We still face long road trips despite changes

I READ with interest the articles about the restructuring of the Leagues in last week’s paper. My club are currently playing at Level 5 in the SW Division and the only difference to last season is that the league has gone down to 12 from 14.

This means we are still travelling to Cornwall and Devon to play our friends from Camborne, Launceston, Ivybridge and Devon Port Services which means that we are travelling approximately 2,300 miles at a cost of circa £7k. We managed to get a travelling allowance of £1,500 last season, whether there is any assistance this year is yet to be cascaded.

In a draft roll out in March we had been moved to the Midlands division which dropped our travel down by circa 1,000 miles but without any consultation we along with other Gloucestershire clubs were put back in the SW Leagues, which has caused an issue as our season’s model for recruitment of both players and back room staff, who the bulk are amateurs, was based on.

If we had been kept informed at least we would have known and been able to adjust our strategy.

The league we are in is a very good standard and as one of the 14 teams in Gloucester we are very proud to be competing at this standard but excessive travelling means that we like other teams in our position can’t select our strongest teams for away games as players are not paid so would have to give up Saturday mornings at work to travel to the bulk of the games.

The RFU has made a point of stressing these changes were done with consultation. I would disagree, as they do not seem to listen to anyone with a different point of view to theirs.

Hopefully we will hold our own next season and continue to fly the flag for true Grassroots Rugby. Martin Townsend Director of Rugby Old Centralians RFC