November 25, 2005

British Colleges Sport – the governing body for all Further Education and Sixth Form sport - was last week honoured at the City of Manchester Stadium at the National Sportsmatch Awards.

British Colleges Sport was awarded second place in the ‘Women and Girls Sports’ category following their work with the Rugby Football Union for Women and the development of Further Education girls’ rugby, kindly sponsored through Park Row Associates’ generous contribution of £2000.

The programme included running a number of development sessions for further education students across the country with this activity leading to inter-college 7’s festivals and ultimately to the creation of regional squads to compete at the National BCS Championships held at Loughborough in May this year.

John Hole, BCS National Administrator and the driving force behind the project, said: “It’s a real honor for our project to be singled out for praise from thousands of Sportsmatch funded projects nationally.  The project has really taken off and our member colleges are now all very keen to progress girls rugby further.
 
“The proof of the success of our work with the RFUW has been the news that one of our newcomers to the game last season through this programme, Liz Tilley (Richard Huish College) has been selected for the England Students squad. 

“It was very clear that there are a number of talented female athletes within our Colleges and they desperately needed exposure to the girls’ game to fulfill their sporting potential.  Hopefully Liz will be just the first of many to step on to the Team England international player pathway as we plan to further increase our activity within the girls and women’s game.”

Katy Storie, RFUW Development Manager with specific responsibility for student development, was in attendance at the awards ceremony. She added: “Having been lucky enough to be involved with the programme from the start it was evident that further education was an untapped area for the game as a whole and particularly within the women’s game. 

“I assisted in delivering one of the further education development days in the South West along with some Team England Elite players and we were all very impressed with the potential talent amongst the players. 

“The RFUW are now very focused on creating strong links between the colleges and local clubs and ultimately the player pathway through county, regional and into international squads.  Although such partnership work is embryonic at the moment we are confident that through BCS’ continued hard work, further education will go from strength to strength. 

“I’d like to thank John Hole, Jon Bendle South West Colleges Secretary and of course Park Row Associates for their financial support.”

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