Old Colfeians Ladies RFC

nwealth, though real power lay with Cromwell and The New Model Army. In 1652, one year before Cromwell seized total power from Parliament, the pioneering Reverend Abraham Colfe, Vicar of Lewisham, founded Colfe’s School. In this time of great change and Puritanism, when social conditions for the majority were abysmal, his aim was to provide a good quality education for local children whose parents could not afford to send them to a fee-paying school. A few years later – nearly two and a half centuries to be more precise - the first meeting to form a club for former pupils was held on 28 March 1885 and, dating from 1901, there is a letter advocating the formation of a Rugby Club. It was the change from soccer to rugby football at the school in 1925 that finally gave the impetus to the birth of OCRFC. The Old Colfeians’ Rugby Football Club was officially formed at a meeting on 22 June 1928. For the last 75 years we have been a club focussing only on mens rugby, we have had great success and remain competitive to this day. Last season our mens 1st XV were promoted to London 1 South, with the season being one of the best we have had for many years. As club we are thriving, running 4 mens senior teams, a juniors, and a minis section. However, we have realised that to continue our success and grow further, we want to run a female rugby section. Last season we started our girls section and within one season were 50 girls strong! It was an incredible achievement, something we are very proud of. Our girls have been coached by Vicky Fleetwood, an England International, which has only made us stronger. Again this season, the girls are off to a winning start. The next step for us is to create a Ladies Team, a team for our girls to grow into and a team for ladies in the community who would like to give rugby a go. This season it is our aim to start our Ladies Team, we have already had multiple people interested and have begun training, now it’s it time to form the team and start playing matches!