Simi Pam

It was Simi Pam’s first night out in months. As a doctor, she’d been on the NHS frontline and there was also a rugby season with Bristol Bears to toast. But instead of celebrating, she was called a ‘black bitch’ and told to ‘go back to Africa’, then blindsided by a punch to the head.

A week before we go print, we have had to rewrite part of this story, because what has happened to Simi in recent days is horrific, albeit sadly predictable.Our original introduction read: 6am. A DM on Instagram. ‘Darkie bitch’. Three months after winning rugby social media with that try against Sale, doctor/Bristol Bear Simi Pam was experiencing the other side. It wasn’t the first time, and she knows it won’t be the last. But that doesn’t mean they win. 

Depressingly, the ‘it won’t be the last’ part was too quickly proven right. On the weekend of the Allianz Premier 15s semi-finals, she was once again the subject of racist abuse, and this time physical assault too. A man threw a punch aimed for her head after Simi was involved in a confrontation with his girlfriend, who called her a ‘black bitch’, and crowingly said, ‘I’ve got a British passport, go back to Africa’. 

Simi has had a British passport for 23 years, having moved to England from Nigeria aged three, with her mother Janet and father Ishaku. Ishaku had found work as a doctor in the UK and Simi has since followed in his footsteps, and is now a junior doctor in Bristol. Both Simi and her dad have been on the NHS frontline throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, with Simi also combining her medical career with tearing it up for Bristol Bears in the Allianz Premier 15s – when she has the time. Simi is a rampaging loosehead prop who shot to prominence scoring a 70m try. You probably saw it. But we’ll get to the rugby later. 

When the Rugby Journal calls Simi up to hear what happened at the weekend – three days after the incident – she’s not in a good place. This isn’t the Simi that we met in Bristol for the original interview and photo shoot a month before. The smiling, happy Simi you see in these pictures is not the one on the other end of the phone today. 

“I am struggling today because I am just so sad about the whole thing,” says Simi. “I’m so sick of people always taking what we say about racism with a pinch of salt, and trying to downplay it: ‘yeah, but does it really happen?’ Yes, it really does. I’m not someone who goes looking for trouble. It was just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and that really is all it takes. Even though it doesn’t happen all the time to me, this instance represents the minority of people, it can happen anywhere to anyone, no matter who you are. 

“You can’t outrun being black, you can’t hide. It comes with the good and the bad. I’m really proud to be a dual national [British-Nigerian]. I feel like I try and give so much to this country. This is the country that I was raised in and I want to represent England [in rugby]. I work for the NHS, I’m really proud to be British. The woman who said all the racist stuff to me at the weekend had a strong accent, South American perhaps, and I was like ‘hang on, it’s just because you are white you feel like you have more of a right to be here than I do. You may have a British passport, why do you think that I don’t?’”

Simi had come to London to meet up with some friends from Hackney rugby club to watch the Harlequins v Wasps semi-final together. In the evening they went out to a bar the Hackney players knew from their rugby socials. It was an exciting night out at that point, and Simi’s first since February 2020. Some of the group headed to the karaoke machine but Simi and a friend went to the restaurant area for some food. “We were sat adjacent to this couple and the man was being quite rowdy and noisy,” she says. “The manager came up to him and said, ‘calm down, otherwise I’m gonna have to ask you to leave’, that kind of thing. And the woman turned to us and started to slag off the manager saying, ‘I can’t believe she’s saying these things and whatever, whatever’. I was just like, ‘I don’t know who you are, I’m trying to be here with my friend and I don’t really want to talk to you.’ That was all I said. She started saying things like, ‘I was just trying to talk to you like a human being and make conversation’ and I was like ‘I don’t really want to, I’d rather just stay here with my friend and eat.’  That’s what prompted her to come out with her racist stuff.”

Enraged, Simi stood up to the woman and the pair ended up pushing each other. At that point, the woman’s partner came across and swung a punch at Simi’s head which glanced her cheek, luckily only doing superficial damage. At that point, Simi says, “it descended into carnage”.

“Someone pulled them outside, I chased after them, people were holding me back. At some point , I didn’t see, but my friend was with the woman who said something to her and then kicked her. It all just became a bit of a mess.”

The police were called and statements taken but Simi is not holding out any hope of anything coming from it, her abusers having left before the police arrived. 

The attack has left Simi shaken and sad three days on, and a large part of her concern surrounds how she reacted. “It almost scares me how intent I was on hurting them,” she admits, “just to make myself feel better or to have a sense of justice, even though that’s not the right way to go about it. But I don’t know how I could have reacted that would have seemed suitable at the time. I could have just walked away but that doesn’t feel like a good enough resolution; how can they just say stuff like that and get away with it? 

