Saracens Women at 35 | Emma Mitchell Interview

A founding member of Saracens Women and the starting scrum-half for England in the 1994 World Cup final victory over the USA.

Emma Mitchell is and will always remain a barometer with which to measure the ability of a scrum-half against.

Playing alongside her twin sister Jane for both club and country, the Mitchell’s were part of that trailblazing team back in 1989 then put Saracens Women on the road to the success they have enjoyed over the last 35 years.

Mitchell started at 9 in the first-ever Saracens Women’s match back in 1989 and explained that the game was all about showing off the women’s game to the Saracens supporters.

“We thought it would be good to set up an exhibition match to show what women’s rugby was about. It was played before the men’s first division match at Bramley Road. It was fairly packed, and it was a good game. We got quite a few players like the legendary Gill Burns to come down and play. We had to ask a few invitational players to join us as we didn’t quite have a full side at the time, but it was fantastic. The game was about trying to win over the fans and to let them know that we were there.”

Despite the instant success, the squad still had to deal with local residents not being happy about noise at Bramley Road on a Sunday. Mitchell took the time to go through the process she and several others had had to follow to make sure they could continue to play at Bramley Road.

“Sundays became our day at the club, but then we had the issue with whistles at the club! Local residents pulled up an old by-law that said there couldn’t be any noise on a Sunday in local parkland, including Bramley Road. We were forbidden from playing there for about six weeks and had to find a temporary pitch that we rented. We had a small action group that took the appeal in person to the local council. We suggested to them that as Sunday’s were the only time we could play; it could have been considered as discrimination and it was very quickly overturned!”

Mitchell played alongside her twin Jane until 1993, when Jane emigrated to America. Both sisters though had always wanted to finish their playing career together and Emma spoke fondly of how she and Jane ended their careers on a winning note.

“Jane played for Saracens and moved from Kent two months after we started the club. She wasn’t quite one of the founding members, but she played through until 1993 when she emigrated to California. When I finished playing, I went out to California with her. Part of that was wanting to finish our careers playing together and we did that in 2004 in a National Championship win out there. We were both just about hanging together, although we still knew the game inside out. To finish together was a dream.”

Emma then returned to England and joined Amanda Bennett’s coaching team at Saracens where she was still involved through to 2011. Now a Performance Lifestyle Practitioner with England Hockey, she is continuing that coaching journey, coaching the athletes as people, alongside their careers on the pitch.