Rugby Club Issue 53 | Page 99

strathaven very stretched and we ended up loosing rather heavily every game and got demoted, it was hard going. “This season however the efforts of the committee and our club members in recruiting players at all age levels has turned things around along with new senior coach Craig Ferguson who has the 1st team performing well. Youth rugby is also essential to keeping the game alive, Rugby is in a great place at the moment and to keep the momentum going it’s essential to keep youth players progressing and to keep recruiting players at all levels. “We try and take part in all community events within Strathaven including gala day and the annual reindeer day which the club are responsible for stewarding and helping to set up/sell tickets for. We also openly advertise all of our games via social media to invite people from the community into the club whether they are members or not. “We have a lot of talented players at Strathaven RFC so it would be difficult to single any out but generally we get a lot of players in the pathway teams and currently have a few explayers in development with Scotland. “In the next five years our biggest challenges will be to keep the clubs current momentum going and retain our players while recruiting new players through the age grades. The club is currently looking at a joint venture with the local football club, Strathaven Dynamos, who don’t have their own facilities. This joint venture will see a rugby ready 3G pitch along with some expansion and modification to the club we currently have. We see this as the start of something big and we want to push the club to become a community sports hub so over the next 5 years our ambition will be to expand the uses of the club within the community without taking focus away from our main use of being a Rugby Club.” www.pitchero.com/clubs/strathavenrugbyfootballclub - Twitter : @StrathavenRFC www.sportip.biz 99