Debut for special logo
WIDNES fans will get their first opportunity to view the players in their new home kit in tomorrow night’s Festive Derby against Warrington Wolves.
And taking pride of place on the new jersey will be the ‘Beat The Scrum’ logo.
One or two eyebrows were raised when the Vikings teamed up with the National Health Service to make Beat The Scrum their main shirt sponsor for the coming season.
But all parties concerned reckon they are onto a winner.
Dave Sweeney of NHS Halton Clinical Commissioning Group believes the campaign – designed to encourage better use of NHS services – and the relationship with the Vikings, can grow into something much bigger.
He told the Weekly News: “Across the region, there are lots of alternatives to Accident & Emergency. A&E is the right place for some people. If you’ve got a life-threatening condition or an illness that needs treating at that level, that’s where you need to be. But there are lots of people using A&E that don’t need to – they could use the ● alternatives. We’ll be monitoring how the campaign works and we’re looking to bring in some university support to evaluate the results. We want to go national with this.
“Every single player and everyone else involved with the club wants to play their part and we’ve got people involved from other clubs too. So let’s do it on a bigger scale!
“Beat The Scrum will be proudly displayed on the front of the players’ shirts when they run out this year and why not? The NHS is the pride of this country. But the demand is going up and we need to manage it and we need to promote it’s efficient use. The videos we’ve done so far are absolutely brilliant and I think people will enjoy them and they’ll do some good.
“Denis (Betts) and the crew here want to help the community and they’ve been doing some fantastic work which we want to enhance. I’m confident Widnes are going to do better on the pitch this year but what I can say for sure is that what happens of the pitch is fantastic; I’ve never seen anything like it in my career.”
Sweeney’s NHS colleage Mel Pickup supported his stance and is also confident the Beat The Scrum campaign will produce positive results.
She said: “The relationship with Widnes Vikings has been a long-standing one. We’re building on that and our intention is to ramp it up even further. I chair the Mid-Mersey A&E Delivery Board and it’s our job to see that our hospitals and out-of-hospital services are resilient enough to cope with demand throughout the winter.
“The idea of the Beat The Scrum campaign is built around the success we had with our campaign in the summer when we saw a reduction in the number of people coming to A&E. We thought maybe we should do that on a grander scale and see what more we can do. We managed to persuade our partners across the whole of our patch – even those that support other rugby league clubs – to support us in our endeavours.”
Meanwhile, Vikings boss Betts has welcomed the Beat The Scrum sponsorship and is proud of the club’s community work.
“We’re looking for a point of difference. There are plenty of rugby clubs all doing the same stuff,” insisted Betts.
“When I first came in here, the Widnes club I remembered was very much a communitybased organisation. I think some sports clubs have lost that community emphasis in the professional era. We’re proud to be involved in something which helps people focus on their health and wellbeing.
“We want our local communities to thrive and we want to thrive alongside them. Everyone at this club buys into the message and we’ve seen the
Tuesday, December 28, 1982 LOSING 8-2 against Leeds at Fartown in the semi-final of the John Player Trophy, Widnes clearly demonstrated how difficult it is to play the game without the ball.
The limited possession the Chemics did have was thrown away with bad handling and passing. Widnes’s only points came when a Mick Burke penalty gave them a shortlived first half lead before four further penalties gave Leeds the win. ● WIDNES VIKINGS: On This Day is available now at £9.99 from the Vikings Superstore.