Widnes head out into the country to boost fitness
WITH a September restart looking increasingly unlikely for the community game, Widnes RUFC members are taking up a suggestion from club stalwart Frank Lawless in his other guise as Chairman of the Halton Heritage Partnership.
The national Heritage Open Days event is to be run slightly differently this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Partnership will be focussing on local walks, points/sites of interest and cycle routes in keeping with the theme of Hidden Nature, loosely based on a journey through the country’s urban heartlands and surrounding landscape.
Widnes RUFC has been at the forefront of preserving and extending greenspace within the borough over the past decade and is ideally positioned to support the project.
With a tradition of Vets walking weekends stretching back into the last century and bike trips that predate the current cycling boom by several years, the Wids will be happy to provide 5, 10 and 20-mile routes which will begin and end at their Heath Road headquarters.
Club president Martin Griffiths and head coach Andy McIntosh agree that, in the absence of actual rugby, this is an ideal way to start the 2020/21 season and player involvement at all levels will be firmly encouraged.
As Covid-19 restrictions denied the Vets their planned weekend in the Dales, president Griffiths celebrated his virtual inauguration last month by striding out with three fellow ex-players on a ten mile hike, taking in the edges of Warrington, St Helens and Widnes.
While the footpaths across the three peaks of Pex Hill, Rainhill and the Dream may not have the rugged contours that attracted the Tour de France to Yorkshire, they perfectly illustrated the possibilities offered in an industrial setting.
Heritage Open Days this year will run from September 11-20.
For further information about the Halton Heritage Partnership then go to: http://haltonheritage.co.uk/halton-heritage-partnership/.
Meanwhile, more recently, a number of the players got together for a social game of golf which helped let off a bit of steam after weeks of competitive action.
They organised a mini competition with some loosely applied rules to the game of golf!
Nevertheless, a good time was had by all, and it was great for everyone to catch up again after a very unusual break from the rugby club.
Later on, some of the squad caught up for a socially distanced pint in the new look, recently opened clubhouse.