“As a doctor, I see people coming in after a fight and all it takes is one punch, they hit the concrete and have a bleed on their brain, and people are being charged for assault or manslaughter. It happens. All it takes is one episode like that … I’d hate to put everything I’ve worked so hard for in jeopardy for that split second of feeling justified.”

During the same weekend as Simi’s assault, a video of a black bouncer in Worcester being racially abused by a white woman who also pushes him, goes viral on social media. There are unnerving parallels with what Simi faced in London. It is also the anniversary of George Floyd’s death and the explosion of the Black Lives Matter movement around the world, something that Simi has been a vocal and articulate advocate of on social media throughout the past year. Not that’s she’s any closer to understanding why racism is still so prevalent.

In our first interview in Bristol, Simi told us about a recent unprovoked, racist message that she received on Instagram one morning. The message – from an anonymous account – said “Darkie bitch”. It left her in a mood for days.  “I couldn’t quite work out why [I was in a mood] but when I thought back,” Simi explained, “I realised it was this random, anonymous, racist, unprovoked comment. You tell yourself, this is someone who is a troll basically, who has not even got the confidence to say it from their own account. It’s from a fake one. They shouldn’t have a bearing on you, but they do, and especially when it’s unprovoked, I just think ‘what can I do?’

“To some people, all I’m going to be is a black person and they are always going to see black people as inferior or not worthy or ... whatever their perception is. Sometimes it does still get you down because it just makes you ask why? What is it about my dark skin that offends you so much? I really want to know. You don’t know anything about me other than what you’ve seen on my social media. But for some reason, the fact that I have dark skin really offends you, or really makes you want to insult me. Why? You know, I just can’t understand why.”

It’s a question she returns to today – after the assault in London.  “I wish I could actually just speak to someone who was openly racist and ask them specifically, what is it about my blackness that offends them so deeply?  Because I feel like if I understood what it is, maybe it would help me wrap my head around it because I don’t understand. I don’t know.”

Reassuringly, in our first chat with Simi – which took place at the ground where she scored her try against Sale, Shaftesbury Park, the home of Bristol Bears Women and Dings Crusaders – she told us that the rugby community has always been a safe space for her. “Rugby has never been a place where I’ve felt different because of being a black woman. That’s one of the best things about rugby and its values of respect, understanding, tolerance. You’re a team and you stand united with each other in all aspects, race, religion, sexuality. Rugby has always been a place where anyone can come and be accepted. And, that’s not been any different with race, which has been, you know, really, really lovely. 

“At Bears, me, Row [Marston], and our club captain Daisie [Mayes] made a Black Lives Matter team at the start of the season and we had those discussions with the team, and decided how we wanted to show our support as a team. We did anonymous surveys, and there was not one person who disagreed with what we were doing. And that, you know – I already love this club – but that was just another reason for me to really feel like this is home. No one has to lie in an anonymous survey but it was just so good to know that, even if people might not fully understand what it is that we go through, we have their support.”

As a black person in a predominantly white sport, Simi is aware she can help inspire young black girls interested in playing rugby. While a third of the England men’s squad at the last World Cup were from BAME backgrounds, the England women’s team is less diverse, with just three players from BAME backgrounds featuring in the recent Six Nations: Lagi Tuima, Detysha Harper and fellow athlete-turned-rugby player Shaunagh Brown. 

“I think that’s where women’s rugby needs to catch up a bit,” says Simi. “I come from an athletics background. And when you arrive in athletics as a black person you instantly know that there’s a space for you because so many of the athletes that you see are black, they look like you and it’s a very good sport to be in as a black person because of the role models around you. You see Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, you see Usain Bolt on an international level, and with British athletes there’s Denise Lewis, Jess Ennis, Dina Asher-Smith, so it’s not hard to find someone that you relate to.”

Simi was already a player that young black female rugby players could look up to and relate to before ‘that try’, especially if they supported Bristol Bears, but in storming through Sale in February in what looks like fast-forward mode, she introduced herself to a global audience. Or more accurately, Bristol Bears introduced her to a global audience when they shared the video of her try on Twitter on the Monday morning following the match. Within hours of it being shared, Simi’s try had travelled to all corners of the rugby world, as fans, players, journalists, podcasters, even World Rugby, weighed in to celebrate with her. 

But becoming a viral hit on a Monday morning isn’t always easy, especially if you’re at work, and that work is on the Acute Medical Ward (AMU). 

“AMU is quite fast-paced,” explains Simi. “It’s full-on because you are seeing a quick turnover of people, and they tend to be quite unwell. So, the fact that my phone was going off every which way ... I was like, ‘I’m going to have to turn this off’, it was just ludicrous. Big names were tweeting me: Ugo Monye, Tendai Mtawarira, the Beast from South Africa – big names!

