The club came into its first full season with one match played, a coach, a crest and twenty players, and spent the year turning that into a rugby club. The founding and the first match against the Kings Cross Steelers are told on the 1998-1999 season page.

Hulme Hall

The Spartans continued to train twice a week and were keen to arrange a second fixture. In December 1999 a match was organised against a local team at the Armitage Centre, but at the last minute it was cancelled by the opposition. Feeling disappointed by the no-show, the Spartans got chatting to a university team from Hulme Hall who had also turned up only to have their own match cancelled. In the true spirit of the game a match was quickly arranged, and despite all the efforts of the Spartans, some of whom tried harder than others, to catch the youthful and nimble students, they proved far too fast and skilled and ran through many tries to win 78–0. It was the club’s first match against a mainstream side, and the Spartans were encouraged by the experience gained. The Hulme Hall players invited them back to their halls of residence, where both teams socialised long into the evening.

Perhaps it was the newly formed friendship, perhaps an early recognition of the Spartans spirit, or perhaps simply that they had just thrashed them, but Hulme Hall insisted on a rematch. It was eventually held in March 2000, and, remarkably, the score of 78–0 was repeated. That did not stop the two teams celebrating the encounter with post-match drinks in the Hulme Hall bar.

The partnership with Old Salians

Between the second and third matches a Spartans player, Ian MacDonald, was talking with a work colleague about their common rugby interests. It transpired that the colleague played for a local club, Old Salians RUFC, who were struggling to field adequate numbers for their various teams. A meeting was set up in February 2000 between Ian, Simon Stanley, by then the Spartans’ vice-Chair, and Roger Bottomley, the Old Salians Chair, and through delicate negotiations a partnership was formed. The Spartans would be able to use the Old Salians pitches and changing rooms for training, and the pitches for the occasional fixture; in return, Spartans players would volunteer for Old Salians in Saturday league matches, which also provided vital match-playing experience. David Smyth continued as coach, Sunday afternoon training moved from Hough End to Sale, and the Wednesday evening session became combined with the training run by Old Salians.

Old Salians was a historic club, more than a hundred years old, which until the late 1990s had fielded five teams. The supply of youth players had dwindled after Sale Grammar School ceased playing rugby, and with the emergence of the professional game and of richer clubs in the area, by the time the Village Spartans came along they were managing only two. The partnership got off to a good start: several Spartans gained places in the Old Salians 2nd XV and played in competitive Saturday league matches, and one or two of the more experienced were offered places in the 1st XV.

It is fair to say that both groups were a little unsure of each other at first. How would the Old Salians players react, and would there be any homophobia? How would the Spartans come across, and would they fit the stereotypes? Each group was made up of individual characters, extroverts and introverts, and they quickly found common ground in the game and in a sense of humour in the bar. Jokes flew about the Spartans having joined Old Salians when their backs were well and truly up against the wall, or having shown interest only because of the name of the Chair, Mr Roger Bottomley. The club’s own account of these years calls the partnership one of the most important moments in its history.

The first tour, and the first win

The Kings Cross Steelers challenged the Spartans to a return match, this time at their home ground at East London RFC, near West Ham. It would prove to be the Spartans’ first tour and the whole club was very excited at the prospect. Having lost and gained a handful of players, but still pretty much the same team as their first, they headed to London in a coach with a small group of enthusiastic supporters. The date was 6 May 2000, and the pitch was hard on a baking hot day, which made the efforts of both teams punishing.

An initial try was scored and converted by the Steelers, which did not make the visitors’ heads go down. On his debut for the team and playing at scrum-half, Matt Whiteley sneaked a quick solo run round the blind side of a scrum and dashed up the line past the Steelers winger to score his first ever try for the Spartans. Later, after several moves from the backs, Matt Ince scored between the posts. Neither try was converted, but the Spartans led 10–7.

