Manchester Village Spartans turned twenty during the 2018–19 season, and had plenty to celebrate.

The club had grown to more than a hundred members, with First XV and Second XV rugby, a development pathway and a growing mixed-gender Touch section. By March 2019, we were counting 150 paying members across sexualities, genders and playing abilities.

But our twentieth season was about much more than looking back.

During the year, Spartans helped launch the first competitive league championship for gay and inclusive rugby clubs, developed a national Touch recruitment campaign with England Rugby, staged a new inclusive Touch tournament, reached the Union Cup final, won the Challenger Cup undefeated, celebrated twenty years on Canal Street, worked with Sale Sharks on a major anniversary photography project and began bringing two decades of our own history together online.

It was an anniversary season, but the club was still moving forward.

A new league for inclusive rugby

One of the year’s most important developments came before the regular season had properly begun.

In August 2018, a Spartans Press Release announced the first competitive league championship for gay and inclusive rugby clubs, established by Spartans chair Dean Bee in his role as IGR Trustee for Europe.

Fourteen clubs from England, Scotland and Wales entered: Berkshire Unicorns, Birmingham Bulls, Bristol Bisons, Cardiff Lions, Chester Centurions, Glasgow Alphas, Lancashire Typhoons, Leeds Hunters, Liverpool Tritons, Manchester Village Spartans, Newcastle Ravens, Northampton Outlaws, Swansea Vikings and Wessex Wyverns.

Rather than meeting only at major inclusive tournaments, clubs now had a competition running across the domestic rugby season, with northern and southern fixtures leading towards play-offs.

The league was launched over Manchester Pride weekend, when around 30 players from other IGR clubs joined Spartans in the Manchester Pride Parade in their own club colours.

It was a fitting start to a season in which much of our work would be about creating more opportunities for people to play rugby.

The First XV

The First XV competed in the Halbro Sportswear North West Intermediate League, Sale Sharks Division 3 South, and experienced a season of two very different halves.

Autumn was difficult. There were heavy defeats against Sefton and Anselmians, although a 74–22 home win against Glossop thirds in October showed what the side could do.

Things changed considerably after Christmas.

Capenhurst were beaten 22–17 in January before Spartans travelled to Glossop on 16 February and won 71–5. Simon Gammon scored three tries, Neil Gallagher and Ali Cooper two each, with Andrew Ryland, Harry Ellis, Karl Bee and Sam Henderson also crossing and Karl adding eight conversions.

A 40–34 win over Sefton seconds followed.

The final run of matches brought several frustratingly narrow results. Anselmians won 32–31 with a penalty two minutes from time, Lymm thirds won 48–40 and Spartans surrendered a 21–7 half-time lead at Moore to lose 31–28.

Didsbury Toc H took the final away fixture 25–22 before the season finished at home to Knutsford on 13 April.

The Second XV and the new IGR competition

For the Second XV, 2018–19 brought two competitions: the new IGR UK League Championship, and friendly fixtures alongside it in the Halbro North West Friendly League.

The IGR campaign began away to Glasgow Alphas in September. A 55–0 victory over Lancashire Typhoons in November put Spartans at the top of the Northern Division before Liverpool Tritons displaced them later that month. Spartans returned to the top in January with a 42–17 victory away to Chester Centurions, and in February beat the same club 82–0 at home.

That February win produced one of the season’s best individual stories. Jason had taken up rugby only five months earlier, and having scored both Spartans tries away to Manchester Rugby Club thirds in January, he scored four against Chester and was named Man of the Match.

Supporting both senior sides was the club’s development squad, giving people who were completely new to rugby, or returning after time away from the sport, a route into training and eventually competitive rugby.

That pathway continued to be an important part of what Spartans was becoming.

Touch takes another step forward

Few areas of the club changed as much during 2018–19 as Touch rugby.

The squad played its first Development Touch Series tournament at Trafford MV in September, with Jen Jones coaching alongside Neil Mason. In February, Spartans competed at the North West Regional Development Series at Burnage and came home with the Plate from the section’s first major Touch tournament.

By spring, plans were under way for a second Touch team.

Then, on 1 June, Spartans worked with England Rugby and O2 Touch to stage the Inclusive Touch Rugby Summer Draft.

Sixty players, ranging from complete beginners to experienced Touch players, came together and were drafted into mixed teams for the day, playing regardless of gender, sexuality or previous experience. It was the first draft-style Touch tournament of its kind in the UK.

