Due to vital maintenance being carried out, the use of the club is restricted this week. From Monday (3 June) to Friday (6June) the rear part of the clubhouse – kitchen, changing and maintenance rooms and the back door access route will be closed. The Club Room, front of house toilets and gym facilities will remain open as usual and normal activities will continue, subject to fitting in with these arrangements

The list of appearances and scorers for the 2nd team and Veterans is attached this week and the Colts and Ladies will follow next week. One of our key objectives last season, was to restore the number of games played by the 2nd team. This was seen as vital to the underpinning of the 1st team and ensuring that anyone who couldn’t get a game in the first side, could still play regularly to a good standard. Jake Andrews continued to manage the side, but despite his great efforts it proved difficult, with the high player turnover in the first team weakening the second squad and often leaving them short. Our experiences were shared by other local clubs who found it equally difficult to field two senior sides on a regular basis. We played only 8 games over the season and won 4. Games were mainly played in the Warwickshire merit league.

A welcome innovation was the re-establishment of a Veterans team for the first time since 2002. They played a game a month under lights on Friday nights . The first fixture was in October against Chipping Norton which was won by 36-26. They were very flush for players and spectators numbered around 200 for this first match. The Veterans proved to be a popular way of offering occasional games to former and casual players, alongside old friends and teammates without any pressure to play every week. As the playing base developed it had the added advantage of being able to pool resources with the Seconds and Colts when they were short and a couple of game were played on a mixed basis. They won 5 of their 6 games.

The structure of the leagues was announced last week and we remain in Counties 1 SW and will play Alcester, Bromyard, Camp Hill, Droitwich, Earlsdon, Evesham, Kidderminster, Ledbury, Manor Park, Old Leamingtonians and Worcester. The fixtures are expected shortly

The Royals have no home fixtures this week but the 1st X13 and U15's are away to Sherwood on Saturday. The Royals are back home again onSaturday 14 June against Coventry Bears

The club will be open on Saturday afternoon as usual and the Premiership semi-finals will be on the TV

Reminder - the Autumn internationals at Twickenham are Australia (Nov 1) Fiji (Nov 8) New Zealand (Nov 15) and Argentina (23 Nov). We have a set allocation of 28 tickets for each of the 4 games. Applications for Australia and NZ should be made by the closing date of Monday 16 June and will be allocated according to the demand received by that date. Applications for Fiji and Argentina will be on the basis of first come first served. The Fiji tickets are all sold. An application form showing eligibility and prices is attached

Coming Up
AGM - due to timetabling problems we have decided to defer the AGM to Wednesday 23 July. Formal notice of the meeting will be sent shortly

1 August - Club dinner

Johnlizlyons@btopenworld.com