Walking Rugby has been on the rise for the last couple of years, with the sport bringing a different perspective on the game many people love and play.
Every Tuesday night, people around the Cheltenham area and beyond come to participate in walking rugby at the Cheltenham Civil Service Club.
Coming in as a new person, it felt inclusive and a place where new people can come and meet people from different ages and backgrounds.
Lee Janes, who leads the club, talked me through how the club formed and where it is going: “We’ve seen other clubs around the country start to do walking rugby, and it’s more aimed at older players, players who can’t play contact anymore, that sort of thing.
“Also there’s an inclusivity side of it where people maybe have a disability or youngsters aren’t confident enough to play contact. So it was an idea of trying to get everyone together.”
Janes founded the club two years ago and has seen a surge of interest in the sport with 24 people coming to a session in the summer.
“We’ve been going for just over two years, and at our height, we’ve had 24 in the summer, and that’s quite hard to manage.
“So we do certain things to make space for players, we give them a task to do if they get tackled or score or whatever, just to create gaps on the field for people to try and exploit.
“We’ve got mums, we’ve got kids, we’ve got some dads, we’ve got a good mix of ex-players as well,” said Janes when explaining the sort of inclusive the club brings people.
Janes makes sure that everyone feels like they are welcomed but also challenged when playing the new sport, as it helps the young kids feel challenged whilst giving older people an outlet to play the sport again.
Chris, 53, who participated in the session on Tuesday, discussed how the club had helped him through a tough time in his life when his father-in-law died last August.
“My father-in-law unfortunately died in a spitfire accident, believe it or not, last August. He used to come to walking rugby and they used to call him the Red Baron because he was a pilot.
“And they posted something really nice on the Facebook page about his passing, and that gives you a flavour of the community spirit that’s here.”
Looking ahead, the game is growing every week and Janes wants the club to grow with the idea of creating a team to compete in the walking rugby leagues.
“We’re going to put together a proper team that’s going to go and compete against other clubs as well. So it would almost be an extension of this group, but then others who didn’t want to do it, they’re not forced into it,
“So there’s some who keen as well, you can tell the competitive ones, and we’re going to try and get a team together and play locally,” said Janes.
The club also wants to reach out to different organisations that help with disabilities and challenges, and Janes is a big advocate for it.
“We have tried to reach out to a few places via social media and it’s something we’re conscious we need to do more of as well, as I said to you earlier, we’ve got a couple of guys who have got problems like that, disabilities, if you like, or illnesses.
“And to be fair, they were both two fantastic players and they come down and they’re in the thick of it and you can hear the humour that the banter that’s going on as well, and they’re right in the thick of it and they really enjoy it and they get something out of it.”
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