“I was geeking out,” she admits. “Not only was I thinking, ‘this is awesome’ but it also felt like women’s rugby had ascended to a space outside of women’s rugby. So I was in a bit of a daze.

“The moment I scored the try I was really pleased with it and thought, ‘that will gain some attention’ but I had no idea it would blow up as much as it did. Yet people who don’t necessarily follow women’s rugby were sharing it within their circles, so it was literally going viral.”

When we have this first chat with Simi, nearly three months have passed since her try and as she sits in the stands of Shaftesbury Park’s smart and modern sports complex, with the low hum of the Friday afternoon traffic heading into Bristol as a backing track, she fondly recounts her favourite aspects of it for us with her footwork and ball transfer after breaking the first line coming in for special mention. Yet she is just as keen to point out that she’s not a unique talent in the league. “My whole message after that was, ‘I am so glad you’ve seen me do this and enjoyed this aspect but I’m not the only talented player in this league,” she says. “There are so many girls who do this, and more, on a week-in week-out basis, so please look out for us because we balance full-time work with playing rugby.’”

Simi has since lived up to the hype that now surrounds her in the Allianz Premier 15s with several more wrecking-ball runs in the colours of Bristol Bears, but it’s her own full-time work that has stirred up a mini media frenzy about this destructive rugby player who has also been fighting Covid-19 as a junior doctor. “When they first started [the media requests] it didn’t surprise me because of the lockdown and the pandemic, it made sense that as a doctor, as a new doctor, people wanted to hear my perspective so that seemed a natural fit. I was like ‘yeah sure, I’ll chat about it’,” she says. “I think for whatever reason, if people are interested in me, like to hear what I have to say, find me inspiring, you know, whatever. I don’t mind it.

“It’s nice that people want to know about me and what I do and how I manage to do it. But then having the rugby stuff coming through and wanting to know about how I play, that’s nice as well. It’s all married up together.”

So how hard has it been for Simi to be a junior doctor in the midst of a pandemic? 

“In Bristol this winter, the numbers were piling up, and people were really sick,” explains Simi. “One of the consultants in Bristol, Dr. Osman, got it and passed away. That was a really difficult day to be at work. Although I didn’t work with him myself, seeing my consultants in tears really brought home just how real everything was. And the fact that you are … it sounds corny, but you kind of are … putting your life at risk. That was all around the time my granddad was unwell from covid, and he eventually passed away too. It was a really rubbish couple of weeks. He was in his 90s and very well otherwise. It just felt quite premature.”

Inspiring Simi through this testing time has been her dad, Ishaku, a doctor/geriatrician who has continued to work on the Isle of Man throughout the pandemic, meaning Simi has only seen him a couple of times in the past year.  “He’s a natural leader,” Simi says. “Where a lot of people are sort of trying to avoid doing  any covid-facing work, he was like, ‘yeah, I’ll do it, I’ll be the consultant for
the covid ward’. 

“I was always like ‘Dad, why does it have to be you all the time?’. His response is, ‘if not me, then who?’. He makes me very proud. And when he’s saying that, and I’m there saying, ‘this is not what I signed up for, I don’t want to be a doctor in a pandemic’, having someone like my dad going, ‘you’ve been trained to do this, people need you right now, so go out there and do it and make a difference,’ I was like ‘you’re right.’”

Alongside fighting a pandemic and performing elite sport, Simi’s social media activism has garnered a lot of attention as well. Her approach to social media is aimed at making it a more balanced and better space, especially for young girls. Rather than cherry pick the best moments from her life, she shares the bad days too, talking openly about the racist and sexist abuse she receives but also her own insecurities around her body and appearance, and how that affects her mental health. It’s an approach which connects with many and has led to mainstream media such as the BBC and ITV wanting to interview her.

“I like social media as a tool,” she says. “But it’s a highlight reel, and people think it’s everything. I can put out what I want to, to show myself in my best light. You don’t see everything. And I know that a lot of young girls struggle with social media and the perceptions that it creates, so I like to share negative things about my life, just to be like, ‘hey, I know you think that everything’s like rainbows and sunshine over here, but it’s not’. 

At least when it comes to rugby there have been plenty of days in the sun since Simi first played the game at Bristol University in November 2017. A late starter in the sport, she only took it up to fill a sporting gap in her life after falling out of love with athletics – shot put having been her discipline after being a 100m sprinter as a junior. She was successful too, competing at English Schools championships, and representing England at international events. 

But participating in athletics at university just wasn’t the same. “So I decided to take a year off because I was burnt out and not enjoying it,” she explains. “I thought, ‘I’ll take a year out, I’ll really miss it and then I’ll come back raring to go’.

