Trailfinders Women
HOW A RARE ILLNESS CHANGED ABI BURTON'S PERSPECTIVE ON LIFE AND RUGBY
The launch of Premiership Women’s Rugby means more to Trailfinders Women’s Abi Burton than most, writes Elise Hamersley.
A Tokyo Olympian and regular feature in GB’s Rugby Sevens team, Burton has experienced extreme career highs and lows, but nothing could have prepared her for her greatest setback.
In the spring of 2022, the 23-year-old began having seizures due to a rare autoimmune disease called encephalitis that eventually left her in a medically induced coma for nearly a month.
Initially, Burton was sectioned with a misdiagnosis of stress-induced psychosis.
“You go into this really manic aggressive behaviour,” Burton explained. “Off the rugby pitch, I’m really timid, I’m like a teddy bear.
“But I was really aggressive to my parents, I was fighting the nurses and doctors to get away from me, ripping bannisters off the walls in our house.”
After 26 days wrongly sectioned, Burton was finally diagnosed with autoimmune MDA receptor encephalitis – an illness where the body mistakenly attacks the brain. She was then moved to the hospital and placed in a coma.
When the Yorkshire native woke up three and a half weeks later after rounds of chemotherapy and multiple plasma exchanges, she had lost 20 kilos.
Her battle to return to rugby took over a year but her experience didn’t just give Burton a new appreciation for her body, it altered her world view.
“It’s completely changed my outlook on life,” she said. “I’m not just a rugby player anymore.”
“Before Tokyo, if I hadn’t been selected to go it probably would’ve absolutely destroyed me but now after being ill it’s made me realise that rugby isn’t everything.”
“I went through a long, really intensive rehab process. I’m a bit mad so I thought that I could do anything.
“When I ran out for Team GB again for the first time I was so happy, I did cry. I felt like I was whole again. Like I wasn’t missing a part of me.”
In the summer of 2023, Burton joined PWR league debutants Trailfinders Women in search of her 15s comeback. Having started from scratch after her illness, and armed with a fresh perspective on life, she chose a team looking to do the same.
Director of Women’s Rugby Giselle Mather, who Burton previously trained under at Wasps Women for two years, was instrumental in the back row's decision to return south.
“I chose to move back down after living at home being looked after by my parents for the past year because of how amazing Giselle is,” Burton said. “While I was ill, she came up to see me.
“She’s one of the best people, my mum and dad trust her with my life and that’s why they were so happy for me to be able to come down here.”
“It’s the aura she has, she just wants everybody to do well and she treats us as her own and I think that’s such an amazing quality to have.”
“The club is brilliant, that’s the only way I can describe it.
“Everyone was so understanding to hear my story. We train really late at night so sometimes my head just gets quite tired and everybody’s really understanding of that.
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. I see myself being here for a very very long time.”
Burton isn’t the only GB Sevens player at Trailfinders as teammates Ellie Boatman, Emma Uren and Amy Wilson-Hardy have all been attracted to the new outfit for its inaugural season.
“Giselle and Trailfinders are really supportive of our Sevens programme,” Burton explained. “They’ve been able to facilitate our GB head coach, physio and S&C coming down here and putting on Sevens specific sessions with a few of the Ealing girls joining in to make up numbers.”
“Paris [2024] is the main goal I have now. I was absolutely gutted after coming fourth in Tokyo but I have no doubt in my mind that we’re going to put our best foot forward to win a medal.”
For Burton, this coming Premiership Women’s Rugby season is part of a new dawn for her and for women’s sport.
“Every year just seems to be getting better within women’s sport and that’s not even just from a rugby point of view,” she said. “We have another Olympic Games coming up, the rebranding of PWR, TNT now broadcasting the games.
“For my parents and family to be able to watch me do what I love on the telly. It means so much more to me and them rather than taking it a bit for granted which we may have done in the past.
“It’s just such an exciting year and personally after everything I’ve been through, I don’t take anything for granted anymore and this is one of those things.
“I couldn’t wait for things to kick off.”
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