was an air of affluence too, with the smart cars in the car park acting as an inspiration for me to work hard.

Despite everything, there were people who were aspirational, regardless of the area they lived in, and you knew they were going to make it in life. I had one good friend called Jo who went on to play football for Tottenham Ladies. At my school there was also a big emphasis on drama and some pupils went on to feature in the iconic BBC children’s soap, Grange Hill. I remember one girl called Joanne who spoke so beautifully it was as if she’d been to acting school rather than a tough comprehensive school in Edmonton. She was so glamorous as well. I kept thinking: ‘This is not the school for you.’

Then one day our school newsletter came out and it said that Joanne was going to be featuring in Grange Hill. I ran home from school and put the television on. You had to look closely, because it turned out that Joanne was just an extra, but I remember feeling so proud seeing her in the background. And she even had a couple of lines.

There was another guy at my school who was remarkably talented at music. He was the kind of guy who helped the teachers put the musical productions together. He was from a Somalian background and could play any instrument he touched. I remember telling him that he was so talented, but he was so humble with it. Nowadays he is choreographing choirs and music productions.

One of my best friends, Athos, who I was in a band with when we were young, has gone on to make music that is frequently played on BBC Radio Six. I just loved the fact that, even though we weren’t from a privileged background, there was a sense not only of belonging but also of many people wanting to get on – and some of them made it to the top. Later I would look at them and think to myself, ‘I can do it too.’

My eagerness to participate in sport helped to mask the fact that I’d been born with a club foot (medically known as talipes) and, despite undergoing an operation as a baby, I still walked with a slight limp.

I was conscious of my limp, but no one else seemed to notice and regardless of my physical ability I still wanted to play sport. I was often the goalkeeper at breaktime when I played football with the boys. No one wanted to be the keeper, so the boys seemed happy with that. But my desire to prove myself was starting to get me into trouble. My reputation as a girl who could handle herself was gaining momentum. It might have made me popular in school but not with my teachers. Or the police.

I had too much energy, I was putting socialising ahead of my studies and it was starting to feel like every day ended with a telling off from my head of year or even the headmaster.

The submissive and apologetic girl who had discovered her rebellious self was suddenly – and very quickly – running out of chances.

In the end, it was a fight against a girl called Beatrice that forced me to change my ways.

I don’t remember what started it or why we fell out, but by then when people on my estate heard I was in a fight, they would back me. It was great for me but it must have been so intimidating for my opponent.

Looking back, it should never have led to a fight. It was a silly argument that got out of hand because a crowd gathered and egged us on.

This time, unlike the fight with Ian, I ended up quite badly hurt. In the tussle her nails caught my face and left a deep cut across my right cheek, from my cheek bone to my lip.

When I got back to our flat, Mum was so worried that she called the police and the situation escalated when we realised that Beatrice’s parents had done the same. The police arrived and spoke to all of us, including our parents and Beatrice’s younger sisters.

Bringing shame on my Mum was the turning point. I realised that I was just an immature child. There had been no need to fight. Beatrice had been a friend and yet here we were, in trouble with the police and blood was oozing down my cheek. Seeing the police speak to Beatrice and her young sisters hit a nerve with me. I’d got what I’d deserved.

I thought: I don’t need this, I don’t need to fight, why am I fighting? What is this achieving?

I knew I had to change. I was quite a switched-on kid, but while I was bad outside of school I was really, really bad in school. It was creating tensions with my mum, who knew how important it was that I worked hard and made the best of my ability.

Yet my time was running out. At Salisbury School there was a disciplinary procedure for pupils who got into trouble. A green report card meant that you had to go to see your head of year at the end of the day to review your behaviour. A yellow report card escalated the issue and the worst report card of all was a red one, which meant you had to see the headmaster at the end of the day – and if your negative behaviour continued you’d be excluded from school.

It wasn’t long after I’d received the red report card that I knew things couldn’t go on as they were. It was a chance conversation with Liza Burgess, one of our PE teachers, that would change everything. I can still remember seeing her arrive in school sporting a black eye.

I was wandering the school corridors when we bumped into each other.

‘Why have you got a black eye, miss?’ I asked, transfixed.

‘I was playing rugby on the weekend for Saracens.’

I was immediately impressed. ‘No way . . .’

‘Do you know what, Maggie? I think you could be really good at this sport. You’re fit and strong and I think you’d love the physical nature of the game. Why don’t you turn this energy into a positive and give the game a go?’

I don’t know why I listened to her. I didn’t have a habit of listening to teachers back then. I guess it was because I respected Miss Burgess and I loved sport and the fact that she was praising me at a time when all the others were criticising me all combined to strike a chord.

I didn’t know that Miss Burgess was also captain of the Wales Women’s rugby team and would later go on to teach future England stars Mako and Billy Vunipola at a school in Wales. I didn’t know what she saw in me, and I certainly didn’t know anything about rugby, but she must have seen my potential.

