© Copyright

Andy Naylor is one of ‘Your Champions’
At a special ceremony at a top Cheshire hotel, many of Cheshire’s unsung heroes were honoured last week. Amongst the awards our very own Andy Naylor received the Individual Award for his sterling work in setting up and running the John Blower Trust Fund. Andy received his award from Paul McKelvie from Scottish Power who were joint organisers and sponsors of the event along with the Chronicle Newspaper group. Many local celebrities were on hand to meet the winners including Falkland veteran Simon Weston and Trevor Green of Granada TV. For the full story take a look at this week’s Chronicle. Pictures hopefully to follow here soon. well done Andy and all the JBT Trust team. The fund is on schedule to meet its target of £150,000 with over £135,000 raised to date. For more information about JBT click here .     December 2004

Junior Coach-in
All Junior coaches will be putting aside a couple of Sunday sessions after Xmas to enhance their coaching skills. In line with the RFU guidelines for coaching junior players (called ‘The Continuum’), all coaches should be given time to improve their coaching skills. Phil Clarke has therefore set aside two dates for specialised coaching. External guest specialist RFU coaches are invited on Sunday 9th January for all mini coaches (U7-U12) and 16th January for all junior coaches (U13-Senior Colts). Dave Paton will be running the session on 9th January and Tom Mapp on January 16th. A coaches meeting for all junior/mini coaches will take place after the session on the 16th from 12- 1pm. Mini training on the 9th will be suspended so that the first mini training after Xmas will be on January 16th.                                                                                                  October 2004

December 11th is Chairman’s Day
This year’s Chairman’s Day will be on Saturday December 11th. This is the traditional time of the year when club chairman, Sam Naylor invites former club members, sponsors and friends of the club, to enjoy the club’s hospitality and join a special afternoon down at the club. Not only will the 1st XV be playing Warrington in the EuroManx league but this year Chairman’s Day marks a year since John Blower’s accident. John will hopefully be able to be down at the club during the match and to help with the results of the John Blower Trust ‘Sporting Memorabilia Raffle’.
For more information about the event, please contact Sam Naylor at snaylor@northwichrufc.co.uk or telephone on 01606 871547. For information on the exciting Sporting Memorabilia Raffle and to get tickets (the draw will be on December 11th so hurry) please contact Andy Naylor on anaylor@northwichrufc.co.uk or telephone on 01606 76200.              November 2004

Northwich are ‘Cheshire Community Club of the Year 2004’!
On Monday 4th October Northwich Rugby Club were voted as Cheshire’s ‘Community Club of the Year’ by SportCheshire. Junior Chairman Simon Bridle and Junior Secretary & coach Ken Houghton received the awards from Olympic gymnast and Cheshire girl Beth Tweddle and Olympic rower Matthew Langridge who hails from Northwich. Simon and all the Northwich team at the event were delighted with the news. After receiving the award Ken said that “To win this award once is amazing, but to retain it shows the huge amount of work and dedication that is put into the club with so many unsung heroes behind the scenes”. More pictures of the event on our Community Club page, you can also visit the Sport Cheshire web site for news of winners in the other categories.                                   October 2004

deFINE host wine & cheese evening
Sponsors of the Northwich Girls team, deFINE Food and Wine cordially invite Northwich players and parents to a wine & cheese tasting evening on Friday November 19th. The event will be held at Vale Royal Golf Club and tickets are £10 per head. For more information and tickets please contact deFine at info@definefoodandwine.com or call the shop directly in Sandiway on 01606 882101.                          October 2004

Girls feature in RFU’s Touchline Magazine
Northwich feature not once but twice in this month’s RFU’s Touchline magazine. Their match with Sandbach and parade at Sale Sharks in September are both covered. Take a look at the RFUW and CB section respectively. If you don’t get a copy of the paper copy you can now visit the RFU web site and view the magazine on line just click on www.rfutouchline.com. More information about Northwich is of course on both RFU RFU web page and Cheshire RFU web sites - Cheshire RFU
                                                          October 2004