Later that month, Spartans won the Touch trophy at the Lancaster University Summer Sevens Festival.

Recognition had already come in May, when the Spartans Touch operation, led by Ben Dawson, was named O2 Touch Operator of the Year by England Rugby and O2 Touch.

But the ambitions for Touch were extending well beyond Manchester.

Taking inclusive Touch around the country

During the summer, a national Touch recruitment project developed between England Rugby and IGR.

Dean Bee led the project as IGR Trustee, with Yoshio Tazaki as project manager. Ben Dawson covered the north, Tom Bird-Jones the Midlands and Rex Li the south, with Jennifer Jones advising on coaching and competition, Gareth Longley providing Spartans oversight and Karl Ainscough-Gates representing IGR England.

Every other inclusive rugby club in England was contacted and 17 Pride events were scheduled for activity during the summer, with Spartans acting as lead volunteer club at five.

The idea was simple: use a low-contact, mixed-gender version of rugby to make that first experience of the game easier and more accessible, and then connect people with inclusive clubs around the country.

It was a significant development for a club that had spent twenty years finding ways to bring people into rugby.

Twenty years to the day

The anniversary itself arrived on 9 March 2019.

Twenty years to the day after the original meeting at Via Fossa, players past and present returned to Canal Street for the unveiling of a commemorative blue plaque at Via.

Original founder Simon Stanley joined members, supporters and representatives from organisations that had become part of the Spartans story, including Bar Pop, LGBT Foundation, Gaydio and Unite Manchester.

International Gay Rugby sent a birthday message and both ITV News and Gaydio covered the anniversary.

Simon Stanley summed up the significance of those early years simply: a group of Manchester lads had made an impact on society because they wanted to enjoy the sport they loved.

The anniversary had also inspired a new playing kit, revealed in January and designed by Spartans member David Fox. Pride colours were incorporated into a honeycomb design with a Manchester bee, creating one of the club’s most distinctive shirts.

Later in March, a full-page Manchester Evening News feature recorded a Spartans with three teams and 150 paying members.

Twenty years after that first meeting, the club looked very different.

Union Cup 2019, Dublin

The major rugby event of the year came in June when Spartans travelled to Dublin for the 2019 Union Cup, hosted by Emerald Warriors at Dublin City University.

The eighth Union Cup brought together 45 teams and around 1,500 players from 15 countries, including a dedicated women’s competition for the first time.

Spartans took two squads.

Dean Bee travelled as chair and tour manager, with Matt Whiteley as vice-chair and Jonathan Edwards as tour secretary. Simon Gammon captained the First XV with Neil Mason coaching, while Gareth Longley coached the Second XV. Ben Brookes was tournament medical lead, with Amy Woodhouse and Abbie Jones travelling as tour physios.

Both Spartans sides made an exceptional start, winning all six of their opening-day matches.

The First XV beat Les Gaillards Paris 43–0 and ARC Amsterdam Lowlanders 27–0. The Second XV defeated a Northern Powerhouse side 29–0 and Kings Cross Steelers VI 65–0.

Both progressed to their respective Sunday semi-finals.

The Second XV went on to win the Challenger Cup, beating Liverpool Tritons 10–5 in the final and completing the entire tournament without losing a match. It was an outstanding end to Gareth Longley’s first season coaching the side.

The First XV went all the way to the main Union Cup final.

Waiting for them were Kings Cross Steelers, the club Spartans had faced in their very first match twenty years earlier. The final was refereed by Nigel Owens and streamed live on Pundit Arena.

The Steelers won 65–0.

It was a difficult scoreline, but reaching the final was itself significant. It was Spartans’ fifth Union Cup final following Montpellier in 2005, London in 2009, Amsterdam in 2011 and Brussels in 2015.

Twenty years after their first game against the Steelers, the two clubs were meeting again in one of inclusive rugby’s biggest matches.

Portraits of Pride in Union

The twentieth anniversary also produced one of the most ambitious creative projects in the club’s history.

For Portraits of Pride in Union, the entire Sale Sharks First XV joined staff and Spartans players past and present for a series of 34 portraits by London-based photographer Andy Barnham.

Among those photographed were Josh Beaumont, Jono Ross, Denny Solomona, AJ MacGinty, Faf de Klerk and Tom Curry.

