Born: Edinburgh, Scotland 

It was by chance that Alice D. Cooper started playing rugby. During a night out in Richmond in October 1986 she met two members of the town’s recently acquired women’s team who told her they could do with tall players like her.

Cooper had long held an interest in the game. Her uncle Philip captained Middlesex and represented Rosslyn Park, while she had stood on numerous touchlines watching various boyfriends play.

So, 10 days later she dug out an old pair of lacrosse boots and headed down to her first training session at Richmond, where she would meet Deborah Griffin, Sue Dorrington and Mary Forsyth.

Her height helped her to excel as a forward, and Cooper would go on to represent the South East of England. She was considered for England and later had trials for Scotland, but test recognition eluded her.

By the time that Griffin began to plan the inaugural women’s Rugby World Cup, Cooper was also a regular contributor to Rugby World & Post, writing her own column on the women’s game. This made her an obvious choice as press officer, and on the road to South Wales she devoted countless hours to generating media coverage for the tournament.

During the women’s Rugby World Cup itself, Cooper could often be found in a windowless room at the National Sports Centre for Wales, which she dubbed the ‘bunker’. Here she typed up team sheets and match reports, organised the printing of the programmes and handled calls from journalists. She also played in a unique match where a scratch team of the tournament organisers and volunteers played and lost to the Russians.

Following the tournament, Cooper served as press officer at the WRFU, but a broken leg suffered whilst captaining the Richmond sevens team brought her playing career to an end in 1993.