Northwich nominated as Cheshire Community club of the Year - again!
Northwich Rugby Club have again been nominated as Cheshire ‘Community Club of the Year’. Northwich won this award last year and thanks to continued community involvement within both Northwich, Vale Royal, and Cheshire in general, Sport Cheshire have nominated Northwich for this years award. Presentation of the awards will take place at the Hanover International Hotel on Monday October 4th at 7pm at a special awards dinner. Keep your fingers crossed for Northwich. More details of the event are at Sport Cheshire            September 2004

Northwich Festival - another great weekend for all!
Thanks to all of you from Northwich Rugby Club and across Vale Royal for supporting the Festival over the bank holiday weekend and making a success.. Whatever we have made for club funds, thanks for coming along, I hope you enjoyed one or more of our events. More news and pictures to follow soon on our dedicated web site:- Northwich Festival.
                                                        August 2004

Great time was had by all!
This years’ Tag tournaments were another big success. This year over 300 children from across the Vale Royal area participated. All the scores, placings and details are all provided on the new Schools page along with information about all Northwich community activites in schools in the area.                                                July 2004

Another Great Day at the Cheshire Youth Games (CYG) for Vale Royal Vale Royal had another great day at this year’s Cheshire youth Games on Saturday June 26th at Macclesfield Leisure Centre. Many Northwich Rugby club players and coaches joined other boys and girls across Vale Royal to participate in the various Rugby tournaments as part of the Vale Royal team. Everyone had a great day out and performed throughout the tournament to come home with a second place and two third places. Medals all round then for everyone. Some photographs are printed here but you can also see coverage in the Northwich Chronicle and at the Cheshire Youth Games Web site.       June 2004

Year 5/6 Mixed Tag Squad - Silver Medalists

Girls Tag Squad - Bronze Medalists - just pipped to silver

Boys Year 9 Tag Squad - Bronze Medalists - again just pipped to silver

Summer Rugby Dates!
Just because its the closed season, it doesn’t mean we all stop for summer. Come and support us for the following events over the summer!

Cheshire Youth Games (CYG) - June 26th Macclesfield Leisure Centre
Many Northwich Rugby club players and coaches will be participating in the various Rugby tournaments as part of the Vale Royal team. Last year the Year 5/6 tag team won the cup, with the Girls and Year 9/10 boys team coming third in their events. Come and see if they can do well again this year. More information on the CYG is at the following link CYG
School Tag Tournaments
The club will again be running its’ very popular Tag tournaments for Northwich and Winsford schools. This year the dates are as follows:-
Monday July 5th  Northwich Schools Year 5/6  Moss Farm 1.30 p.m.                      Friday July 9th   Northwich Schools Year 3/4  Moss Farm 1.30 p.m.
Friday July 16th  Winsford Schools Year 5/6   Verdin High School 1.30 p.m.
As in previous years the tournaments will be run in two tiers to make sure all teams get an equal number of games. All players will get a certificate and group winners of the second round matches will also get an award. All schools in the Northwich & Winsford areas have been invited, but if your school wants to take part and hasn’t already contacted us, please let Ken Houghton know asap on 01606 558677 or E-mail: khoughton@northwichrufc.co.uk. Local MP Mike Hall will be supporting the tournament on July 9th.
Northwich Festival - August 27th-30th
The Festival proved to be a great success last year and the organisers are planning another spectacular weekend. The Festival will take place as usual over the August Bank Holiday weekend. Please try and support one or more of the events to help the club raise funds for its all year round activities. More details are on the dedicated web site Northwich Festival.
                                                           June 2004

Alzach Pools to sponsor new Girls team!
We are very excited to announce that Alzach Pools, a local company specialising in the supply and installation of swimming pools and spas have agreed to help sponsor our new Ladies & girls teams. The new team will be starting in September 2004 and thanks to Alzach Pools, the new teams will be sporting a newly designed strip when they start playing. For more information about Alzach Pools, please visit their web site at www.alzach.co.uk . Define Food & Wines of Sandiway have also agreed to help. More information about the new Ladies & girls teams, please visit the new dedicated web site at www.northwichgirlsrugby.co.uk.                                                May 2004

