THEY have a grace that the musclebound big blokes of the rugby world could never attain. And it is that grace which helped make the women of the Vale of Lune ladies rugby team champions for the second season running this year. It also adds to their beauty, whatever offensive jibes rugby traditionalists might wish to hurl in their direction.

But it wasn't any thoughts of fitness or feminism which made Sue Garnett set up the club six years ago, just a simple desire to have a laugh.

And Sue and her team mates have been having fun ever since - despite struggling for a long time to attract other members and initial indifference from the old guard at the Vale club. For seven months only Sue, her husband (the trainer) and one other woman turned up for training.

But still she kept going and the laughs kept coming.

"One of the funniest things was when one of our girls streaked at an international match," remembered Sue. "I just couldn't believe it. Then my phone was red hot from the press calling to try and get an interview with her, they'd got my number because she'd been wearing a Vale Ladies T-shirt... before she took it off that is! I said I'd ring her to see if she'd mind. She just laughed and said 'yeah, why not?' She ended up getting a job as a lap-top dancer out of it."

Strong friendships have been forged in the club, some of them unlikely, like the one in the current team between Barbara Walker, 43 and a school teacher at Garstang High School, with Carolyn Wolfendale, an 18-year-old still doing her A levels.

Said Sue: "It was my birthday recently, a good excuse for a night out. Anyway the tears came to my eyes. There were so many of the girls there from the club. They're such good friends, it all got a bit emotional."

Any opposition to the women's team there may have been from the male side of the Vale has long since evaporated. Indeed the ladies' team is now the pride of the place.

That pride was shown at the last game of the season when every member of the club showed up to cheer them on in a match which the ladies had to win to stand a chance of clinching the championship.

"We won and then it came through that we'd got the championship," enthused Sue. "We knew because they'd rigged up the system and played 'We Are The Champions' by Queen. Then came the cheers of all the blokes.

"It was just magic."

Anyone interested in joining the club can call Sue on 01524 36835.

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