14/09/2026
The next generation and an essential steppingstone!
I’m trying to think of the cheesiest headlines for these posts. I hope I’m succeeding!
As we are leading up to the 10-year celebrations, it is time for the next instalment of the ARK Ladies’ history. Later than I had planned, but I finally got here. The Pioneers post highlighted the first women rugby players at ARK and the amazing efforts of the original Jyske Rugby Kvinder team, taking us up to around 2012. This next post talks about the next generation of players and the next generation of stubbornness. As mentioned in the first post, I (Coach Lucy) first joined ARK in 2013 so witnessed this next effort, which was essential for the first official ARK team to step onto the pitch in 2016. So let’s pick up where we left off…
Jyske Rugby Kvinder was still bringing women together across the region, proudly gracing pitches in their LOVELY Netto sponsored kits! But as rugby grew, Odder and Grenaa were growing their own women’s teams, while Aarhus still didn’t quite have the numbers to do the same. And here comes the next generation of stubbornness! Hanna Hermstad McCrae moved to Aarhus from Norway. Most of the players mentioned in the story so far were most likely recruited in a pub, but Hanna came ready. Involved with the Norwegian national team, she looked up ARK before moving because she wanted somewhere to continue playing. Just like the players of the early 2000s, she was welcomed to train with the men. Which I would say was a benefit to the men, having someone of such skill and fitness level to train with! Of course, training with the men and not having a women’s team wasn’t good enough though, so recruitment began!
Hanna convinced Anna Pacak-Vedel and Live Batangouna to give it a go, and the three of them started indoor training with ARK men in February 2012. The following months, Nanna Frikke, Sanne Knoll and Alexandra Redzkina joined them (there could have been more, but these are the ones I know of!). This was also the start of some dedicated women’s team training! Yes, the first archaeological findings of an ARK women’s training session. Hanna told me she remembers these indoor sessions as a mixture of joining in with the men’s team, but also running some sessions herself with the help from, the first dedicated ARK Ladies’ coach I can find evidence of, Rob Collie.
Hanna remembers this period mostly positively! The men’s team were, she tells me, incredibly welcoming. She and Anna went on tour with them to Germany where Hanna got some game time! Anna also got to play with the men’s Misfits team, a game that gave us one of my favourite photos of Anna…a photo of what seems to be Anna bossing around one of the men’s players. Very on brand for Anna! Unfortunately, though, there was some push back when asking for a women’s kit as the group was growing. What’s the best way to do this? Have a full, official team then buy a kit or buy a kit along with a growing, potential-official team? I can tell you what did happen, but that’s for a future post!
Tournament wise, ARK were still short on having a full team, so the solution was the same that kept women’s rugby going across the region: work together! Aarhus players joined up with Grenaa while recruitment continued. Hanna’s own playing story took an unfortunate turn sadly. She badly injured her ankle in Canada and couldn’t continue playing but remained very much part of the social aspect (I’m pretty sure I met Hanna in Anna’s student dorm while we pre-drank for a Christmas party, so can confirm this!).
The story now takes us to 2013, so I have to talk about myself a bit. Very sorry! I emailed ARK very keen to join and got a just as excited message back from Anna. I was asked straight away if I’d like to join her and Grenaa for a tournament at Speed. I absolutely loved the bright orange Grenaa shirts!! I even got to meet, although didn’t know it at the time, future ARK teammates. My first training sessions at ARK were with the men and Anna. I actually really enjoyed trying to keep up with them and replying “Hello!” to Chief as he screamed “højre” at me during touch rugby. I was all of a sudden too weak to join in though when, then coach, Quinton Greyling made everyone do his famous corner runs.
Anna is an ARK legend. She was already on the committee when I met her and eventually became chairwoman. Her love for the sport and the club is pretty inspiring and I really wanted to help in recruitment and getting a women’s team at ARK. I told her about “Taster sessions” my previous teams have done. Open sessions where anyone can join for free and we do the basic skills of rugby. So, leaflets were printed, Anna signed us up for international recruitment fairs, and the first taster session went ahead in early 2014! After this there were regular weekly trainings (my first go at coaching!), regular socials and a great team feeling! By May 2014, we had set up a Facebook event encouraging local players to come to ARK for a practice game. Around 9 girls representing ARK were joined by players from Odder and nearby for a few rounds of 7s. It happened! A women’s rugby game was played at ARK!!
In that game, 6 different countries were represented. Relying on international exchange students to build a team was great short-term, but definitely not long-term. Including myself, many players left, but trainings and recruitment continued, and the great collaboration between Odder and ARK continued for the tournaments. Anna continued to recruit, get players to tournaments with Odder and I returned in late 2015 to more women players, the term “ARK Ladies” being thrown about and that feeling that ARK is SO CLOSE to having their own team.
This period had ARK Ladies dedicated training, coaches and matches. What was achieved within this time, through grit and, yes, stubbornness, set up what would be an historic day in 2016. Anna was about to leave for a trip of a lifetime to Australia, but in true Anna style, left me with a big ARK folder of leaflets, details of signed up fairs, instructions on Rugby Denmark landscape and I promised she would return to a team and her hard work would not have been wasted. And as we are celebrating 10 years, you know we got there. Without Hanna, Anna and the women who joined them, this, as I have cheesy called it, essential steppingstone, wouldn’t have happened.
I look forward to sharing more about the last 10 years! The volunteers, the socials, the player achievements and everything great this amazing team has achieved. For now, we finish at the end of 2015, where we were finally ready to make the leap!
Rugby love ###