Annual General Meeting
Not able to make the AGM. Well here are the minutes. Questions about any issue raised please refer to Trevor Rawling. AGM Minutes . AGM Agenda                               May 2004

Northwich stay up!
There was indeed deep joy at Moss Farm on Saturday (April 11th) afternoon when a big crowd, which included John Blower who had secured a special pass from the spinal injuries unit at Southport, witnessed an emphatic victory against a struggling but defiant Warrington outfit. The win ensured that Northwich will play in the same league next season and if their performance on Saturday is anything to go by they could well be in the promotion stakes by this time next year.
Full story on 1st XV team page - 1st XV team                               April 2004

Burton Beavan to sponsor Under 16’s
We’re delighted to announce that Burton Beavan Accountants have agreed to sponsor a new set of shirts for our Under 16 Junior team. This is the first time Burton Beavan have done any local sponsorship and we very much welcome their contribution to club costs and hope for a long association with them. Photographs of the team wearing the new kit will be available soon. See the sponsorship page for more information on Burton Beavan.                   April 2004

May Day Bonanza
Book your diaries now for the May Day weekend. Northwich and Winnington Park are organising a weekend full of activities for all the family. All activities will be in aid of the John Blower Trust and include a special rugby matches, a tournament plus a Fun day on Sunday 2nd May.
Here is the planned schedule, more details to follow :-

Saturday May 1st    Pre match lunch at Winnington Park with special guest ex England & Lions &                       Leicester No. 8 Dean Richards
                 RFU County Chamionship game between Durham & Cheshire

Sunday May 2nd     Eric Johnson’s 10 a-side Rugby Tournament
                  Family Fun day with childrens’ entertainment
                  Robbie Williams & Tom Jones Tribute Bands
For more information about the events please contact Andy Naylor on anaylor@northwichrufc.co.uk. More details about the John Blower Trust are on the John Blower web pages. 
                                                                April 2004
                 

Under 10’s win again!
On Sunday 14th Northwich Under 10’s made it a double in the Cheshire Cup. Last years winners as Under 9’s, The Under 10’s went on to beat Wirral again in this years competition at Sandbach. Well done to the team and coaches Dave Hunt & Steve Jones. Picture of the winning squad with Andrew Sheriden of Sale Sharks.                                                         March 2004

Thousands converge on Moss Farm!
Northwich & Winnington Park Rugby club’s hailed Friday 13th’s event to host the RFU’s Sweet Chariot Tour, a resounding success. Literally thousands of fans, young and old alike were down at Moss Farm to see the World Cup. Team photographs of the night are now on display on the clubhouse. See Phil Clarke for details
                                                                       February 2004

Spring Ball - Great night had by all
This season’s Spring Ball proved to be another great night. This year over 130 members and their family and friends enjoyed a four course meal on Saturday 14th at the Portal Golf Club in Tarporley. Entertainment was by local band ‘Midnight Crisis’, helped along by wives and girlfriends of the club. Some pictures of the night have already come through, more to follow. Thanks for your support everyone.
                                                                      February 2004

Girls Year 7-10 Tournament coming soon!
Northwich Rugby Club and Sport Cheshire will be hosting a Girls Tag rugby tournament at Moss Farm on February 12th. Eighteen schools across Cheshire have agreed to take part. There’s still room for more teams if your school is interested. As it is a Tag tournament there is no contact or srummages, just a great afternoon playing against other schools in the area. Spectators, parents and supporters are all welcome. Contact Phil Clarke for more details on 01606 781441 or email pclarke@northwichrufc.co.uk. or go to our new Girls Rugby site at www.northwichgirlsrugby.co.uk See you there!
                                                      January 2004

