Fixtures and New Players

Dear All

First I would like to apologise for the lack of information coming through the website recently. This has been down to my finally being able to take a short break, and rolling out the first week of pre-season training and ensuring that 50 players and three new coaches are all fully functional and well organised.

I am glad to report that our first week of pre season training has been fantastic. All involved have worked tremendously hard and we have taken a very positive first step on our way to becoming a joined up team both on and off the pitch.

You may have read in the CEN the announcement of Ien Ascroft–Leigh, Mark George and Jaco Du Toit. To summarise the boys briefly:

Ien Ascroft – Leigh: Second Row from Newbury. Mobile young lock with experience of playing in the Championship. Part of our Community Team.

Mark George: Tight Head Prop. Graduate of Hartpury College, played for England Students under the tutelage of our mentor Keith Green. Mark is a mobile ball carrying prop who will add a level of depth to our front row resources to ensure a constant challenge for places. Part of our Community Team.

Jaco Du Toit: Wing/FB who joins us from the Westcombe Park club. Jaco is comfortable playing in either position providing us with a depth of resource. Good defensively and very quick and elusive runner who is also a high class defender.

I have finally put the finishing touches to our fixture lists and I would like to highlight a couple of points that I am very excited to announce:

Wanderers/Colts:

We are now in a position of being able to offer regular fixtures to our supporters on a weekly basis. The fixture lists have been created (wherever possible) to ensure that when the 1^st XV are away the club still has 2, 3 or 4 fixtures going on at the club (including the social sides).

Town and Gown:

I am delighted to announce that the club will be playing the University Blues XV on WEDNESDAY 17^th NOVEMBER (7.15PM KO @ Grange Road).

Prior to this, our Wanderers will be playing the University U21 XV on MONDAY 11^th October (7.15 KO @ Grange Road).

It’s a fantastic opportunity for bringing the club and university back together again and what an experience for our young Wanderers to be playing at Grange Road for the first time.

Places on our summer camp are filling up and there has been some terrific interest from schools looking to get involved with our Community Project (more on that to come).

In closing I would like to wish you all the best and look forward to seeing you on the 14^th August for our game versus Moseley (or why not come down to training and meet the boys!!?).

Kind regards

Crooksy