Alice D. Cooper is a pioneer of women's

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

, in England and internationally.

Biography

Cooper was born in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. In October 1986, she met two members of the

Richmond Women Richmond Women, formally Finchley RFC, is a women's rugby union team based in Richmond, London, England. They were founded in 1986 and played in the Women's Premiership. They are also the women's team of Richmond F.C. History Richmond Women we ...

’s rugby team in a night out and was told that they needed tall players like her. She found an old pair of lacrosse boots and attended her first training at Richmond where she met Deborah Griffin,

Sue Dorrington Sue Dorrington (born 10 June 1958) is a former English rugby union player and pioneer of the women's game, in England and internationally. Biography Dorrington was born and raised in Minnesota, USA. She started playing rugby in the early eighti ...

and Mary Forsyth. Cooper became part of the Organising Committee for the inaugural Women’s Rugby World Cup in 1991. She was an obvious choice for Press officer because she was a regular contributor to ''Rugby World & Post'' where she had her own column about the women’s game. Cooper devoted countless hours creating media coverage for the tournament, and was often found at the National Sports Centre for Wales typing up team sheets and match reports, organising the printing of programmes, and handling media calls. Cooper's playing career came to an end in 1993 after she suffered a broken leg while captaining the Richmond sevens team.

World Rugby Hall of Fame

Cooper, Dorrington, Griffin, and Forsyth will be inducted into the

World Rugby Hall of Fame The World Rugby Hall of Fame (formerly the IRB Hall of Fame) recognises special achievement and contribution to the sport of rugby union. The World Rugby Hall of Fame covers players, coaches, administrators, match officials, institutions and othe ...

in a special ceremony during the

2021 Rugby World Cup The 2021 Rugby World Cup was the ninth staging of the Rugby World Cup (women), women's Rugby World Cup, as organised by World Rugby. It was held from 8 October to 12 November 2022 in Auckland and Whangārei, New Zealand. It was originally sche ...

semi-finals at Eden Park on 5 November 2022.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Alice D. Living people Year of birth missing (living people) English female rugby union players World Rugby Hall of Fame inductees