Rugby Union
Grace has been playing rugby for two years and has just started her first season at Premiership rugby club Loughborough Lightening. Having grown up in Malawi before moving to Suffolk, Grace learnt the joy of sport in one of the poorest countries in the world and having fond memories of playing football on a hard dusty red pitch against children from the local village, playing Netball against her much taller Malawian friends next to beautiful Tea Plantations and when she was older the weekly game against the prisoners who were mostly convicted for stealing food for their families. This gave Grace the ability to understand from a young age that sport was always more than performance.
When Grace and her family moved to Suffolk, much to Grace’s frustration the school she attended ran an amazing boys’ Rugby Programme, but not for girls. My male schoolmates benefited from this programme and some went on to achieve Premiership Rugby and even 15’s International and 7’s International caps. At 22 she headed down to the local Rugby Club Bury St Edmunds and got stuck in at Championship 2 level, that same year Grace found a love for the 7s game. She was fortunate enough to have represented International invitational teams in Paris, Kenya and Dubai. Grace’s second year of playing rugby saw her move to Cheltenham, to play in Championship 1 with Cheltenham Tigers, a big jump from the league below and loved every game! Grace has since made the amazing achievement of signing a professional contract in the Women’s Premiership Rugby League.
Grace’s biggest motivator is pushing herself as an athlete and remembering the joy sport gave her as a young girl in Malawi. Grace supports the Bheupsi Pride Foundation, a charity based in Malawi that uses sport to tackle social, economic and health challenges in Malawi.
ENQUIRIES: If you are interested in partnering with or booking Grace for a speaking engagement please email callum@athletemedia.co.uk or call 07879 533434.