Patients decrease Ambitious rugby club continues to grow

THE number of patients being admitted to Barnsley Hospital with Covid-19 is decreasing.

Almost 30 residents have been admitted to the site in the last seven days – a 15 per cent decrease on last week’s figures.

There are currently 22 patients in hospital with the virus, none of which are on ventilation beds.

A DODWORTH rugby club are hoping to become the largest team in South Yorkshire – and they’re showing no plans of slowing down.

Dodworth Miners’ ARLFC were founded in 1980 before folding in 2013 due to a lack of players.

However, the senior side was restarted in 2018 by Matthew Lock, and they played their first season in 2019 and won Yorkshire men’s division five.

The following year, the junior club was started by Matthew and Steve Moss, based at Dodworth Miners’ Welfare.

They initially had a mini age group and an under-seven team – but they now have 11 teams in total.

A spokesperson for the club told the Chronicle: “It’s developed very quickly – to say that two years ago we started with two training sessions for the juniors and one for the seniors and come next season we will now have nine juniors and two seniors age groups training on a weekly basis.

“We’ve got some absolutely fantastic volunteers and parents that play a massive part in the club and without them it wouldn’t be possible on a daily basis.

“We’ve now got kids and parents that have never been involved or exposed to rugby league bringing their kids to play rugby and in some instances the parents have also started to play.

“We’ve also had parents starting to not only support their own amateur clubs but now go and support various local professional teams, which is great.

“The future for the Dodworth Miners is extremely bright, we’ve currently got more than 120 children signed on in the 2022 season.

“We believe that this surpasses 160 to 170 kids in 2023 making us the largest rugby league club in South Yorkshire and this will only continue to grow in years to come as we don’t plan on slowing down.

“In the coming weeks Dodworth will be starting to go into local schools to provide rugby league sessions for the kids and showing them a fantastic alternative to football.”

If you want to get involved with the club, contact Matthew on 07790966043.