Polly Barnes

A former player and now co-founder of the Women’s Rugby Association, Polly’s early rugby education included Lydney bloodying the nose – literally – of Pienaar’s Saracens and neglecting her job to sneak into Twickenham. Later, she tried the trick herself in an attempt to bloody the nose of a certain Welsh scrum-half. She’s also the wife of a former ear-pierced, curtain-wearing, ‘mega loser’ called Wayne. Who happens to be the best ref in the world.

My mum was a Fulham season ticket holder, she was absolutely wild about them. Before she died she asked for her ashes to be scattered at Craven Cottage. My dad was also a footballer, so, as a family, it was all about football.

I was introduced to rugby when I was seven. We moved to the Forest of Dean and when we asked about the local club, we were told about Lydney and, presuming it was football, went there only to find it was a rugby club – I was only a tot but our eyes were wide open. From then I used to go down with my dad all the time, he was always the massively obnoxious one, screaming at the referee.

I remember when Lydney played Saracens. It was the cup and about 1996, and for a town like Lydney the whole place stopped. I was head girl at school at the time and I did interviews with the local paper because I was playing in the brass band beforehand.

The game was like a festival. It was major and they had all the big names playing, like Francois Pienaar, Kyran Bracken and Tony Diprose, and we got absolutely stuffed by sixty points or something. I'll never forget when the guys came off the pitch, and Kyran Bracken’s face was smashed to pieces, blood everywhere, all of their players were hobbling back onto the bus, because they’d been so beaten up. I think that included by some of my husband’s family who had pulled some of the players over the hoardings into the crowd and given them a good kicking. So that was one of my favourite early memories. We had no idea who people like Francois Pienaar were and no respect for them either.

I played rugby from about eleven, Lydney set up a girls team for us, which as amazing. But I'll never forget, a couple of years later, and me and my friends had just come back from county trials. We were really excited and went to school and said to our PE teachers ‘why can’t we play here?’ We played at our club, we were getting county trials and we were told that if girls played rugby and got hit in the chest, you’d get breast cancer. Can you imagine being told that you're not allowed to play because you might get cancer?

I was a really yappy, irritating nine. Or ten, I’d play there too and I was really, really tiny and really angry and gobby. I loved rugby because it was all shapes and sizes and there was a position for everybody. And not just everybody physically but every personality type too. You have your leaders, you have your team players, you have your tough defenders, you have more strategic people, and then the people who don't give a shit and just want to run. 

Rugby is less judgemental than other sports.  When I went to university you had a lot of people playing for the first time and it felt really inclusive. You'd get girls coming over from American colleges, they didn't even sometimes know the actual laws, but we’d stick them at fullback, and they'd smash anyone to pieces. 

I did a dance degree. And so I ended up in London doing ballet and contemporary dance so I had to give up rugby as it wasn’t compatible to turn up to dance classes with black eyes and stuff, which were quite common, as I was always in the mix when I played rugby. Mum told me the degree was a ridiculous idea, and she was right. When I graduated, I went and got a proper job and now I work in marketing and do a bit of singing too, with the City of London Choir, so you’re as likely to see me at the Albert Hall as on the sideline of a rugby pitch.

I used to work in the Twickenham shop. I was a student at the time, so you’d obviously go out the night before until about 4am then come to work and fall asleep on your feet, but I would often sneak out and that’s how I watched my first matches, I think it was Romania and we won 127-0 or something. 

I’ve known my husband since I was eleven. He had to show me around when I went to the school – he was about sixteen at the time. I turned up with my mum and she said, ‘oh what are you going to do when you go grow up?’ to him, he said a barrister and then, after, she said to me, ‘you’re going to marry him’. And I was like, ‘ooh, that’s disgusting’. He had curtains, a pierced ear and was just a mega loser, but my mum didn't waver. So then I eventually gave in. He started asking me out when I was about sixteen and I relented at about 24.

The Premiership final is always very special. My husband [Wayne] has refereed about nine now, and it’s always a big day because me and my friends always go and we really embarrass ourselves by getting absolutely smashed. I think every single Premiership final has a place in my heart, because I don’t support Premiership teams – that wouldn’t be right, as I’m married to the referee – so it means I can enjoy all of them, regardless of who’s playing and there’s always this amazing amount of domestic talent shining on the biggest stage. I think the atmosphere is often better at Twickenham on Premiership final day than internationals.

