Each team member has vital role to play

Wheelchair rugby, initially known as ‘murderball,’ was invented in 1977 in Canada by a group of tetraplegic wheelchair basketball players who were tired of losing out on court time to their more functional team mates. The sport spread to the USA and arrived in Britain during the early 1980s when the States team flew over to give an exhibition at Stoke Mandeville. The first UK clubs were established soon after and there are now more than 20 teams. Canterbury currently sit top of BT Super Series Division 2, coming up against the likes of Ospreys, Gloucester Titans, Liverpool Lions and the Caledonian Crushers. Wheelchair rugby is played on a basketball court, with boundary lines, a centre line, centre circle and two key areas. Two cones at each end of the court mark out a goal area and a goal is scored when a player carries a ball across the line. Games are played in four eightminute quarters and each team has 40 seconds to score a goal before the ball gets turned over. Chair-tochair contact is allowed but personto-chair and person-to-person contact is not. Teams are made up of up to 12 players, with four on court at any one time. Each person has a vital role to play, which is ensured by using a classification system based on muscle function and strength. Classes range from 0.5 to 3.5 and the team of four players must total eight points or less during play. For more details about the sport, go to http://gbwr.org.uk/