This team of smiling faces are trailblazers at Cheltenham North Rugby Club.

They are the under-13 girls’ team and they are the first female side in the club’s proud 114-year history.

And they’re doing pretty well as well because in their first ever festival down at Walcot Rugby Club in Bath, they won three and drew one of their four games.

The team is coached by Ian Parker, a former 1st XV winger at the club, who is loving his new role. His daughter Evie is part of the girls’ squad and he said: “They are coming on really well. We normally play 12-a-side but we’ve got a squad of 18, we’re very lucky.”

Around two-thirds of the squad used to go to Bishop’s Cleeve Primary School where Parker is a teacher and it was there that they first learned about the thrills and the spills of the oval ball game.

“I do touch rugby at the school – it’s for mixed teams – and some of the girls really took to it,” said Parker.

And it’s fair to say that more and more girls from around the county and beyond are taking to a rough and tumble game that back in the day was considered only suitable for boys.

“It’s great,” said Parker. “Last season the girls were only training but now we are playing matches. The girls play with the same intensity and ferocity as the boys but the girls’ rugby community is very supportive, the parents applaud players on both sides.”

Parker knows his rugby having been a player at the North for some 15 years.

“I still play occasionally,” he said. “I’m more a 2nd team player than a 1st team player, they don’t need me now, they’ve moved onto better things!”

And while the club’s flagship team have certainly made a good start to life in Gloucestershire Premier after last season’s promotion, there’s now plenty else going on at the club away from the 1st XV which has in turn attracted many new faces to Stoke Orchard Road.

“Sunday mornings are really special,” said Parker. “That’s when all the youngsters train and there’s a real buzz around the clubhouse.

“They all enjoy the game and the club feels so happy.”

The new girls’ team are very much playing their part in that feelgood factor – they also train on Friday nights as well as Sundays – and Parker added: “The aim is to build up a really good reputation for girls’ rugby at Cheltenham North. The message is, if you’re a girl and want to play rugby then come to us.”