On Saturday 17th Feb, the club held the annual ‘Old Deers’ lunch. An affectionately titled event held to celebrate Women’s rugby at Teddington RFC. Players from past and present attended, including the three sisters who were instrumental in launching women’s rugby at the club. Legend has it that back in 1987 the men’s team at Antlers were struggling for a bit for form, and were being given a fair a bit of advice of how to correct things from the women at the club at that time. After another unfavourable result, the men had had enough, and they threw the gauntlet down to the women – ‘if you think you can do any better than have a go yourselves’. Much to the surprise of the men, Karen, Helen and Zoe Kirk (pictured) readily took up the challenge and they assembled a team which signaled the birth of women’s rugby at Antlers RFC. Back then women’s rugby was in its infancy with only a few sides in the country participating, and the Antlers became true pioneers of the game. What followed was years of success, with many Antlers teams boasting international players. Today the women’s game has evolved incredibly from those early years, and Teddington continue to compete in the RFU women’s leagues, so it’s great to look back at the part the Kirk sisters and those early Antler women played in the development of the women’s game at Teddington RFC.