Thirty-three signed, one-off prints were subsequently auctioned, with profits supporting the growth of inclusive rugby in the North West.

Sale Sharks had supported Spartans over many years through its community activity and 100 Club partnership. Portraits of Pride in Union provided a striking visual record of that relationship during the anniversary year.

Creating pathways into rugby

The season also marked the conclusion of Spartans’ Try For Change project, supported by England Rugby and Comic Relief.

Spartans had been among the first twelve recipients of the programme’s funding and used the project to introduce 40 new players from local LGBT and straight communities to rugby while measuring changes in wellbeing over twelve weeks.

The results exceeded all of the project’s wellbeing targets. More than 60 per cent of participants reported improved mental health, more than 80 per cent improved physical health and more than 70 per cent reported reduced social isolation and improved confidence.

More importantly for the club’s longer-term development, some of the work continued after the funded project ended.

A dedicated Player Welfare role was established, the WEMWBS wellbeing questionnaire continued to be used with new starters and the club developed its Pathway to Rugby approach for inexperienced players.

Several participants also remained with the club as permanent Touch players.

Recording our own history

The twentieth anniversary inevitably meant looking back, and during 2018–19 a major effort was made to bring together the club’s surviving history.

As the 20th Anniversary Gala drew closer, efforts were made to gather as much archive material as possible from members and supporters (old and new) from over the years.

Among those contributing were Matt Whiteley and David Smyth, the club’s first coach, who was interviewed as part of the anniversary project.

Material continued to be scanned and digitised throughout the year, building an archive covering not only Spartans but an important part of the development of International Gay Rugby.

One particularly important piece of that archive was footage of the club’s first match against Kings Cross Steelers in 1999. Twenty years later, it was streamed through the Spartans website and shown to members after the final home matches of the season.

The anniversary was an opportunity not simply to remember the club’s history, but to preserve it.

Taking the Spartans story further

It was also one of the club’s busiest years for communications and media.

The club appeared in a two-page England v Australia match programme feature supporting Rainbow Laces, on Sky Sports News, ITV News, BBC Radio Manchester and BBC North West, as well as in the Manchester Evening News, RFU Touchline magazine and a World Rugby film about Mark Bingham’s legacy.

Spartans players also appeared in the National Lottery’s Six Nations campaign and, somewhat less predictably, in the season finale of The Real Housewives of Cheshire.

For an amateur rugby club run by volunteers, it represented a considerable effort to make inclusive rugby visible well beyond the people already involved in it.

A changing clubhouse

There was a physical change too.

On 13 April, Spartans played their final matches using the old Victorian clubhouse before its demolition.

The new clubhouse opened during the summer, leaving members with the very literal job of moving twenty years of rugby kit, photographs, records and accumulated club history across the car park.

It was an appropriate change during a year that often seemed to have one foot in the club’s history and another in what came next.

Beyond Manchester

By its twentieth year, the influence of Manchester Village Spartans extended well beyond its own teams.

Spartans members were active within International Gay Rugby and England Rugby. Club volunteers had supported Pride events and helped emerging inclusive clubs including Liverpool Tritons, Sheffield Vulcans and Chester Centurions.

The new IGR league provided regular competitive rugby between inclusive clubs. The Touch programme was being developed nationally. Try For Change had created new approaches to player welfare and introducing beginners to rugby. The club’s archive was preserving material from the earliest years of the inclusive game.

None of those things were necessary simply to put teams onto a rugby pitch each weekend.

They were part of the wider purpose Spartans had developed during its first twenty years.

Twenty years, and what came next

By the end of the anniversary period, Spartans had around 130 members, three playing teams and a development pathway, an award-winning Touch section, a Challenger Cup victory, another Union Cup final behind them and a new clubhouse.

The national Touch campaign was heading to Pride events around the country, Portraits of Pride in Union was raising funds for the growth of inclusive rugby and the club was already looking towards its next Bingham Cup.

There was also a change in leadership ahead. After three years as chair, Dean Bee handed the role to Gareth Longley in September 2019.

The twentieth anniversary gave Manchester Village Spartans plenty of reasons to celebrate its past. But perhaps the best measure of the season was how much of it was concerned with the future.

The players who first came together on Canal Street wanted somewhere they could play rugby openly and enjoy the game they loved.

Twenty years later, Spartans was still working to make that opportunity available to more people.