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But for Bristol Bears forward Christiana Balogun, it was a long journey to find that belonging. The Barbarian used rugby as an outlet to express the complex emotions that arose from the racism and alienation she experienced in her teen years.
“It took me years to feel that family aspect that rugby gives,” the 26-year-old explained. “It was more a vessel for me to pour into, to pour my emotions into.”
Balogun was raised in Greenwich but at the age of 16 moved out of London to a school in an affluent village in Buckinghamshire and picked up a rugby ball for the first time a year later.
“I was one of two black girls in the year,” Balogun said. “Coming from London with a multicultural, diverse background and being plonked into the opposite wasn’t something I was used to at all.
“I found it quite daunting and scary, and I felt very alone. I experienced a lot of racism and I think that just made me very angry.
“The only emotion I could express was anger and I feel like the only emotion people saw out of me was anger.
“They didn’t feel the sadness, upset, frustration, all of these emotions that are so complex. But it was just branded under that umbrella of angry black woman.
“So I went through a very difficult period in school of trying to explain how I was feeling in a way that was productive for me and a way other people could understand too.”
Looking for a sport to fulfil her A-Level PE requirements, Balogun joined High Wycombe Rugby Club and immediately found it to be a way to process her experiences of discrimination.
“When I started rugby I felt like it was a great space for me to channel all of the energy and emotions that I was feeling,” she said. “I felt good in a game, before the game, after the game.
“No other sport made me feel the way rugby made me feel. No other sport took what I needed to take.”
Balogun struggled to connect with players in her developmental rugby years but when she moved to Bristol Bears for the 2022/23 season, the presence of other black teammates helped her feel like she could finally be her authentic self in a rugby setting.
“When I moved to Bristol it was a completely different experience,” she said. “I felt a different type of warmth.
“Immediately you feel comfortable when you see another face that looks like you. When you go into an environment where nobody looks like you, you notice it.
“You think ‘How do I navigate this?’
“Can I express who I am really without feeling like maybe I’m going to be judged for the way I look, the way my hair is, the way I speak or carry myself, or the jokes I find funny?
“Sometimes you naturally suppress yourself because there isn’t that immediate common ground.
“I gravitated very quickly to Simi Pam (Bears Women loosehead prop). She helped me warm into the environment. There are so many amazing women here, they’ve brought me out of my shell a lot more in a way that I didn’t imagine I would.
“I’ve felt a lot more open to just be me, not having to suppress parts of myself.”
While progress has been made, Balogun feels there is still a long way to go to make rugby a more inclusive, and welcoming sport for people of all different backgrounds.
“There’s a lot of freedom that comes with being a black woman in rugby in this space right now,” she said. “I haven’t always felt like that.
“You don’t always see black faces in a rugby team, or you only see one. If those people are experiencing a racial situation, who do they speak to wholeheartedly no barrier, no buffer?”
“At Bears there’s multiple people I can voice concerns to without fear of them gaslighting me. I feel that, from the bottom of my heart. I wouldn’t have been able to say that before being here.
“That’s the great thing about being me as a black athlete in this space now. I feel like I can really do my stuff on the rugby field, if there’s something that comes up, I’m not freaking out about it.
“I love feeling that sense of sisterhood around you, I know [other black players] are going to relate to my experiences because nine out of ten times they’ve experienced the same thing I’ve experienced.
“We do a lot of feeding into each other.
"You take away a lot of that noise in the background and play your rugby and enjoy what you’re doing.”