They clung to that lead for the rest of a hard-fought match until, after some very dubious refereeing decisions (the referee was the Steelers president at the time, and a former Conservative MP), the Steelers scored again with five minutes to go to take the score to 12–10. Then, in what is now part of Spartans legend, a focused push by the Spartans front pack secured the ball for the backs, who passed it down the line to the 40-year-old winger Paul Wright, who strode away down the wing to score in the dying seconds. The Spartans had won their first match, in only their fourth attempt, 15–12.

Afterwards the beer, and Duncan’s cider with ice, tasted sweeter for the first victory, and there was much celebrating and partying with the Steelers. On the tour bus on the way home the next day, the first Spartans Kangaroo Court was held.

The first AGM and the first Annual Dinner

The Spartans held their first Annual General Meeting on 20 May 2000. The club adopted its first Constitution and took the first steps towards becoming part of a local Rugby Union, being accepted into Cheshire RFU later. Committee elections were held for the first time: Duncan Leckie stepped down as Chair and Simon Stanley was elected to replace him. The following week, on 27 May, the Spartans held their first Annual Dinner in the function room at the Old Salians clubhouse, a chance to celebrate the creation and growth of the club after only one year.

The Gay Games sevens

The Spartans were soon in action again, on 29 and 30 July 2000, taking part in the Millennium Gay Games in the London Borough of Waltham Forest, promoted by Waltham Forest Council, where a rugby sevens tournament was organised alongside other sports such as hockey and football. Five teams entered, the Washington Renegades, the Kings Cross Steelers 1st and 2nd and the Village Spartans 1st and 2nd, which the club’s record of the weekend describes as the first international rugby sevens tournament for gay teams.

In the round robin the Spartans 2nd team beat the Washington Renegades 24–10 and lost 15–12 to the Steelers 1st team. They then beat that same Steelers side in the semi-final, which made the final an all-Manchester affair; the Spartans 1st team won it 50–7. On the Sunday the Village Spartans hosted a rugby master class involving all three clubs.

It was here that the Steelers and Spartans did battle again and met for the first time members of the recently formed gay team from Washington DC, the Renegades. The tournament prompted discussion amongst the leaders of the Spartans, Steelers and Renegades about the promotion of rugby within the wider international gay and lesbian communities. These were the first steps towards the subsequent formation of the International Gay Rugby Association and Board.

Falkirk

There was more to the summer of 2000. The Spartans travelled to Scotland to help celebrate Ian MacDonald’s thirtieth birthday, and Ian had arranged a fixture against Falkirk RUFC, a club close to his home town. Despite the out-of-season date of 12 August, the Falkirk players duly turned up with enough men to field two teams; it seemed that the challenge of taking on this new and unusual team had appealed to many. At half-time the score was 14–14, a scoreline the Spartans had not managed against a mainstream team before.

The second half was a different affair, with Falkirk shored up by numbers from their 1st XV, and the final score was 44–14. The Spartans were warmly received in the clubhouse bar afterwards, and their hosts, impressed that they had played so well in only their fifth match, presented the club with a commemorative plaque. It was the first Spartans match against a fully established club, the first in another country, and the first rugby match featuring a gay team in Scotland.

Eleven months separated the first match at the Armitage Centre from the trophy in Waltham Forest. In that time the club had acquired a name, a kit, a coach, a constitution, an elected committee and a home at Sale, and had played five matches for one win; two of the defeats were by 78 points. The first steps towards joining a local Rugby Union had been taken at the May AGM, and the Steelers were due in Manchester the following year.

A closing note for anyone minded to check all this. The tournament the Spartans won in Waltham Forest goes by four names depending on which record you open. The club’s fixture list files it as the UK Gay Games Rugby Sevens. The club’s own report of that same weekend calls it the first International Gay Rugby Sevens Tournament. The Kings Cross Steelers knew it as the UK Gay Sports Festival, and the club history settles for the London Gay Games. By the following spring the Spartans were calling the sequel in Washington the Sevens World Cup. Four names for one long weekend, plus a fifth for the sequel, and every one of them written down by somebody who was actually there. Where the sources disagree, this archive shows both and quietly picks neither.