Facilities and Rugby
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Facilities and Rugby
There are some fantastic opportunities available to increase the standard of facilities at
sustainable community rugby clubs around the UK and Ireland, increasing the opportunities to
access quality playing conditions for both new and existing players. Advancements in technology for
facilities has never been better and these improvements have been vital to assist the development of
players of all ages into rugby from grassroots level upwards. Facilities as a whole have undoubtedly
helped support the growth of the UK rugby industry providing safer and more accessible options for
everyone involved within todays rugby clubs.
With funding available to add, upgrade, improve or replace
existing facilities such as pitches, 3G pitches, hybrid pitches,
floodlighting, fencing, clubhouses, drainage, goalposts,
showers, buildings etc. now is a superb opportunity for clubs
to make improvements in order to improve the all-round
rugby experience that they are able to offer to their players,
members and visitors alike.
With this in mind, Rugby Club Magazine recently caught
up with the RFU’s National Facilities Manager Ted Mitchell.
Ted told us, “I’ve been involved with the RFU for twelve
years now, starting off as one of four funding and facilities
managers covering the North of England for five or six
years. I then moved on to being Technical Facilities Manager
before taking my current role where I provide national
guidance across everything we do facilities wise within rugby
development.”
Funding
“The area of Facilities development has certainly evolved
over my time here. Finding external funding is probably
more challenging now than it has ever been. I think what
has happened is there is less funding around in society and
the distributors of those funds are much more savvy now in
terms of getting into the type of projects they want.
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Although that side of things has become harder I think
we’ve become much more efficient in terms of procuring,
buying and delivering projects in a way that makes the
money going further. So now when a community rugby club
wants to develop their facilities it is not all down to the club
to obtain planning permission and project money as we have
the framework in place to help them save both time and
money.”
Aims
“I think for us it is about getting the right projects in the
right locations and focusing on the positive outcomes that
the facilities provided offer. Our main aims in terms of playing
surfaces can be split in to two areas. The first is to help clubs
increase the capacity of their pitches. A typical natural turf
that is well maintained can offer four to five hours a week
during the season but where they are not well maintained
that drops to two-three hours a week. So maintaining pitches
well provides the opportunity to grow the game significantly.
Additionally, artificial pitches now offer the opportunity to
create huge capacity and provide a great solution in the right
area. Depending on planning restrictions artificial surfaces
can provide up to fifty hours a week which is an incredible
amount.