Meet this month’s Club of the Month – Leicester Tigers WRC.
A club that has grown in membership, structure and ambition over the last couple of years.
The Tigers are currently soaring high, in 2022, the Tigers were strong contenders in the WR5s league and were only beaten by the 2022 league champions, Northampton Saints. The Midlands team are set to win the 2023 Wheelchair Rugby: Fours Premiership league after two successful tournaments have seen them go unbeaten in the league so far.
It has not always been this way for the club though, who were struggling with low membership numbers during the COVID-19 national lockdowns.
Fast forward two years and the club have 29 registered members playing across three teams in both disciplines of wheelchair rugby, their committee has been revitalised with members taking on new roles bringing a fresh set of ideas and future vision. Tom Folwell, the club’s new secretary has continued the good communication and organisation from his predecessor and has taken to his new role well with a pro-active attitude. He and club mate, Victoria Ross have also both recently completed GBWRs Level 1 Safe Session training course which is the first step on the coaching pathway for the pair.
New roles have also been acquired by club stalwart, Rob Tarr, as he has joined the Leicester Tigers Community Foundation as a Trustee, strengthening the ties between the wheelchair rugby club and RFU club.
In the nature of developing and strengthening relationships with other organisations, the Tigers have also been supporting a new outfit based in neighbouring county, Derby. Tigers head coach, Darren Mathews has been attending taster sessions and weekly training sessions with Burton WRC as they developed and have grown from an idea to an established wheelchair rugby club. Darren’s wealth of knowledge and experience has been invaluable to the club, who are seeing a steady influx of new members join each week no doubt fuelled by Darren’s engaging training sessions.
As mentioned previously, the club had a successful run during last season’s WR5s competition and carried on their good form during a trip to Poland last Autumn where the team came up against rival team Northampton Saints aswell as Polish outfits, 4K Jokers and IKS Jezdzcy Mikolow. The Tigers wheelchair rugby fives team benefitted greatly from the appointment of Jamie Stead MBE as their new head coach before their trip to Poland. Jamie gained his Level 2 Coaching in Wheelchair Rugby qualification earlier in 2022 and was quick to secure a role within the clubs coaching set-up, bringing his elite experience with him and transferring this into the developing discipline. The implementation paid off, with Leicester Tigers cruising past their opponents and winning all their games, including a re-run of the 2022 WR5s final against Northampton Saints. Read more about the Tigers trip to Poland here.
GBWR would like to commend Leicester Tigers on their ongoing developments and advocacy within the sport and would encourage anyone interested in getting involved with the club to visit their website or contact Club Secretary, Tom Folwell.
