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Watts has been a coach and administrator at Thanet Wanderers RFC for over 30 years. She helped set up and run both the mini and junior sections of the club and was instrumental in introducing Ladies rugby to the club.
She has also had a coaching role within the Kent Under 16s team, been a chairman of the County Youth Group, sat on the Kent RFU Admin and Competitions Committee. She has also acted as the Kent under 17s team manager and was secretary to the RFUW youth review group which led to the important Youth Review Report of 2005.
Watts said: “Coaching club and county youth squads has given me huge amount of satisfaction as I have seen players improve year on year.
“I am delighted to be recognised for this work, though I am slightly embarrassed because so many people do wonderful things to enable large numbers of diverse people access to rugby.
“This is however tremendous recognition of our 'section'. I hope when people see this they think 'I could do that' because we need more volunteers in all aspects of our game. I am committed to promoting rugby for girls and this recognition also doubles up as a good way of raising the profile of the sport.”
Mike Cordell, Honorary Secretary of Kent RFU Limited added: “Maggie is the driving force of the Kent girls team, which has produced a number of regional players. Her enthusiasm and sheer hard work are an example to all in our sport.”
Ends…
Further information:
• There are over 36,000 people volunteer to support grassroots rugby in England. They volunteer in clubs, schools, colleges and universities. Their freely given time and effort enables over 500,000 people to play our sport. Through their hard work hundreds of thousands of children enjoy healthy exercise and learn teamwork.
• In 2002, figures showed that volunteers give 4,945 hours a year to their rugby club, worth (at minimum wage rates) over £22,000 to each club. The average hours per week spent volunteering at clubs during the season is 123 hrs. This equates to 4,872,758 volunteer hours in total.
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