The Women’s World Cup is playing to big crowds and is thrilling people across the country. Rugby’s dismal past — the singing of horrible sexist songs, marginalising of women and lack of support for women’s teams is now a thing of the past.

Or is it? While the RFU at Twickenham has supported the Red Roses with generosity, are its disciplinary procedures remotely good enough to deal with the repeated outbreaks of misogyny and other bad behaviours still occurring around the sport? Just as a starting point, take the case of Windsor RFC in Berkshire, who play on Crown Estate land in the shadow of Windsor Castle and had the late Duke of Edinburgh as their patron.

Their former chairwoman, Helen Crick, resigned four years ago citing a “resistance to change and inclusivity”. But some were not paying attention, it seems. Last season, at a function at the club called the League Lunch, multiple sources have told The Sunday Times there were speeches hugely offensive to women present.

Ian Potter, then — and still — the club president, told two inappropriate jokes with a sexual content. Then a man called Jim Bailey rose to his feet and allegedly told a story about forcing sex on the bar staff in a changing room. One attendee recalls: “Some were laughing, others were shouting “No!” and “Sit down”. The shocked bar staff, three of whom were female and volunteers, closed the bar and refused to serve any more drinks. The RFU told us: “We are aware of the complaint raised in relation to comments made by Ian Potter and Jim Bailey.”

So they must be aware of the reference to sexual violation. The RFU said it had not taken action against individuals. In a briefing they pointed out that Bailey “is 80 [years old]”. But still sharp enough to deliver a speech, it seems.

The Windsor club are also the subject of what many might see as a devastating series of complaints from a long-time member, Kate Hallett, their former head of women’s and girls’ rugby, in which she lists behaviour that has hounded her out of “the club which I love, and served for 12 years”.

Hallett, who keeps meticulous notes, forwarded to the RFU a long document of her complaints, later compiled with the help of a barrister paid for by the RFU.

She was a pedigree player with a strong Wasps team and had trials for Ireland and Wales. She once packed down in a front row alongside two of the all-time greats, Rochelle Clark and Amy Cokayne.

She is the commercial director at Wasps RFC’s highly successful amateur arm in Acton — they host a wide variety of other sporting teams — and after the pandemic she took on the unpaid post of head of the women and girls section at Windsor. But like Helen Crick before her, she was to be profoundly disappointed.

“It became clear that there was an undercurrent of an unacceptable and toxic culture within the club,” Hallett claimed.

“In my opinion, the Windsor board were paying lip service to equality. I openly challenged their actions and this is when I became the victim of misogynistic bullying from certain board members.”

At the 2024 AGM, when Hallett was in the process of delivering her official report and concerns, her speech was stopped by Potter. She tried to restart but was told to stop again. “No one supported me, although one person came up afterwards and said that they wished they had,” she says.

There were disputes over several other issues, notably when she secured a valuable sponsorship for the women and girls section and was told that any receipts had to be shared with the whole club. In Hallett’s testimony, the Windsor chairman Mike Crawshaw first gave the go-ahead for a new design for shirts, provided that she included traditional design elements, and she was told she did not need board permission. “When the shirts were made, he told me that I had needed board permission and that they could not be worn,” she says.

“ It seriously makes you wonder just how badly you have to behave for the RFU to act

At one stage Hallett asked Crawshaw for a meeting “as I felt he was not supporting the women’s and girls’ sections”. Her memory of the meet is vivid.

“We met on December 2 at Millar’s Eatery [in Windsor],” she says. “I arrived first and when Mike arrived, he noticed my personal effects, including my work phone, on the table. He immediately accused me of intending to record our meeting. He was very loud and his behaviour was aggressive and he said that he had dealt ‘with women like me before’.”

The final straw caused Hallett to codify her experiences in the document she sent to the RFU. She says she secured free sanitary towel bins for the women’s toilets via an official RFU scheme and told the hierarchy that the necessary bin liners would complete the job. But Crawshaw, who first praised the initiative, later contacted her and told her that they had removed the bins. “Legally, we were obliged to install the bins,” she said. “I had installed them all and they had simply removed them. I felt this was juvenile and sexist and entirely unreasonable.”

