Leicester Tigers: How ex-England star Vicky Macqueen helped build women's side

Vicky Macqueen has stitched together an illustrious career as an English rugby trailblazer both on and off the pitch.

As an England international, she recalls having to sew badges on to her jersey, and how playing for Saracens and training with the Premiership side at the height of her powers meant juggling a full-time job as a teacher.

Stood under the lights at Mattioli Woods Welford Road, Macqueen smiled as she talked about the patchwork career she had as a player and how it has led to her to help Leicester Tigers painstakingly build a women's team - one which makes history on Saturday against Cheltenham with their first match at the famous ground.

"We were always professional with a little 'p'," said 42-year-old Macqueen, who earned 34 England caps in Test and Sevens rugby between 2004 and 2009.

"We sewed our badges on once at the European Championships, we had to cover a sponsor badge up. I remember being sat there with Heather Fisher, Nolli Waterman and Claire Allen.

"The funding was there to take us abroad and to tournaments, but you had to fund yourself, you had to the do the extra training at 6am or 10 at night when you finished day job.

"It is exciting all the potential that women have now without having all the pressure of everything else.

"People ask if I'm jealous. I just say I'm happy that it has now pushed on and I'm proud that I have been part of that process."

Macqueen has worked as head of women's rugby at Leicester Tigers since the summer of 2021, overseeing the team's inception, its search for players, and ensuring strong bonds have been forged with her former club Lichfield - a former top-flight club that was ousted from the elite level when the domestic game was revamped in 2017.

"Lichfield have such a historic place in the game," Macqueen said. "It would have been criminal for them not to have something to do with this.

Vicky Macqueen was named head of women's rugby at Leicester Tigers when the club established its women's and girls' rugby programme in July 2021

"Lichfield have that legacy in the game and we hope to see that legacy fulfilled.

"They are acknowledged as a top community team in the country and if Leicester can kick on and make it to the Premiership they are really important to the pathway to make sure all abilities have a place."

Last season the team played as Lichfield-Leicester Tigers, with the identity of the side changing further this season with Lichfield now linked to Tigers as a feeder club.

Tigers have made a bid to join the Premier 15s from next season, joining Leicestershire neighbours Loughborough Lightning in a competition that the Rugby Football Union want to see turn professional within 10 years.

The team Macqueen has pulled together for their Women's Championship North campaign is an eclectic one.

"We had to go look for players," Macqueen said.

"We searched across different sports. We have some crossfitters, some basketball players, some have come from athletics as well.

"It's a really good combination. Some girls just hadn't had the opportunity to try rugby to see how good they are. We also brought some players back to the sport, who had retired or just fallen out of love with the sport a little."

It is a side that has also quickly shown itself to be devastating in action, having beaten Bishop Auckland 57-5 in their season opener earlier in the month.

They next face last season's league title winners Cheltenham in the milestone first game at Welford Road.

"The girls are all so excited by the experience," Macqueen said. "Just the whole picture of representing Tigers - this badge.

"They want to make history, and they are making history."

Leicester Tigers have made a bid to join England top-flight women's competition from next season

Winger Zoe Evans did exactly that when she grabbed the club's first ever league try.

The 24-year-old's milestone touchdown came just seven minutes into Tigers' historic first match and just a year after she started playing rugby, having been introduced to the sport though the RFU's Inner Warrior programme aimed at attracting new players to the game.

"I just didn't expect to be here," Evans said. "I've just had the most amazing year of my life.

"You finish school, or maybe finish university, and you may think it's too late to try a new sport because how does that happen? You go to training and everyone is already experts at it. So going to Inner Warriors created a pathway of access.

"If you said a year ago I'd be here now and scoring that try, I wouldn't have thought it was possible."

Growing up in Hinckley, in south-west Leicestershire, Macqueen did not see that what she would achieve in rugby was possible.

That did not happen until she met former England captain Gill Burns while playing school rugby.

"She asked me what I wanted to do, I said, 'Be you - I want to be like you,'" Macqueen recalls "She was there in her England strip, from that moment that's all that was in my mind."

That inspirational brush with an England star is something Macqueen has shared with the players she now has at Leicester Tigers, knowing they can influence aspiring athletes like never before.

"This Tigers badge means everything as a female rugby player," Macqueen said.

"Coming up as a young girl it would have been an honour to wear that. I'm just happy these girls now have that opportunity.

"If you can't see it you can't be it, and I want the girls to embrace that, for the younger generation to see these girls out there at Mattioli Woods Welford Road and be excited by the experience."