I have a unique perspective on supporting rugby. Because I’m supporting the person in the middle regardless of who they are, rather than any team. Even when I’m watching England now, and I used to be an obsessed England fan, I don’t see it that way anymore, I just support the referee. 

Wayne was always a referee. He started at about fifteen because he was a rubbish player and one day he got injured, the PE teacher chucked him a whistle and said ‘have a go at that’. So, by 21, he was already on the national panel. So he’s been ripe for piss-taking for over twenty years now.

It’s quite hard hearing criticism [of Wayne]. In the beginning, it was quite difficult to get your head around everybody criticising someone you quite like, and I used to take it quite personally, the name calling and criticism, and that kind of pressure. But now it just goes over my head, I don't really care. What I can do is protect him from it, so I read stuff, and he doesn't read anything, I just drink it in and he’s blissfully unaware of it. 

There were death threats in 2007. After that World Cup quarterfinal between France and New Zealand, that was tricky. We weren’t actually together at the time, but we were very good friends. My mum had died about two weeks before, that happened [New Zealand’s 10-18 defeat to France], and he started getting death threats. I remember clicking on his Wikipedia page and it was his obituary – I was like ‘what a fucking shit show, why? Why would you behave like that? Why would you even be involved in this sport? It’s evil’. It took a really long time to process that and get on to a more positive outlook, I was very angry for a long time.

We weren’t that welcome in New Zealand in 2011. It made it quite tricky and so that wasn’t a fun tournament, I didn’t enjoy being there, but, you know, it’s one of those things and that’s the frustration. Nowadays, it’s easier to comprehend, and I think people are fair game. If you pay your money as a fan, and you want to come along and have your say, definitely do, but the information is out there, so educate yourself. 

Rugby is a funny sport though. The laws are complex and they change all the time, so I do understand that it’s difficult for people to follow along, and sometimes that can be difficult for bringing new people in fresh eyes into the sport as well. So, I see it from both sides.

My husband thinks everyone is a really good person. He thinks they’re all pure of heart because he’s such a really, really nice person. But I'm a bit more cynical, and there are occasions where people will get a little bit hairy in a bar, but we’re just as within our rights to go and have a drink after a game as anyone else. Yet after that game in 2007, he had to escape out of the back of the stadium in an ambulance.

We also beat a swift exit from Paris. It was when France played Ireland, Declan Kidney was in charge so I think it was about 2010, but it was 90,000 capacity, and they had to call the game off due to a frozen pitch, Dave Pearson was refereeing and Wayne was touch judging, and, again, you can feel the atmosphere turn from being very jovial and it always ends up going towards the officials. So we had to get out of there quick too. 

I once tried to punch Mike Phillips in the face. It was 2011 and we walked into a bar after the third/fourth place playoff in Auckland. I'd been drinking all day, watching this game, it hadn't been the most successful World Cup and we needed to be home by then. Mike Phillips was across the other side of the bar with the Welsh boys and was like ‘Barnesy, you wanker’, and I just launched myself I was like ‘I’ve fucking had enough’ and I just remember running across the bar and trying really hard to like smack him in the face. I think it was Andy Powell who picked me up and I was like Scrappy Doo, getting mad. Then, Ryan Jones or someone sat on me was just like, ‘calm the fuck down, he was being friendly’. But since then everything's been fine.

I get a massive insight into what’s going on in world rugby. The calls that come in our house, begin first thing from the northern hemisphere, then at 9pm the phone starts ringing again or it’s a conference call when New Zealand wakes up. It’s almost by osmosis that I’m so involved and have so much knowledge of rugby stuff. It’s none of my business, but I will know about law changes, working groups, all of this stuff, before anybody else does, even if it’s just because I’m spell checking a PowerPoint on jackaling laws.

Referees spend a lot of time at our house, particularly when there's southern hemisphere boys up here – and girls now which is amazing. Our dining table’s quite infamous for being a bit of a forum for a lot of debate. So, you get the guys from New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, Argentina and we talk about anything and everything from perception to the governance of it all, to how they all feel when law changes have been implemented two weeks before World Cup! 

