burtonwood
bridge
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Burtonwood
Bridge
Article provided by Head Coach Lee Cunningham
B
urtonwood Bridge ARLFC is a grassroots community based club on the Warrington/St Helens border. Founded in
1986 by former St Helens, Wales and Great Britain winger Roy Mathias as the Primrose Vaults in Parr, St Helens the
club quickly found itself making its way through the divisions in the old North West Counties League. In 1988 Roy
brought ‘the Primmy’ and rugby league to the village of Burtonwood as he took the Landlord role at the old Bridge
Inn public house.
The team changed their name
accordingly to the Bridge and
had the good fortune of having
former professional players such
as former Warrington and Wigan
captain Jimmy Fairhurst, and
former St Helens and Great Britain
forward Chris Arkwright donning
the famous big white ‘V’In 1989 I
decided to take the big leap from
the local rugby union team and
stepped across the great divide to
start playing my first love ... Rugby
league! I was the young player of the
year at the rugby union side with
many a so called ‘expert’ tipping me
to go onto a lot greater things.
This was to prove to be in vein
as maybe it was the star struck
nature of meeting, and enjoying
Roy’s company (as you walked into
the Bridge you would be greeted
by a fantastic selection of Roy’s
international rugby union & rugby
league jerseys, pictures of him at the
Sydney Cricket Ground before his
world club challenge match against
the Roosters etc., etc.) or maybe
it was the fact that my Dad had
taken me so often as a child to the
railway end at Wilderspool Stadium
watching Warrington, either way it
was Rugby League and Burtonwood
Bridge for me!
Varying levels of success and
failure was to follow for the club
over the coming years; we won
the Warrington Cup in 2001, and
never quite made it to the Premier
Division but certainly made a go of
it in Division 1. As the team started
to get older together we realised
the importance of us needing to
start our own junior section and
under the undeniable and infectious
enthusiasm of Welshman Wayne
Tapper the Burtonwood Bulldogs
were formed as the junior section of
our club.
16 Issue 54
Some of that original Bulldogs team
represent the Bridge nowadays,
most notably Zak Scott, who is a
tough, rotund forward who doesn’t
know the meaning of a backward
step. The open age section now is
a tribute to the level of success that
the likes of Bulldogs stalwarts Billy
Garner, Nige Johnson and Pete
Nicholson have contributed to the
young men in the Burtonwood and
Westbrook parish.
Indeed, Saturday’s first team v
Bolton Mets contained no less than
11 former Bulldogs, and there are
countless others that never made the
team this week for various reasons.
A statistic that we are very proud of,
we are producing a conveyer belt of
talent, with an intrinsic motivation
to represent their club to the best
of their ability through thick and
thin. A group of people that have
been mates since they were s mall
children and will remain so for the
rest of their lives.
The link between the open age
and junior sections is an invaluable
lifeline to keeping gods own game
alive in our community at the open
age level and we as an open age
section are immensely committed
to building bridges and breaking
down walls to ensure that there is
very much a #1club1vision ethos to
our great club.
The junior section has also
produced some great talent that
are now plying their trade with
the game’s best talent. Players like
Welsh internationals Ben and Rhys
Evans at Warrington Wolves, Dec
Hulme and Almer Salvilia at Widnes
Vikings, and Callan Beckett at
Dewsbury Rams are a credit to their
current employers and I believe they
represent their, and our, grassroots
club with great aplomb.