The 2022–23 season was the first in which the Spartans fielded three full XV squads at once, and it ended with the First XV promoted.

Three teams in one afternoon

On Saturday 26 November 2022, for the first time in the club’s history, three full Spartans teams played matches on the same day. The First XV beat Congleton 2nd XV 31–7 at home, the Third XV won 48–10 away at Conwy Dragons, and the Second XV travelled to Glasgow to play the Raptors, a fixture the club recorded as making the Spartans the first gay rugby team to play a match in Scotland. Sixty Spartans played across the three grounds.

The club chair, Gareth Longley, marked the day in a message to the membership. “It’s a truly amazing achievement to have 3 full XV teams all playing today,” he wrote, crediting the volunteers, supporters, coaches and players who had made it possible. Two days later the First XV stood second in the North West Intermediate League and the Third XV had moved up to third in the IGR Northern Development League.

The First XV

The First XV played in Division 4 East of the North West Intermediate League. It opened away at Ashton-Under-Lyne 2nd XV on 3 September and lost 42–21, then took its first home win of the season the following Saturday, 45–12 against Didsbury Toc H 3rd XV, on an afternoon that began with an intra-club mixed level game and a silence in honour of Queen Elizabeth II. A 36–14 defeat at Trafford MV followed, but from October the side rarely lost: 61–26 at Old Bedians, 52–17 at Glossop, 21–10 at Buxton, a home walkover against Broughton Park and 38–19 at Stockport. The exception was a 24–27 home defeat to Marple 2nd XV in mid October, after which the club sat fifth on 19 points.

The new year brought the two results that settled the season. On 7 January the side took Old Bedians apart 54–5 at home, Tyler Widnall scoring three tries and Chris Heaton, AJ Morgan, Chris Smyth and Tom Vosper one each, with seven conversions from Rhys Williams. Three weeks later it beat the division leaders, Buxton, 17–10 at home, Harry crossing in the closing minutes. On 25 March the First XV won its final league fixture, against Glossop 3s, and went up. The season table placed the club second of eleven: ten played, seven won, three lost, 307 points for and 196 against, 39 league points. The following season would be played in Division 3 South.

The Second XV

The Second XV played in the International Gay Rugby UK Northern League, drawn against Liverpool Tritons, Sheffield Vulcans, Typhoons and Leeds Hunters. The autumn was hard: 31–28 away at Tritons in October, 0–15 at home to Vulcans, 7–38 at home to Typhoons. The turn came at the end of January with a 27–20 win in Leeds, Michael Clarke and Rob Dutton scoring two tries each and Tom Vosper taking the game with a last minute try. In February the side led Sheffield Vulcans at half time away from home and lost 39–36 to a late penalty. On 25 March it beat Typhoons at home to reach the Northern League finals day.

The club hosted that finals day on 1 April, at Broughton Park RFC at Hough End, where the Second XV played Sheffield Vulcans, finished third and took silverware. Gareth Longley spoke at the trophy presentation about the continued growth of inclusive rugby. The day fell a week before the squad’s tour to Birmingham, where its season would end rather better.

The Third XV

The Third XV was the club’s development side, made up largely of players new to the game, and it played in the IGR Northern Development League against Hull Roundheads, Conwy Dragons, Chester Centurions, Typhoons Development, Newcastle Ravens and York RI Templars. It won its first match 37–21 at home on 17 September against the newly formed Conwy Dragons, lost at home to Hull Roundheads a fortnight later, and won the return at Conwy 48–10 in November. Two heavy defeats followed, 50–0 at Chester Centurions in a match capped at that score, and 51–5 at York RI Templars, where a minute’s silence was held in memory of Brianna Ghey. Between them came the side’s best afternoon, a 49–10 win over Newcastle Ravens at home on 4 February, with tries from Sam Monaghan, Michael Clarke, Stephen Thornley, Harrison Sleet, Kieran Rogers and Ian Stoddart, and conversions from George Campbell and Chris Goodman.

