Collecting for the Women’s World Cup 2025

The UK Web Archive are collecting websites about the Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025. One of the most anticipated opening fixtures saw Wales play Scotland on 23rd August at the Salford Community Stadium. Unfortunately, it was not a win for Wales.

The competition is held in England, but it is worth reminding ourselves that the first Rugby World Cup for women was held in 1991 in Cardiff. Looking back, it is pleasing to see how the women’s game has progressed and also the way that the Legal Deposit Libraries collect publications from these events has been revolutionized over a relatively short period of time.

As with other tournaments held in the UK, such as the 2021 Rugby League World Cup (held in 2022), much of the online material is published in the UK. This means we have permission to comprehensively acquire and preserve websites related to this tournament as the Legal Deposit Libraries are entitled to copy UK-published material from the internet for archiving under legal deposit.

The Legal Deposit Libraries are building a Collection containing websites on the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup. The Collection has subsections on ‘Organizations’, ‘Sponsors’, ‘Press Media’ and Comment’. It is a world away from the 1991 tournament that went ahead despite the disapproval of the International Rugby Board (IRB), the sport's governing body. France confirmed their participation only minutes before the draw and Scotland and Ireland were missing from the tournament. Sadly, there were no sponsors and press coverage in 1991.

You’d think things would have improved by the next tournament in 1994, but it didn’t. The event scheduled for Amsterdam was cancelled only weeks before and a replacement competition hastily organised. This time Scotland came to the rescue.

Looking forward to the Canada Wales fixture. There will be a bumper crowd in Salford, one of the 8 host cities. A sub-section to the Collection will also include ‘Cultural events’ welcoming visitors from all over the world. There was one host city in 1991 and that was Cardiff. Another reminder of the challenges in 1991 - the Soviet Union Rugby team were not allowed to take money out of their country and arrived with limited resources, relying on bartering goods such as vodka, champagne and caviar to support their time in Wales.

This blog post is a celebration of two things. Firstly, to the women's rugby game - it is now considered the fastest-growing sport in Wales, and this will be the biggest sporting tournament held in the UK this year. Secondly, to the way we collect publications for the Legal Deposit Libraries nowadays. We have very little preserved from the 1991 tournament in Wales. Today is different. Through the UK Web Archive, we are able to comprehensively collect millions of websites resulting in an invaluable tool for researchers of the future and preserving the history of this tournament. This will be reflected in the collection we are building for the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup.

If you want to join and help us preserve rugby history, then why not nominate a website for us to archive – it's free and easy to do.

View more tips on what to nominate in this blog.