Northampton Saints Wheelchair Rugby is celebrating achieving a significant milestone with the sport’s governing body.
The Club has become one of only six nationwide to successfully pass Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby’s membership process and receive official accreditation.
It means that Saints Wheelchair Rugby can now promote itself as a GBWR member club, having met all standards expected of the sport’s governing body.
Included in the process was establishing policies for health and safety, anti-bullying, anti-doping and safeguarding along with a Code of Conduct for senior players, junior players and parents.
“It was a real team effort to achieve this and required multiple departments to liaise and work together,” said Saints Wheelchair Rugby head coach Jamie Higgins.
“There’s a large number of clubs across the UK now and there are only six clubs that have completed the process – we are proud to be one of them.
Jamie Higgins
“It shows that we are running the club through best practice. We’ve got everything in place to run the club for our players and participants and the local community that is engaging in our programme.
“My gratitude goes to Connor Fleming [Community Director], Tom Hobman [Financial Controller] and Sara Young [Chief People Officer] for their support in getting this over the line, bringing all our policies together alongside a club constitution for the wheelchair rugby team.”
Next up for the team is the Midlands Development League leg at University of East Anglia, when Saints will tackle hosts Norfolk Knights and Coventry Stampede on Saturday 24 August.
It is an exciting time for the Club and wheelchair rugby in general as GBWR is in the process of creating a WR5s nationals competition, which will see the best clubs from throughout the United Kingdom battle it out in a weekend-long tournament.
The next challenge for Saints Wheelchair Rugby is recruiting more young players.
Higgins added: “The biggest thing for us now is around player recruitment, we really want to grow our junior programme. The numbers have dropped off slightly since the changes in eligibility to play, and we want to encourage more junior participation now – players aged eight to 17.”
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