There’s always plenty of reasons to visit the wonderful city of York and, this Saturday, there’s an extra and very special one.
Regular readers will have picked up on the fact that the tireless Julia Lee and her colleagues have been working hard for several months on the ‘Life with the Lionesses’ project, which celebrates and lauds the women who have graced international Rugby League for the best part of three decades. And it will be up and running this Saturday and Sunday at the York Festival of Ideas, at York University.
The event, from 10.00am to 5.00pm each day, will focus on the exploits of two of the players who sensationally won the inaugural Ashes in Australia back in 1996 – a success that is high among my best memories of covering our sport.
The duo are Lisa McIntosh, the hard-as-nails forward who was captain, and the cultured centre Julie Cronin.
I’m sure that visitors to York will be riveted by what Cronin and Tosh will have to say about a triumphant trip which I was thrilled to be able to cover in depth, including interviewing the classy vice-captain Brenda Dobek, who is a fellow resident of Methley, in my back garden in the build-up to the trip.
Other key figures that I was glad to get to know include head coach Ian Harris and assistant coach Jackie Sheldon who, as the Rugby Football League’s Women’s Development Officer, did so much to lay the very strong foundations that have propelled the female game to where it is now, together with manager Nikki Carter. And, in 2002, the Lionesses returned to Australia – where the hosts prevailed 2-1 in a very tight series – when the manager was Roland Davis, who I was delighted to be with at last week’s reunion of the Hunslet RL Ex-Parkside Former Players’ Association.
What really struck me back in 1996 was how the players bonded – a factor that is so very important on any tour.
Dobek and Tosh, for example, had been sworn enemies for several years, being captains of, respectively, Townville (who I think, from memory, also operated as Wakefield and Featherstone in a number of incarnations) and Bradford Thunderbirds.
There was no love lost at all between members of arguably the best two sides of the era and it’s easy to see how the enterprise could have gone horribly wrong (indeed we’ve seen just that once or twice with men’s tours).
Tosh and Brenda were having none of that, though – I remember one, or probably both of them, telling me afterwards how they’d previously almost hated each other, and how that animosity very quickly went out of the window – and the consequence was that the Lionesses flew back with the Ashes.
The success wasn’t a one-off, either. Great Britain weren’t too far away, four years later, from winning the World Cup, missing out to New Zealand in a pulsating final at Wilderspool, Warrington at the end of a competition in which yet another Women’s Rugby League giant, the phenomenal second row Jane Banks, excelled.
I’ve no doubt that Lisa McIntosh and Julie Cronin will recall those events, and many others, with relish. Get to York if you can, either next Saturday or Sunday (or on both days if possible). And if you can’t make it this week, keep an eye out for future dates and venues as the show will be moving around the country. I’ll be publicising dates, when available, in League Express.
Something else I’m happy to publicise are jaunts by two men who have strong connections with that fantastic club Oulton Raiders. James Elston, who coaches at Under 10s and Under 7s, and former player Sasch Brook, are undertaking awesome challenges for charity and deserve as much support as they can get.
Jimmy is in the saddle as I type, cycling the legendary Empire State 500 in the USA as part of a group on behalf of Rugby League Cares. And Sasch will, early next month, undertake the Endure 24 Hour Ultra Marathon at Wetherby (the third, I think, in the last couple of years). The Hull & District Youth League, which he administers as part of his job at Hull FC, is set to benefit.
Donate, if you can, to what are very worthwhile causes involving top blokes.
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