My Life in Rugby: Catherine Spencer – former England women’s captain
He called me up and the conversation went something along the lines of ‘I hope you’re well. You are going to be quite busy over the next few years because I want you to be the next England captain’.
I’ll never forget quite how amazing it felt to be told that but I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone for a few days, which was tough for me! I was playing for Worcester at the time and it was such a struggle to go and train and not be able to speak about it. Particularly because our former England captain Jo Yapp was at the club and a bit of advice would have been useful.
After the World Cup in 2006, England had a lot of senior players who retired and a group of four or five of us younger players knew we had a chance of getting the captaincy.
I thought long and hard about it and decided I would quite like to do it, so I decided to be proactive and called Gary to say I would like to do the job.
It was the most nervous phone call I’ve made in my life…a few months later he called me to say I’d got it.
That was in 2007 and at that stage the World Cup in England in 2010 seemed a long way away.
But as the World Cup came nearer it became obvious that women’s rugby was going to be in the spotlight like never before.
It wasn’t so much being in the papers as individuals that was fun, although personal recognition is nice, but to see the game we loved in the wider media was fantastic.
The best thing about the tournament was seeing the game grow and people coming to watch and that took some of the disappointment away from losing the final to New Zealand. We lost 13-10 in an amazing game of rugby at the Stoop and thinking about it now makes me quite emotional.
Standing on the pitch before the game hearing Swing Low Sweet Chariot and watching the Haka is something I want to bottle and keep.
I genuinely believed we could win and seeing it slip away in the last few minutes was an awful feeling. It’s upsetting because it’s something individually I’ll never be able to put right.
We had beaten them the year before and beaten them since but just not in a World Cup!
Our victory in 2009 was, when I think about it, my best day on a rugby field. We triumphed 10-3 in the rain at Twickenham and I managed to get the game’s only try. It was my 50th cap and we hadn’t beaten them for eight years so it was a special day.
The other candidate would be when I was 11 and won the most improved player award for Folkestone RFC.
It was a big deal for them to give the award to a girl and I have absolutely loved the club ever since.
I now play for Aylesford in Kent and am involved with the Tag Rugby Trust, spreading rugby through Africa.
Between those two I get my rugby fix but I will admit that it really hurts to watch the Six Nations and not be involved having retired after last year’s tournament.
That was a really tough decision but definitely the right one after seven years with England.
