Ex-England women’s rugby captain on surviving cancer and writing a book

Sign up to our free sport newsletter for all the latest news on everything from cycling to boxing Sign up to our free sport email for all the latest news Sign up to our free sport email for all the latest news SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. But like many female athletes of her generation, George’s story from elite Welsh netballer, capped Welsh rugby player, to England captain, to All Blacks’ official videographer and cancer survivor, is largely untold. “If you look at someone like Gill Burns, who everytime she walked into her club, walked under a sign that said ‘no dogs, no women’, but did it anyway.” George added that on the other side of the world, former Black Fern Louisa Wall faced similar adversity, being banned from her club when it was discovered that she was a girl by Owen Delany - a prominent Kiwi sportsman in her district. open image in gallery Kathy Flores by Hannah Wilkinson Wall, who features in the book, went on to be one of the lead politicians to push for same-sex marriage to become legal in New Zealand, eventually winning, making the country the first in the world to recognise gay marriage, George added: “She’s an incredible woman and she had been a Black Fern, so she was never going to be pushed around, she was always going to push boundaries. “I look back on some of those women, and to know those stories didn’t ‘count’, or were going to be lost… and that really came to a head with me when Kathy died.” George grew up in South Wales and went to a 1,600 pupil comprehensive school where she was one of only two black children, an experience she described as an ‘”interesting way to grow up”.