I’d grown up in a single-parent family on a football-obsessed council estate. I’d been born with a club foot and walked with a limp. I was a girl. I was black. There simply weren’t many people like me who played rugby, or any top-level sport at all. But Liza didn’t care about my excuses. She told me to go to Saracens (a bus journey away via the W6), which was my nearest rugby club that had a women’s and girls’ section and try it out. So, I did. Everything I ever knew about sport was about to change. Thankfully my life was too.

TWO

MY REBEL YELL

I can’t tell you when my father left my mum. It was before I was born, and I have never met him. My mum, Rebecca, never chose to talk about him. All I know is that she met him after leaving Nigeria to come to England to study and work. I can understand, given that he had walked out on her and returned to Nigeria, leaving Mum to raise me by herself, why she is so reluctant to talk about him.

Growing up, knowing that he walked out on my mother, I actually didn’t want to know anything about him, but annoyingly I was still intrigued and had a nagging interest to learn more about him. I remember wanting to ask Mum about his background but knew she didn’t want to talk about him, so I didn’t pry. The result is that I know nothing about him and grew up not knowing who he was. I don’t hold any regrets, though. Given the way he left us, he doesn’t deserve to be part of my or my mother’s life, so I have no compulsion to try to track him down now.

What I did know was that Mum was a strong and independent woman. She still lives in Edmonton, and I find it hard at times going back to visit her. I love seeing her, but the memories of growing up on that council estate and still seeing the deprivation there does upset me.

Remembering my roots is important to me and it was during those formative years living there that shaped my character – it’s just hard seeing a place where you grew up not change despite it being almost two decades since I last lived there. It’s like it’s stood still in time, whilst everything around it has moved on.

My mother’s story has been a remarkable one. She originally lived in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, where she had two children – my half-brother Azeez and half-sister Latoya – with her first husband as part of a large wider family. But after a family dispute, she was pretty much pushed to leave the country and develop a life of her own in the UK. Her children were in their late teens, but she came under intense pressure from her family to stay and be a ‘good wife’. She didn’t want to leave, but she had no choice.

Azeez and Latoya never came over to England and I never got the chance to meet them. I did manage to maintain a long-distance relationship with Azeez via phone calls from Nigeria each week, as he had a good relationship with Mum. But it was a different story with Latoya. She and Mum didn’t speak and subsequently I’ve never had any contact with her, and I still know nothing about her life. It does feel weird to have such an estranged family, but it was beyond my control.

Sadly, Azeez passed away before I could meet him. I remember coming back from England rugby duty in France and my mother saying the words I had dreaded to hear. ‘Azeez has died.’

Seeing my mother drop to the floor on her knees and breakdown in tears is an image that still haunts me to this day. It was heart-breaking. Her child had passed and she wasn’t able to be there to protect him.

The details surrounding his death still remain unclear to me, but he had died due to injuries sustained after a violent attack he experienced while travelling home in Nigeria. Still till this day, my biggest regret will always be not going over to Nigeria to meet him. I envy my friends who have siblings. Growing up, I always wished I could see mine. I craved the family bond and relationship many of my friends had with their brothers and sisters but unfortunately my life had not panned out that way.

I’ve been lucky to have a loving relationship with Mum, but I imagine it’s different to what I perceived my friends had with their parents. She’s always been there for me, and she was incredibly loving, but I think it was very much a typical African/Nigerian relationship in the sense that she expected me to just get my head down, work hard, not misbehave and didn’t see the benefit in any extracurricular activities outside of school life.

I would see my friends go on holiday together and have lots of positive conversations about their lives, whereas, in contrast, I didn’t always feel comfortable about opening up to her about a lot of stuff because we just didn’t have that relationship. My Mum wasn’t the sort of person to take me out to museums or theme parks. I think she was just repeating the strict African upbringing that she had herself.

****

We lived on the fifth floor of a twenty-two-storey block of flats, the main building that was surrounded by smaller flats and council houses; a typical north London estate. Families living on top of each other, kids hanging out in the parks in the area or by the local parade of shops.

My bedroom was a typical kid’s room. You fit a double bed in, so it was the right size for me as a young girl growing up. Garfield the cat and Thomas the Tank Engine were my favourite characters and would feature on my wallpaper and bed covers at various times when I was young.

I don’t like the term ‘tomboy’ but I was quite gender neutral – I didn’t play with dolls but I didn’t play with tractors either. One of the benefits of living in a flat is that other children could come over regularly to play, which meant I didn’t need a room full of toys. A little television and a Nintendo were all I needed.

Like most other children on the estate, I was raised in a single-parent family. Indeed, looking back, it was rare to see a family with both parents in that environment. But, in many ways, at times we were like one big family. And I just loved the diversity of the community. It was such a mix – around a third would have been black and from African/Caribbean backgrounds, probably a similar number of Turkish and Greek people and the rest were English and Caucasian.

It was so enriching to grow up in such a diverse community. Differences became normal and I had friends from every background. No one judged you for how you looked or spoke. The first time I really felt black and exposed to racism was when the Stephen Lawrence murder took place in 1993. That really hit home. Until that moment I’d never thought about race or that there were people who might dislike you because of the colour of your skin.

