West Norfolk
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Over recent years the club has continued to prosper
and develop. We now have a well-established ladies’
team who won back to back promotions after first
entering a league and they now play in the Women’s NC
1 Midlands. We are now working hard to establish our
girls’ teams.
The biggest challenge for the club at present is to
maintain that success; keeping on top of the day to day
running of a community rugby club alongside financing
the developments we would like to make. The club is
firmly rooted in the community with strong links to local
schools through the local schools’ partnership, working
with the local council to host parts of the rural games and being accredited to the Children’s University scheme.
Looking forward to our centenary in 2025, we
again need to develop the facilities we have once again
outgrown. At the end of last season, we were able to
refurbish the toilet facilities and more recently the bar
received a much-needed make-over. Future short-term
projects have been identified - remodelling the changing
rooms and showers to incorporate players’ toilets,
easing the Sunday logistics of hosting youth and ladies’
fixtures, and adding a disabled lift to access the social
areas on the first floor. Other planned projects include
expanding our limited kitchen space and increasing the
social area to allow for more flexibility.
Ian Trundley has had a long and positive
association with West Norfolk Rugby Club. He
recently spoke to Rugby Club Magazine, “I was
born and bred in the Kings Lynn area and when a
friend spoke highly of the rugby club to me I decided
to take my sons Ben and Jack along and watched
them play on many a cold winter Sunday morning.
It wasn’t long before I became involved in coaching
the minis and this was a few seasons before our
now senior head coach Darren Clarke joined the
club.”
“My youngest son Jack was four when he started
at West Norfolk, Jack is currently at Loughborough
University and part of their rugby development
programme. Jack has been a product of the club’s
mini section from age 4 and progressed to playing
county rugby, usually at full back, as well as playing
for The English Lambs at U16 and U18. He has
played representative level rugby for London South
East Youth, Leicester Tigers, Northampton Saints,
Norfolk and Eastern Counties.
“Our youthful senior squad, with a few old heads
amongst them, continue to play our brand of rugby
which is open, fast and great to watch. Youth rugby
is naturally very important to the continued growth
of any club with our 2019 U18s players now forming
an essential part of the adult section and continue
to develop from their great run in the U18’s National Cup last season. The senior ladies team has also
been developing, winning promotion last year, while
our U15s reached the Plate final with many youth
players being chosen for the county and the Tigers
DDP trials!
“As one of the first RFU clubs to receive
accreditation in our region, we are now on our 3rd
round of accreditation. We are always looking to
improve our facilities, more recently we replaced
our toilets, installed new dugouts and installed new
first team pitch fencing, along with the installation
of Energy efficient flood lighting. We are aspiring to
undertake a major club redevelopment to improve
the facilities including installation of lift access, new
changing rooms and extended community areas,
if all goes to plan we will open our doors to the
club members and wider community to join us in
celebrating 100 years of rugby in 2025 at West
Norfolk.
“My own company Trundley Design have
sponsored the club in various ways over the past
ten years and have enjoyed doing so. Rugby is a
great sport which offers those involved great values
and life skills and I feel we are very much blessed
at West Norfolk RFC with a great amount of good
people who are willing and able to contribute a lot
while along the way having much fun themselves!”
76 Issue 89