In my late 20s and early 30s, I was captain of the England rugby team. But as a teenager, gym knickers and leotards nearly put me off sport and exercise for good. I left school over 25 years ago now, but I can still clearly recall how awkward I felt walking across the school playing fields on my own in a pair of extremely unflattering navy blue pants, past groups of girls huddled together and laughing – I was sure – at my tree trunk legs.
At that stage, a discus was the only thing guarding my embarrassment. I was 14, and I had been persuaded to practise on my own at lunchtimes in preparation for the district games. I completely flopped at the games – standing alone, at the centre of the discus throw circle, feeling like everyone was staring at me, and feeling as though I was hardly dressed.
A quarter of a century later, it is deeply frustrating that girls are still giving up sport because of the anxiety over kit. Recent research carried out by the England hockey player Tess Howard found that sport uniforms create “identity tensions” in teenage girls, making them feel “sexualised” and causing alarming numbers to drop out. According to a 2022 World Health Organization study, 85% of adolescent girls don’t get enough exercise. Clothing is “the most underrated cause” of that, says Howard. And it’s storing up problems for the girls, and for the NHS.
I might have been among that 85%, but thank goodness I discovered rugby and its fantastic, capacious shorts. I trained hard and was good enough to represent my country, which is how, in 2005, I found myself standing in the corner of Cardiff Arms Park changing room as I waited to go out and face Wales, trying to check without anyone noticing whether my white England shorts were still all white. It’s something I imagine all of my teammates had worried about at one point during their England careers. Not our male counterparts, of course.
For me, the preparation for many matches included the mental gymnastics of calculating when I would have to change my tampon. And on my heavy days, would I also have to change at half-time? Sometimes there were only one or two toilets available for a squad of 22 women. So, when I should have been focusing on preparing to take on France or New Zealand, I was worrying about my personal period challenge, and whether there was enough time to use the toilets before delivering my pre-match captain’s teamtalk.
Was my and my team’s performance affected? Research in this field is starting to build – albeit frustratingly slowly. Last year, the sprinter Dina Asher-Smith revealed that the calf cramps that ruined her chances of a 100m gold medal were caused by her period, and called for more research into female athletes’ cycles. “I feel if it was a men’s issue,” she said, “there would be a million different ways to combat things.” Some sport teams, such as Bristol Bears women’s rugby, are starting to track athlete wellbeing linked to their periods. When, at the elite end, differences between winning and losing are so minuscule, it makes sense to analyse results and compare them against athletes’ monthly cycles.
I loved my England “uniform”; the memory of standing at the side of the pitch before my first cap is forever etched into my mind. I was so proud of my white England shorts, my white shirt and the red rose on my chest. But standing at my kitchen sink scrubbing those blasted white shorts clean between Six Nations matches was normal for me. Thankfully our Red Roses no longer have to survive, as I did, with one pair of shorts for their entire Six Nations campaign. But there will, I am sure, still be one or two members of the squad with period-related worries prior to their next international.
That will never change. But research into women’s experiences of training and injuries can, and should be improved. More kit choices should be made available to enable women and girls to play sport without feeling exposed or embarrassed. That, at last, seems to be happening. In football, England’s Lionesses have changed out of white shorts and started playing in navy. Our Irish rugby friends have done the same. Will our rugby Red Roses follow suit?
Women are turning to rugby now in higher numbers than ever; this month there will be world record spectator numbers at Twickenham for a standalone women’s rugby match. But the women on the pitch have had to fight hard to get there. The least we can do to support them, and the young girls taking up sport now, is give them a uniform choice; talk about periods; and celebrate difference, but also normalise it.
If men had periods they would, no doubt, talk about it in their post-match interviews. Me? I had to nip to the loo before I approached that microphone.
• Catherine Spencer is a rugby commentator and former England captain