The Union Cup, Birmingham

On 27 April three Spartans squads left Canal Street for Birmingham and the Union Cup. It was the club’s first since 2019, the tournament having been delayed by the pandemic, and the club had been at every Union Cup since the first in Montpellier. More than a hundred new polo tops went with them, provided by Bar Pop, which had supported the club since 1999, with Ross Quality Protective and Safety Wear also sponsoring the tops. The social tour theme that year was Royalty.

The First XV opened against the Emerald Warriors Green Team, the Second XV against Cork Hellhounds in the Beorma Cup, and the Third XV, playing as the Libera Spartans alongside Libera Roma, against Hull Roundheads in the Challenger Cup. The combined side lost 26–10 to Brighton and Hove Sea Serpents on the first day and beat Kings Cross Steelers 4s 19–10 on the second. The First XV reached the Union Plate semi final and lost there to Cardiff Lions. The Second XV beat the Asgardians in the Beorma Plate semi final and Typhoons 14–0 in a match refereed by the International Gay Rugby chair, Bhuttu Mathews.

On the final day the Third XV lost 26–12 to Reading Wasps in the morning and then won the Challenger Plate, beating Colchester Kings Princes 7–0 in the final, and the Second XV won the Beorma Plate, beating Berkshire Unicorns in the final. All three squads came home with silver, which the club recorded as the most silverware it had brought back from any tournament. Kings Cross Steelers won the Union Cup itself. The physiotherapist James and his colleagues looked after the squads across the four days, and Red Bull Manchester provided the drinks.

Touch

The touch section finished top of the IGR league for 2022 and kept growing. Forty players turned out for a summer training session in August; by February sessions at Sale Sports Club were drawing more than sixty, and the club noted that there were by then over a dozen inclusive clubs in the United Kingdom playing touch, a format the Spartans had been the first to take up.

The squad travelled through the autumn series, to Percy Park in North Shields for the round hosted by Newcastle Ravens and to the Cheshire Sports Ground in Chester for finals day, and on 3 September won the IGR Northern Touch Series. On 12 November it held its first end of season dinner to mark the win. Owen was named Best Newcomer, Pablo Most Improved Player, Mike Player of the Year and Jonny Players’ Player of the Year, and the Chair’s Award went to the captain, Ian. In December the club advertised two paid coaching posts for the section.

The spring and summer were busier still. The first round of the 2023 northern series came at Christleton in March, with several players making their Spartans debut, and a touch day at Hull Roundheads followed in April. Then came the Manchester summer league, the On The Seven Events summer league at Carrington, Preston for the round hosted by Typhoons, and both days of the Mixed National Touch Series at Burton upon Trent. In June the team played Sale Sharks at the Sharks’ Carrington training ground to mark Pride Month. In July it won the summer league final against Sedgley Park Lions, hosted the fifth IGR Touch League tournament of the series at Sale Sports Club with two teams entered, Chester Centurions winning the day, and travelled to Glasgow for the third national Pride in Touch tournament. John Copestake qualified as a Level 2 touch referee in February, and the section’s coach, Sarah Bellew, spoke to Marie Claire about the barriers facing women in sport.

The club off the field

The club spent much of the year arguing publicly for trans inclusion. In July 2022 Spartans went to Twickenham for a peaceful protest ahead of the RFU vote on trans women’s participation in rugby union, and in August the club marched at Manchester Pride in protest at the ban England Rugby had imposed. It supported the International Gay Rugby and Stonewall Lace Up For All campaign in September, and issued a statement after the death of Brianna Ghey in February, noting the candlelit vigil held in Sackville Gardens. For Transgender Day of Visibility in March the club set out plans, led by its volunteer Diversity and Inclusion Officer, to review its trans policy, to attend the first Manchester Trans Pride in August, to be represented at Sparkle weekend in July and to organise further trans inclusion and allyship training. That officer, Emmett, was featured in a PinkNews article in April about a trans man playing at the Union Cup.