I've worked for a long time in marketing and communications and, for a long time, I’ve specialised in sports and women's sport and that's why I'm involved with women's rugby now because I think it's really frustrating that rugby always says stuff is hard to do, so it doesn't happen. Or they'll go, ‘oh, it's always been done this way...’

I really enjoy taking my children [a boy and girl] to watch women's rugby, I very rarely take them to watch men's. They’re growing up without any expectations that men's or women's is going to be better or worse, they just see role models and sports people putting on an amazing spectacle. But, there's less shouting and swearing – although there's not much of that in rugby anyway – but with tiny kids, you're always slightly aware when you're in a stadium with people drinking, but Women's rugby doesn't feel like that. 

There’s a more diverse crowd at women’s rugby. I want them to see different role models, because we never saw any of that growing up in the 80s and 90s. The way women were portrayed was a quite a damaging way in a lot of respects and that's not what I want. I take them to watch England ladies and because we live close to Harlequins, I'll take them to watch a lot of visiting teams and it's brilliant. You get more access to players as well as a fans, they get closer to them, they spend more time and if a kid gets to talk to them and take photos, that’s a brilliant experience.

I was shocked by some of the stories I heard when I dug a little bit more into women’s rugby, from a worker perspective. My politics are quite left, let's say, and I just thought some of the things I was reading about contracts and rights were completely wrong.

It was so wrong when Alicia Butcher had to crowd fund for her treatment. At the time Nolli Waterman put out a tweet saying, ‘how is this right that an elite-level player has to crowdfund for this?’. Then my neighbour Emma Lax [a marketing strategist] – who I’d never actually met – messaged me to say she lived nearby and asked, ‘I've heard you’re involved in women's sport, do you want to meet for coffee?’. So we did about five laps of Twickenham Green together and by the end of those laps we decided to create our own trade union [Women’s Rugby Association]. 

We called Bill Sweeney to see what we could. We approached the RPA to find out what they were doing [about situations such as Alicia’s] and they said they didn’t have the time or capacity to do anything right now. 

If you play for an Allianz Premier 15s club, but not England, you don’t have anybody to help you. There’s no advice, nothing. The RPA cover the Red Roses, but nobody else. And these girls have to sign contracts, and they don’t know what they’re signing, or even if they have a contract at all. The guidance for centralised contracts isn’t always followed by every [Premier 15s] club and there’s discrepancy between the youngsters coming into the leagues and the more experienced players and the players reps only represent international players, they don’t represent the doctors and teachers, holding down jobs, and also training more than they’ve ever done. 

We couldn’t believe the discrepancies between contracts. We looked across the league, got eyes on a few different contracts and there was such a different between what some players were entitled to and others aren’t. I personally think that anyone who doesn't have adequate medical provision or insurance to cover them playing a sport like this, in their contract, is extraordinary. 

We’re not going to be advocating for equal pay. But for things like medical provision, I know it can cost a lot of money, and the league isn't as commercial as the men's, and we're not trying to say it should be the same, but basic welfare needs should be met. And they aren't being met across the board, and that is not right. 

Some players don’t know where to turn. They're dealing with financial stuff, invoicing, tax returns and all of this life stuff that is tricky when they're trying to hold down jobs and perform to the highest standards. These players get paid so little for what they do and I'm not saying they should necessarily be paid more in some cases – although sometimes you do ask ‘is that even minimum wage?’. But just from a welfare position it needs looking at. Even pregnancy, women are asking what happens in that situation and it shouldn’t be like that. 

I was very moved by it all. When I was doing some of these player consultations I was very moved by it, in some cases I came off the phone and I cried, because I was devastated to hear what they had to say, that they were struggling to pay their rent. It was very much ‘oh my god, I watch you with my kids, you’re a role model, I can’t believe how you’re living’. It just wasn’t right.

We can’t solve every problem.But everybody says they can’t do anything, so we felt it needed doing. We didn’t want to take this on because we wanted to, we’re not doing it to take on the RPA, it’s about working collaboratively with them.