University match back at The Rec

BUCS Super Rugby returns to The Rec after a three-year gap this October as Team Bath men’s 1st XV take on league champions Durham in the Rengen-sponsored Anniversary Game.

The last edition of the University of Bath’s student-sport showcase fixture in 2019 saw more than 6,000 spectators attend to roar Team Bath to a 52-25 victory over Cardiff, with 11 tries scored during a hugelyentertaining evening.

Covid lockdown and scheduling conflicts prevented the match taking place during the past couple of seasons but it will return on Wednesday 26th October (6.30pm) and free tickets are available now at teambath.com/anniversarygame.

It will be the fifth staging of the Anniversary Game, which emerged from the University’s 50th birthday celebrations in 2016, and the fourth to be proudly sponsored by Rengen Developments, which is also an overall sponsor of Team Bath.

The Bath-based development and lettings company, whose head office is in Argyle Street, is run by founder and CEO Iestyn Lewis, a former rugby player and coach at the University of Bath who also played for Bath Rugby.

“It’s great to be back,” said Lewis. “It’s important that we reconnected with the university to sponsor this first game back at The Rec and we are delighted to be involved with the match once again.

“I was a sports scholar at the University and that provided me with excellent opportunities, both within sport and my wider business career.

“It’s very important for me to put something back into the University and the community, and to give other people the kind of opportunity I was fortunate to get.

“I played at The Rec while I was at the university and it’s obviously a great stage. The Anniversary Game is perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for students to experience the stadium, the crowd and gain that wider experience of playing on a stage like this before moving into their academic and working lives.”

Team Bath have lifted the Iestyn Lewis Trophy in two of the three previous Rengen-sponsored Anniversary Games, the other victory coming via a last-gasp penalty against Leeds Beckett in 2018.

Aaron James, university head of rugby, said: “Entry is free and if you come along you’ll get to enjoy a really good atmosphere.”