With our rugby season being put on hold, a few of the team used their spare time and energy to support the local community. Thom Last, Joe Eyles and Andy Truman spent Friday delivering food and supplies to people stuck in doors due to the coronavirus. They did this through a group set up by…
Erdington Rugby Club has created a lasting legacy in memory of a club stalwart who dedicated 50 years of his life to the our club. Alan Howes died in 2019 after a fight against Motor Neurone Disease (MND), but his beloved club was still at the forefront of his mind in his final weeks. One…
We’re excited to announce that Erdington Rugby Club has been shortlisted for the Gallagher’s Rugby Club of the Season Award! As a finalist, our club will receive a skills-sharpening training session from Premiership rugby players at Wasps RFC, Gilbert training equipment worth up to £1,000 and an off-pitch business consultancy session. The overall winner will…
Seventy of our young rugby players are set for a Christmas to remember with a trip in a vintage London bus to see a top Gallagher Premiership match. Players, aged between 13 and 16, have been invited by Wasps to watch the game against Harlequins at the Ricoh Arena on Saturday, December 21. Wasps,…
Our rugby club has been rewarded for our ‘Changing Lives Through Rugby’ campaign, designed at keeping kids away from gang culture and ultimately knife crime, with the ‘golden ticket’ trip of a lifetime to Japan, the host country of the Rugby World Cup. Andy Trueman, our volunteer community officer, will fly out to the ‘Land…
Our ‘Changing Lives Through Rugby’ campaign, which uses sport to tackle the growing problem of knife crime in some of the UK’s most underprivileged communities, has been given police funding to support its vital work. We launched a pilot scheme in January to run coaching sessions for under 15s from four West Midlands schools, focusing…
The Sponsors who are helping us “Change Lives”
We achieved many successes on the pitch and at our peak, we were regularly fielding five senior teams and a Colts team.
During the 1990s, a drastic drop in players left many local teams, including ourselves, struggling to stay afloat. The final nail in the coffin for us was an act of arson in 2003, resulting in the loss of the clubhouse. With the membership numbers being too low, we were unable to recover and the club subsequently folded.
Thanks to a local parent with a passion for the game, we opened our doors once again in 2016. What started as a small group of coaching quickly became the catalyst to the resurrection of our rugby club.
Interest grew rapidly and by the start of the 2017/18 season, we had a growing youth section, fielding two age grade teams, and unexpectedly, a senior men’s team.
We moved back to our old ground of Spring Lane Playing Fields, which further fuelled our growth. We then began adding more age grade teams and increasing senior player numbers.
Our club saw a major development in 2019. The committee noticed the positive impact rugby was having in the local community, which supported its long-held view that the sport’s unique qualities could help improve society as a whole.
As a result, we launched our ‘Changing Lives Through Rugby’ campaign in north Birmingham, to help keep youngsters, some with known behaviour issues, off the streets. We work with Erdington Rugby Club to offer free coaching for under 18s, a hot meal, which the team enjoys together, and transport for those who need it.
Our campaign is endorsed by Birmingham Erdington MP, Jack Dromey, West Midlands mayor, Andy Street and West Midlands police and crime commissioner, David Jamieson.