February 13th is Northwich’s
    World Cup Day!
As part of the celebrations after Englands World Cup victory in Australia, the World Cup itself - the William Webb Ellis Trophy, is touring England. On Friday February 13th, this tour, called the “Sweet Chariot” tour will stop at Moss Farm. Yes, the cup itself will be on display in the club house. As part of this special event the club will be organising a range of activities. These will include a chance to have your photograph taken with the World Cup against the backdrop of the Telstra Stadium. As well as demonstration Tag matches for disability, Year 3/4, Year 5/6 and girls Year 7/10 teams. These matches will be taking place with floodlights on the 1st XV Team pitch. More news to follow, but put this date in your diary if you want to see the cup for real!
                                                                  January 2004

2003-4 End of Season Junior Chairman’s Report

Firstly, a huge thank you to all the officials, helpers and players for making this season another successful one for the club! We have had some fantastic accolades and results, and have achieved all our objectives. The highlights include:
Presention of the Sport Cheshire “Community Club of the Year”
Award and as a result of this we were nominated for the BBC North West “Club of the Year”. Although we did not win this award we were in the final three and it was an honour to be nominated. Sir Alex Ferguson, Sir Bobby Charlton and David Moyes, were amongst a large array of sporting stars in attendance at the Midland Hotel Manchester where this event took place.
Winners—Under 10’s Cheshire Cup.
This team successfully defended their Cheshire Cup win at Under 9’s and have shown they are a real force to be reckoned with.
Nominated for the Vale Royal “Community Club of the Year”
where we were runners up to Hartford Gymnastics club .
Schools Tag and World Cup.
We ran a very successful set of Tag competitions for the local primary schools. We did Year 5 & 6 in both Northwich and Winsford in July and then we held a World Cup Tag Contest for year 3 & 4 Children. Each team was allocated a country from the World Cup, they studied that country in school and then represented that country at the World Cup. Well done to USA who now hold theTrophy.
Recruitment of players has been at an all time high! The committee has been working very hard promoting the game to as many schools as possible and I am very confident that in season 2004-5 the club will be able to field a complete set of teams from Under 7’s right through to Under 18’s Colts.
Girls and Ladies Teams
Thanks to the hard work of Phil Clarke, Kevin Jones and Malcolm Griffiths, we are able to launch 2 girl’s teams and a ladies team. This will mean that for next season we will beone of just a handful of clubs in the country that has teams at all ages and genders.