“After that year out, I wrote to my coach to say, ‘I’ve really missed it, but I’m back and good to go’. I was writing all the right things but I never sent the message because I knew it was just rubbish. I knew it was such a lie so I didn’t send it in the end. I knew in my heart of hearts that I was done.

“As I’ve always done sport, I was a bit sad for a while, thinking ‘am I done with all sport?’ Some people I knew were like ‘yeah, you probably shouldn’t bother now, you’re about to be a doctor, this is going to be your life, you need to concentrate on it’.

“I don’t want to say ‘narrow minded’ but some people at uni can’t see past being a doctor, do you know what I mean? 

“But as I was in my fourth year of medical school, I said, ‘you’re probably right’ and I tried to not do sport,” she says. “That lasted all of three weeks and I was absolutely miserable. I tried the gym, I tried performing at open mic nights, I needed something, even if it was just a hobby. I couldn’t just be a medic.” 

It was a chance conversation with a more open-minded friend who put her in touch with Clea Fawcett – a medical student in Bristol who now plays at Exeter Chiefs. “Clea’s housemate told me that she plays rugby, that she loves it, that she can’t get enough of it, and that I should definitely go.

“So that was the prompt for me,” she says. “I thought, ‘if I hate it, I’ll just never go back. And if I do like it, problem solved.’ So, I rocked up, went to a few training sessions, and was enjoying it for the social reasons. I hadn’t fallen in love with the game by then because I had no skill. But a month in, the coaches asked me if I wanted to play in a match. 

“I said ‘are you sure? Because you’re selecting someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing.’

“They said ‘you’ll learn a lot from playing. We think you’ll be good.’

“Because it was uncontested scrums they put me in the front row. The first half happened and it was going well; ‘this is fun’ I thought. Coincidentally, the first-team coach was watching, and he pulled me aside at half-time and said, ‘Simi, I know you’re new to the game but I think you can run through these girls.’ I was like ‘oh, that’s allowed?’ He said ‘yes, if you’re not held down, keep running.’ So I thought, ‘oh great, I’ll try that’.

“Kick-off happened, it went straight to me and, bang, I scored. Because I just kept running. And everyone’s looking at me, like, ‘where did that come from?’ 

“That was my moment when I thought ‘this is a great sport!’ And that’s just what I’ve done ever since.”

Simi played a handful of games for the university second team before being called up to the first team for the latter stages of the 2017/18 season. She then made her debut for Bristol Bears, whilst still a student, in September 2018  against Harlequins at The Stoop. She then graduated in July 2019 as Doctor Simi Pam.

Her try against Sale this season may have made her an overnight sensation, but her development has been slower than it could have been, because of her job.

Due to weekend shift work, Simi has only played in half of Bristol’s matches in this campaign, something she wants to rectify next term. Doing so, however, will mean putting the brakes on her medical career and taking up flexible work as a locum doctor. 

“Being a locum means that you’re not on any training pathway, so it will take me longer to get to the pinnacle of whatever I decide to do in medicine,” she admits. “But I will be in charge of when I work, which will enable me to free up more time to dedicate to training and playing. Medicine is not going anywhere. And actually, how long have I got to be an athlete? So I’d rather do that now.”

So what are her aspirations in rugby? “I’m a very competitive person,” explains Simi. “So, obviously England is on my mind and I would love to be involved in the setup. But I also appreciate that there are a lot of very good players in that setup, and it’s not going to be something that’s going to happen very easily; it’s going to be something that I need to work towards.”

Due to Simi’s current working commitments, had England come calling for her in this year’s Six Nations, she wouldn’t have been able to play for them. But next season, that barrier won’t be there. 

And although she hasn’t yet had any contact at all with England coach Simon Middleton, does she harbour any hopes of making the England team for the delayed women’s World Cup next year? “Don’t put thoughts in my head! I am very in to timing and that things happen when they are supposed to. So, if it is supposed to happen, it will happen.”

If it does happen before the World Cup in October 2022, Simi will achieve a rare feat – matched only by Shaunagh Brown – in progressing from picking up a ball for the first time to becoming an England international in the same World Cup cycle. 

If that does become a reality, we’ll surely see more videos of Simi taking on the world on the pitch, and an even bigger audience for the battles she faces off it. 

“If all I’m able to do is share my experiences, share my thoughts,” she says, “and people listen to me because I have whatever kind of platform, then I think that’s a good stepping stone, and hopefully it will inspire people to think ‘what can I do?’. If everyone chips in and does what they can, there will be exponential growth in the battle to fight racism.” 

Story by Jack Zorab

Pictures by Oli Hillyer-Riley

This extract was taken from issue 14 of Rugby Journal

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