After further incidents, Hallett delivered her document to the RFU’s head of discipline, David Barnes. It sets out the litany of alleged behaviour and her clashes with Potter, the president, Crawshaw, the chairman, and Alan Davies, the Windsor RFC disciplinary officer.

In one sense this all appeared timely. The RFU had announced a crackdown aimed at misogynistic and similar behaviour, encouraging individuals to “speak up about misconduct and wrongdoing”, and said that those who raised genuine concerns in good faith would be “supported, and victimisation or retaliation is not permitted”. The RFU declared that what it described as “whistleblowers” would have their identity kept secret.

Hallett’s testimony says that Crawshaw had sent out “a message to club members”, which was also published on the club’s website, that made reference to “a complaint by a member of the club to the RFU”.

“He had no right to publish this information about an outstanding complaint,” Hallett said. “It was disclosed both in breach of confidence and in contravention of RFU regulations on anonymity for whistleblowers. I think his actions were outrageous and at that point I decided that there was simply no point in going ahead with any mediation.”

Amazingly, it took the RFU nearly two years from Hallett’s first complaint to come up with a final decision, which arrived only recently. Barnes apologised for the delay but part of his ruling was that “the RFU were not of the view that the ‘average’ Windsor member would be able to identify” Hallett from the information.

That is stupendously ridiculous, as almost the whole club had heard continually about the dispute.

Where was the promised protection for the whistleblower? What on earth were the RFU thinking? And the main verdict itself? The RFU belatedly responded to Hallett to say the concerns she raised “about the behaviour of individuals and the club” was “below the threshold for an RFU charge and would be addressed by way of mediation”.

Looking at this conclusion, it seriously makes you wonder just how badly you have to behave for the RFU to act. As Hallett points out: “It has never been made clear by the RFU what the threshold is.”

Garnet Mackinder, head of equality at Sport England and an RFU Council member, did investigate the club as a result of the complaint. But the RFU said that she was charged to report on the  Davies immediately asked that Beki Davies should not sit on the club itself, not the behaviour of committee as he alleged she had individuals. How wonderfully “supported Hallett in the past”. convenient! She made seven Beki Davies has had a recommendations — but with distinguished career in coaching respect they are simply the tame youngsters and is a past winner of basics of proper operation of any the prestigious RFU Volunteer of rugby club. Not once is there a the Year award. She now coaches at reference to the complainant. a high level at Berkshire colts. She And finally, we should be crystal left Windsor because she saw a lack clear: it is never a defence against of opportunity to advance. despicable actions that already “There were four of us on the happened to claim that things have panel, a chairman and two others changed. Close friends of Hallett from different clubs,” Davies says. say that she has struggled “I told the chairman beforehand throughout the period. And have that I had once been a member of things changed? Windsor had to Windsor but we agreed that it appear in front of the Berkshire didn’t make me anything bar RFU disciplinary committee after unbiased now. So we went ahead. they had eight players sent off last “When Mr Crawshaw and Mr season. Windsor representation Davies arrived, they asked why I included Crawshaw and Davies. was on the committee. I did offer to The county disciplinary party of stand down if there were four to sit in judgment included a objections. Then Mr Davies female member, Beki Davies. Alan especially laid into me at some length. He told the meeting that I had given evidence ‘in the Kate Hallett case’, a statement which infringed Kate’s right to anonymity.

Eventually I left the meeting.”

We understand from other sources that the whole matter has been reported to the RFU, the second serious complaint in relatively close succession. Potter, Crawshaw and Alan Davies did not reply to requests for comment and we were unable to reach Bailey.

Will the RFU act on the infringement of their whistleblower charter? Will their apparently moveable thresholds consider the latest offences as grossly unpalatable for their vision for the sport? Will it take then two years? Several brave women have spoken out. Hallett has had to fight for justice without consistent support. In an environment that would remind many of the worst of rugby’s bad old days.