The decision to give England women’s team match fees for individual games for the first time has been hailed as a “revolution” by coach Simon Middleton.
In July, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) was criticised after it announced it would not be renewing central contracts for the 15-a-side squad.
But on Thursday the RFU said the 35-strong Elite Player Squad would receive an annual fee and a match fee.
“It’s a step towards professionalism in the women’s game,” said Middleton. More
Speed skater Elise Christie has been named Sunday Times Sportswoman of the Year.
The 27-year-old Scot, who became a triple world champion in March, said: “It feels amazing. I feel like I’ve won the World Championships again.”
Tennis player Johanna Konta finished second and taekwondo fighter Bianca Walkden third.
The England women’s cricket team were named team of the year after winning the World Cup in July. More
It is 45 years since Clive Sullivan led the nation to Rugby League World Cup victory. On the day the 2017 tournament kicks off, BBC News looks at how the first black player to captain a national British sporting team helped break down barriers.
When the 18-year-old Welsh winger joined Hull FC in 1961, there were very few black men in prominent sporting positions.
But scoring a hat-trick in a trial game with the team certainly put Sullivan on the map and he signed a contract the following day.
So began a career that 11 years later, in 1972, would see him raise the Rugby League World Cup trophy as Great Britain captain – the last occasion the trophy was won by any nation other than Australia or New Zealand. More
Female graphic designers have been producing artwork for the Underground since 1910, yet many remain largely unrecognised.
Some of their work was published under the name of an advertising agency, others were unsigned, and more still simply used their initials.
The Poster Girls exhibition at the London Transport Museum is showcasing the pieces. More
There were no women athletes at the first modern Olympic Games, in 1896, because its founder, Pierre de Coubertin, thought women were “not cut out to sustain certain shocks”.
More than 100 years later, Reality Check finds that women’s participation in the Summer Olympics has grown, but across the Olympic movement, the gender gap still exists.
Enshrined in the International Olympic Committee (IOC) charter is the commitment to “encourage and support the promotion of women in sport at all levels”.
This would suggest the IOC no longer thinks along the lines of Pierre de Coubertin. But let’s take a closer look – starting with the sportswomen who participate. More
What does a student look like?
Forget the stereotypes. Think of diversity in a different way. And meet some of the country’s oldest undergraduates.
Maureen Matthews is starting a three-year law degree at the tender age of 79.
She’s not even the oldest student on her new course at the University of West London in Brentford.
Sitting next to her in lectures is 84-year-old Craigan Surujballi.
This isn’t dabbling in learning with an evening course – it’s an intensive, full-time degree, studying alongside people with ambitions to become lawyers.
“You may look at me and see an older face – as may many young people,” says Maureen. More
In a salute to a “remarkable” man, the University of Oxford has paid tribute to its first black student. But who was Christian Cole and what was life like for him at a time when being black at the university wasn’t merely unusual, but remarkable?
Cole was always likely to turn heads when he arrived in Oxford to read classics.
It was 1873 and he was a 21-year-old black man from Waterloo, Sierra Leone, studying alongside young men from the elite families of Victorian England (His arrival pre-dated the institution of the university’s first women’s college by six years.). More
A female-only Cambridge University college will now accept applications from transgender students.
Murray Edwards, whose alumni include broadcasters Claudia Winkleman and Sue Perkins, had only admitted women since its creation in 1954.
It will now consider those who identify as female and, where identified as male at birth, have “taken steps to live in the female gender”.
Transgender students applications are being considered for the 2018 intake. More
October is Black History Month and with that in mind we have chosen Shirley Thompson as our Inspirational Diversity Champion of the Month.
Shirley is an English composer who became the first woman in Europe, within the past 40 years, to have composed and conducted a symphony with her New Nation Rising, A 21st Century Symphony written in 2002.
Shirley was born in London to Jamaican parents. Her early musical experience included playing the violin in various youth symphony orchestras in London, and choral singing with local choirs in Newham. She graduated in music from Liverpool University and in composition from Goldsmiths’ College.
After university she composed a body of solo and instrumental ensemble works for concert hall as well as working as a freelance composer of music for TV, films and the theatre. She set up the Shirley Thompson Ensemble in 1994 and this became the main vehicle for her instrumental and vocal works that fused contemporary classical orchestrations with popular and world music styles.
Shirley was the first woman to compose and musically direct music for a major drama series at the BBC and she also directed the film Memories in Mind, which was broadcast by the BBC in 1998. She also co-scored the award-winning ballet PUSH, which premiered in 2005 which has since toured the world in major and prestigious venues.
Shirley has composed for opera, orchestra, contemporary dance, TV and film. Some of her other works include:
In 2010 Shirley was included in the “Power List of Britain’s 100 Most Influential Black People 2010”. In April 2016 she was honoured with the Luminary Award (presented to people of Caribbean heritage) who have made significant, outstanding contributions on an international scale or have brought to prominence issues that affect the Caribbean region.
To find out more about Shirley and her work see her website at http://shirleythompsonmusic.com/
To find out more about Black History Month see the website at http://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/