The old African proverb says it takes a village to raise a child. In north London, Mum certainly needed help with me. I didn’t appreciate at the time what an effort she made to raise me by herself without any family support. I remember having weekly visits from a social services worker, who would provide support and advice to my mum as she struggled to raise me on her own. Often, she worked two jobs at the same time just to ensure that she could make ends meet and pay for childcare.

When I was really young, she worked as a cleaner but then progressed to work for the Nigerian High Commission as a secretary in the Nigerian Embassy. Balancing work commitments with raising a daughter meant that I had a lot of babysitters to look after me.

My main babysitter was a lady called Pearl, who has since passed. She had two sons and two daughters but was also a childminder and would look after up to five children at a time.

When I was child, Mum would drop me off at Pearl’s house on her way to work and pick me up in the evening. Pearl would walk us to school and then be at the school gates at the end of the day to pick us up again.

It was an unusual relationship as Pearl became something of a second parent, but not one I have fond memories of. She was strict and I feared her. Thankfully, the other children in her care were of similar age to me so were great companions; they became like brothers and sisters to me and made my time in her care a bit more pleasant.

We all used to assemble at a collection point after school – usually the playground at my infant or primary school and then walk back together to her house. Her kids were adults and lived at home, and we would frequently see them upon our return from school while we waited for our respective parents to pick us up.

As Mum worked in London, in the city, I was always the last one to be collected. Often, she did not arrive until after 8 p.m. I always loved it when she arrived, I couldn’t wait to get out of that house, but the lesson that I learned from those formative years was about independence. It became okay not to have someone to rely on, but to look out for yourself, which would serve me well later on the rugby field.

It was always tough when we had productions or performances at school and the parents were invited to watch. Mum could never come, and after a while it was just something I came to accept. It was just hard seeing my friends being embraced by their family members after a production, while I had no one and just walked back to the classroom to be the only one in there waiting for everyone to return.

Raising me all by herself was a remarkable achievement, and while she had to be absent from many of my school activities, Mum always tried to make sure she provided for me, even though she never held down a high-paying job.

Often, we had to make do, however. I had no concept of her financial constraints. I tried to copy my friends’ hobbies; we could just about afford guitar lessons but could not stretch to a piano or piano lessons. Pragmatism was key: if we can’t do A, then let’s do B. That was my normal.

****

Religion was also a major part of my early years. Mum was a really strict Christian so throughout my childhood from about the age of eight she would take me to St Edmund’s Catholic Church at the bottom of Bounces Road. Rather than let me go to Sunday School, Mum insisted that I sit with her in church, both of us dressed in our Sunday best.

Some of my mum’s friends were also very religious – Nigerian people generally are – and while I didn’t go to a faith school, it was part of my life.

Even in our flat, Mum had a little cross on the wall and she would always reference God at some stage during the day.

The commitment to religion would later have an impact on delaying my decision to tell my mum that I was gay; it was not really deemed to be acceptable in that environment.

I remember sitting in church on a Sunday morning and being made aware that being gay was a sin, or ‘certain things’ were sins and I remember thinking: ‘I disagree with this. I’m not a sinner.’

Such thoughts and feelings made me hesitant to talk about my sexuality with my mum. I was concerned she would perceive it as being a bad thing. Instead, I focused on just being a good Christian. I loved the church building – it was one of the biggest and grandest in the area and with a celestial atmosphere. We used to go to the noon service, which was always heaving with a diverse congregation – black and white. It felt like I was part of another community. I used to love dipping my finger into the holy water and making a cross on the way into church. I would sing and pray my heart out and feel very spiritual. It felt like one day a week I was at my best for religion. ‘Today I’m going to be on it as a Christian,’ I would tell myself. I used to always feel like it was a way of spiritually cleansing myself.

It was only when I got a bit older that I really started to listen to the words of the priest and I started to question them a bit more, but even when I started playing rugby, I still would go to church before heading off to training. I found it quite important to go just to be connected to the process of it all. Not many of my teammates were religious so I would rarely talk to them about going to church. It just wasn’t the thing to do.

I went every Sunday until I was about nineteen. By then I was independent enough to say to Mum: ‘No, I’m not going this Sunday.’ It was then that I started to stray away from religion. As I got older, I started thinking more and more: this isn’t for me.

****

I think it was Mum’s strict approach to parenting that first encouraged my rebellious streak. I was desperate to go out and explore the world beyond the Edmonton estate. Yet Mum was worried that I’d mix with the wrong crowd and get into trouble. I can remember looking longingly out the window of our flat and seeing other children hanging out knowing that I wasn’t allowed to join them.

It was friendship that would first broaden my world. My first best friend was a boy called Ryan. He was white and also from a single-parent family and he lived in a council house which was a bit further down the road.

I first met him at primary school and when I found out we lived close to each other he invited me over to his house I and met his mum, who I got on with straight away. She became the mum that I had yearned for in the sense that she would take us out, whether it was to a park or a museum. She opened up my horizons and broadened my knowledge of the world. It felt like we would go on an adventure every time I went over to their house.

My mum was fine with that as she knew who Ryan was and knew his mum, so she knew I was in a really safe environment, just a few doors away from our flat. ‘You can go and see Ryan any time you want,’ she told me. I felt exhilarated.