What a season!

The 2024/2025 season came to a close in style at Hammersmith & Fulham Rugby Football Club’s annual Dinner Dance, a celebration of on-field excellence, club spirit, and the players (and moments) that defined the year.

Men’s Player of the Year: Tim Russell

In a crowded field full of talented players whom all took the men’s section to its highest ever league position, one man stood out. Our leading try scorer (10), our leading ball carrier, and as someone who executed over 140 tackles, this man wasn’t just the obvious choice, he was the only choice.

Congratulations to the 2024/25 Men’s Player of the Year, Tim Russell

Women’s Player of the Year: Tappers

In a season where injury lists were longer than some match reports, this player remained an immovable force (except when being sent to the sin bin). She led from the front, the side, and occasionally from the naughty step, setting the tone with fearless carries, tireless rucking, and a worrying enthusiasm for the second carry off a 5-metre penalty and kicking (sometimes forwards). Despite the knocks, she stepped up into leadership with the same gusto she brings to every contact—head up, heart in, gumshield in (mostly). A true club stalwart and the embodiment of team spirit, this player is the teammate you want beside you in the trenches—and possibly in front of the ref explaining that technically it was her first offense. Like all the greats—Beyoncé, Madonna, Pitbull—she needs only one name. Leader, legend, Player of the season, Tappers.

Clubman of the Year: Sam Seymour

What do you give the man who gives everything to the club? A man who made almost every training session? Played almost every game? Attended almost every social? Who supported all sections of the club week-in-week out? Who moved to another country, only to return shortly after so he could attend Tour? And then who stayed so he could attend the end-of-season dinner? What do you give a man who embodied the spirt and values of being a Hammer? You give him Clubman of the Year 2024/25.

Clubwoman of the Year: Lydia Burns

When this player joined the club, we thought we were getting a rather handy player. What we actually got was a Social Media Tsar, a recruitment machine, a reluctant vice-captain, and a one-woman content empire. Thanks to her, our Instagram and TikTok are thriving and we’ve finally gone viral—for good reasons. She’s made Rogan, look incompetent and illiterate… although, to be fair, he is Australian. This season she even recruited us a coach and is sealing the deal even further by marrying her. That’s commitment. Literally. Despite taking more injuries than our physio can count, she’s always stepped up—especially this year, taking on vice-captain duties after yet another knee gave out on someone. Whether or not she volunteered is still up for debate. She’s played in Hong Kong, fought tirelessly for a Krispy Kreme sponsorship, and we’re fully expecting her to lip-sync this win on TikTok in a very demure, very mindful fashion. For everything she’s done on and off the pitch, our Clubwoman of the Year is Lydia Burns.

Men’s Newcomer of the Year: Marcus McNeil

17.06 Tackles-per-game. 273 tackles in total. 92.54% tackle completion rate.

Numbers don’t like, but they tell a story, and these numbers talk of a man who, in his first year, laid opposition players out like carpet. This quiet, unassuming, lethal Northern Irishman turned up at the beginning of the season and from his his first game to the last, scythed through opposition carriers like the Reaper’s sickle. Dislocating no less than 3 opposition shoulders over the course of the season, Marcus McNeil is justly awarded Newcomer of the Yeah 2024/25, and showed how anyone can turn up somewhere new and make an impression. Even if that impression is of the outline of his shoulder on a tight 5’s spleen.

Women’s Newcomer of the Year: Sophie Jarrett

In her very first season at the club, this player has made such an impact that she nearly walked off with Player of the Season too—which frankly feels greedy, but we’ll let it slide since she can probably resuscitate us after the next match. A trainee doctor by day, rugby dynamo by night (Sundays), she has stitched up defences, diagnosed gaps in the line, and prescribed a heavy dose of pain to the opposition. They say you don’t have to be called Sophie to play here—but statistically, it improves your chances of winning an award by at least 30%. And tonight, the data doesn’t lie. When one Sophie wins, all Sophies win. But this one’s all yours. Welcome to the club.