Three Spartans, Nathan, Simon and Karl, the last of them then chair of International Gay Rugby, had been in Ottawa in August 2022 for the Bingham Cup, won by Kings Cross Steelers. Matt, one of the founders of International Gay Rugby and described as the player with the longest unbroken run at a gay and inclusive club anywhere in the world, played in a final there as a Barbarian.

Other business was more ordinary and no less useful. In November the club hosted the first event of the Northern Pride Sports Swap series, with Manchester Front Runners, GHAP Badminton, Manchester Sharks and the Northern Cocks; five days later Spartans joined Manchester Aces at the national tennis centre for the second. Members collected donations for Manchester Central Food Bank in February, and a drag show at Bar Pop in April raised money towards physiotherapy provision and hardship support for players.

There was a bingo night at The Brewers on Canal Street hosted by KY Kelly, and a mixed Spartans side played a home friendly against Sedgley Park Tigers in April. Xander MacRury ran the Manchester Marathon in four hours 36 minutes, his first. In February the club launched a supporters’ club run through the Spond app, announced by the club captain, David Fox. When Clonezone Manchester was attacked four times in the spring, the club said so publicly, noting that the shop had regularly supported Spartans fundraising. Bar Pop and the UNISON North West LGBT+ Group, which turned 30 in July, were among the season’s sponsors.

The club’s public profile grew with it. Players appeared as guest judges across three episodes of the BBC Two programme Britain’s Top Takeaways with Sara Cox, and the club was named in a Thrillist travel guide to LGBTQ Manchester. In January it was shortlisted for LGBTQ+ Club or Sports Team of the Year at the first Gaydio Pride Awards, held at the Manchester Hilton in February. During Pride Month Gareth Longley wrote for Sport England’s campaign on zero tolerance of hate, illustrated with a photograph of the Second XV at the Union Cup, and the British and Irish Lions website ran an article on the club featuring several players and the chair. In July the Transmanian Devils held their first bootcamp at the Spartans’ home ground, and played their first match at the end of the month.

Governance and growth

New club captain roles gave players representation at the top level of the club. Gareth Longley was chair, Joshua Sanderson-Kirk vice chair, Scott Melville treasurer and Chris Goodman secretary, with Ally Lewis as Director of Rugby Union in her first year in post, Ben Dawson as Director of Touch Rugby, David Fox as club captain for union and George Harvey as club captain for touch.

At the annual general meeting at Sale Sports Club on 11th July 2023 the club had 178 fee paying members, ten per cent up on the same point a year earlier, the figure having been close to 190 at points during the season. A planning application made jointly with Sale Sports Club to redevelop the ground, including a 4G surface on the hockey area and additional floodlighting, was rejected on appeal during the year.

The 24th annual dinner

The club held its 24th annual dinner at Sale Sports Club on 10 June 2023, organised in a buffet format by the member known as Cilla and his team. Harry Ellis was named First XV Player of the Season, Charlie Derbyshire took the Second XV award and Peter Brooks the Third XV. Sarah Humphreys was Supporter of the Year, with Tom Goodwin highly commended, and Christian Davis took the Chair’s Award for work on and off the field. Robert’s father, Simon, came again to present the Robert James-Gonzales Memorial Award, one of the traditions the dinner had adopted after the chairmanship of Dean Bee, in memory of a much cherished Spartan whose life was cut short. It went to Emmett Peacock. A glass was raised to absent friends. Among the guests were the club physiotherapist, James Henson, and Neil Mason, back at the club. There were special mentions for Harry, Emmett, Christian, Sarah and Rooney.

Earlier in the season, on 25 March, all three sides had played on the same day again, and the club marked the 60th birthday of Neil, known at Sale as Grandad and a pioneer of gay and inclusive rugby clubs, at the ground.

The First XV would begin the following season in Division 3 South. Behind it stood a Second XV with a plate won in Birmingham, a Third XV still learning the game and a touch section that spent the summer winning leagues. The chair’s verdict at the annual general meeting was that 2022–23 had been a successful season, with improved results across the board in both union and touch.