    May 2004

Diary of the Season 2003-4
As I was composing this newsletter I realised that many folk probably don’t know the work that goes on year round in this club. So I thought I would share with you a diary of highlights for the year, starting from the end of the previous season. As you will see, a lot has happened and I am sure I will miss some things out, I apologise in advance to anyone or anything that I
miss out, the old grey matters is not what it once was!
During May and June Saturday mornings saw training for the Vale Royal squads that would compete in the Cheshire Youth Games. Vale Royal entered 3 teams, a mixed Year 5 & 6 Tag team, a Girls Year 7 to 9 Tag team and a boys year 8 10 a side team. Training went well and selecting sides was a challenge for the coaches. The Cheshire Youth Games are held in Maccesfield in late June. All teams did extremely well, the Girls and the Boys year 8 sides were both very unfortunate to only come third,they so nearly won, however, the V.R. year 5 & 6 Tag team were triumphant and Northwich RUFC was well represented in the team. Congratulations to all the children and to Kevin Jones and Ken Houghton their coaches. Also thanks to Trevor Rawling, Phil Clarke and Malc Griffiths for coaching the older teams so well.
In July we held two tag tournaments for Year 5 & 6 children. One here at Moss Farm for Northwich & District Schools and the other at The Verdin High School Winsford,for Winsford and District schools. Both events were a great success with 16 teams participating at Northwich and 12 in Winsford.
The Winsford event being won by St Marys School Middlewich who
fielded an almost all girls team, showing that Rugby is just as much a Girls sport—more of that later!
August Bank Holiday Weekend was celebrated by a 4 day Festival,
which will now be known as the Northwich Festival. The weekend started with a Sportsmans Dinner,with Phil Bennett as guest speaker, we had a Rugby Competition on the Saturday with local band “The Bog Trotters” playing in the evening. Sunday was the Farmers Market followed by the Battle of the Bands and Monday was the Car Boot Sale followed by the Festival of Sport. This is our biggest single fund raiser in the year and we raised approximately £8,000 last year to help fund the clubs activities.Look out for details of this years events later in this newsletter.
September and we start the season proper. We hope you liked our ‘pre-
registration’ letter and form that was mailed out to everyone. This really
helped to streamline the whole registration process which has often
dragged on far too long. Look out for the forms coming through the door
this August. Please ensure that you provide us with any changes of address and any email address you may have recently acquired. Also in September we were visited by Sale Sharks players, who put about 70 of our children through the Powergen Award Scheme. Players were awarded Gold, Silver or Bronze awards depending upon their skill levels. Gold Awards were presented in front of the crowd at the Sale vs London Irish game in October and the remainder of the awards were presented at the club by Jos Baxendale and Iain Fullerton from Sale Sharks
October—this month saw England building up to the World Cup, and to
celebrate the event we held a World Cup Style Tag Tournament for Year 3 & 4 Children from Northwich and Winsford. Each team that entered was allocated a country from the World Cup draw. The children then studied that country in class and then played as that country in the World Cup.
The event was sponsored by Cosgrove Engineering (our thanks to John Cosgrove) and saw each team member receiving a T Shirt with their countries name on. Unlike the real thing, the event was won by the USA and everyone had a great time. Also in October we were presented with the Community Club of the Year Award at the Sport Cheshire Dinner at Mere Golf Club. This was a great honour and meant that we were put forwarded for the BBC’s Northwest Sports Awards in the Community Club of the year Category.
November - Along with a large portion of the nation, we were all glued to the World Cup, especially the final and “that drop goal”. At this point you knew Rugby was going to become more popular than ever.
December, a tough month for the club, although all the celebrations went on as normal, we were all very concerned for our friend, colleague and junior coach, Jonny Blower, who was left paralysed after a freak accident whilst playing for the first team against Warrington. As a club and as a Junior section we have committed to help in the fund raising that will help to make John’s life a little easier.
January— The few fixtures we had were mostly lost to the weather. However, we were nominated for the BBC’s NorthWest Community
Club of the year and Chairman Simon and Kevin Jones represented the club
at the televised awards dinner at the Midland Hotel Manchester. We
made the last 3, but were not successful this time (but there’s always next year!)
February and we all celebrated the arrival of the William Webb Ellis
Trophy in Northwich as part of the Sweet Chariot tour of England. A great night was had and we raised some serious cash for the JBT. We were pleased to launch our first Girls Rugby Team this month. They will start playing
matches next season, but training has already started and they have a
major sponsor in the form of Alzach Pools, our thanks to Alan Jackson for his generosity.We were in romantic party mood this month with the annual Spring Ball, this year being the Valentines Ball. Our thanks to Ken Houghton for leading the organisation on this event. Again this was a terrific event that raised money for the club and the John Blower Trust. This event contin-
ues to grow in popularity year on year and we are keen to continue this trend. If you enjoy a good night out with an excellent dinner and dancing to a great live act then this is the event for you.
March and we are into the Cheshire Festivals again. Congratulations to Dave Hunt and the Under 10’s as they once again are the Cheshire Champions at their age group. To win it once is excellent, to do it twice in a row is outstanding. Well done everyone. We were also nominated for the
Community Club of Vale Royal, however, we came runners up.
April and the season draws to a close again. Some of us went to
Twickenham to cheer Sale on in the Powergen Cup Final. Sadly we were not involved in any end of season festivals so the season ended with a visit to Whitchurch for the Mini / Midis.
May, last weekend saw our first joint venture with Winnington Park as we staged a Speakers Lunch with Dea