Men’s Most Improved Player of the Year: Jordan Brown

Hard work makes for great players, but so does determination, heart, and a never-say-die mindset. Jordan Brown had never so much as worn a pair of Rugby boots before he attended his first preseason training session way back in the summer 2024, but thanks to these qualities and more, not only would he play his first competitive game of Rugby ever, he would go on to become a fixture for our 3s. Not only would be become a fixture in the 3s, he stepped up into the boiler room that is the front row. And not only would he score his first every try in a game of Rugby, he would go on to score 2 more!

Women’s Most Improved Player of the Year: Darci Stewart-Smith

This player joined the club for one simple reason—it was literally across the road from her house. No scouting, no dramatic recruitment story… just sheer geographical convenience. She arrived with a friend… but like many great journeys, one stayed, and one ghosted. Thankfully, the tall one stuck around. Tall enough to win lineouts from the clouds and tough enough to hold down the second row like she was born there, she’s quietly become the spine of the team. This season she’s grown massively —not just in skill, but in confidence and in her first full season, she has gone from “new face in the second row” to one of the first picks on the team sheet and absolute rock of the pack.

Walter Naylor Award: Adam Stannard

Service comes in many forms, but few of them are as challenging as being a team captain.  Tuesday’s a battle to get your players to training, Wednesday’s a battle to actually select the team, Thursday’s a battle to get them to confirm, Friday’s a battle to get them to not drop out, Saturday’s a battle to get them to turn up on time, and that’s before a single ball has been kicked, or passed, or knocked-on.  What kind of man would volunteer to do so much, for no other reason than because it needs to be done?

Adam Stannard, that’s who. And after several years of steadfast service – the last few wracked by injury meaning he didn’t even get the joy of playing – it is right and proper that he is awarded the 2024/25 Walter Naylor Award on standing down. That’ll do Adam. That’ll do.

Neil Baynham Award: Carola McKenna

The Neil Baynham award is given to someone who has made a major contribution to the club and it’s my privilege to announce this year’s deserving recipient. When our winner joined the Hammers they had never played rugby before. So as oft happens with beginners she was promptly put on the wing for safe keeping. In an unfortunate, and to be clear completely unrelated incident, she was immediately hit by a car. She apparently enjoyed this collision so much, and decided she wanted more of them, that on her return to rugby she decided to join the forwards and her life as a front rower was sealed. Impressively she won most improved player in her full first season (her first season being interrupted by said car incident) in 2011-12 and more impressively hasn’t won another award since. Way to plateau buddy. Over 15 seasons she’s given so much to the Hammers both on and off the field including her time, dedication, sweat, tears, her ability to move her neck later in life, her liver function, tears. She’s so often been the lone voice in the darkness confidently asserting “this is the year Scotland will win the 6 Nations”, it wasn’t. However, her greatest contribution is that she is the only player who could make me look tanned. Enjoy your retirement buddy and please – wear sunscreen.

Tauchert Award: Aileen Ryan

This award honours those who’ve gone above and beyond for women’s rugby. I want to take a brief moment to mention someone who was in the running. Zak Underwood, congrats on your one nomination. It’s a travesty but chin up, there’s always next season.
Onto our actual winner. There are things we do for money, and then there are things we do for love—or possibly guilt. Either way, this person answered our SOS at the 11th hour when our coaching plans changed, and somehow, we tricked her into staying. An incredible player in her own right, she has brought experience, leadership, and the kind of firm-but-loving nagging usually reserved for Mrs T from the sidelines. Honestly, it’s nice to be shouted at for once by someone who isn’t my mother. She’s Irish, she plays for Hong Kong, and we’re pretty sure there’s an identity crisis brewing—but if Johnny Sexton and dim sum can co-exist, so can she. Her ankle injury may have taken her off the pitch, but lucky for us, it brought her to our sidelines—whistle in hand and standards set high. For stepping up, standing out, and somehow managing to coach us without completely losing the will to live, this year’s Tauchert Award goes to Aileen Ryan

Women’s Top Point Scorer: Amy Henwood

There were some things I knew yesterday, some that I didn’t but suspected and others that I learnt. I knew that we don’t have an official trophy for top points scorer of the season. I didn’t know but suspected that just because you can buy gold spray paint off the internet doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. I’ve learnt it’s as hard as you would expect to remove said spray paint. But what I really knew was who our top point scorer of the season for 2024-25 was and that there really is no substitute for the boundless energy of youth.