Dursley’s new meaning to rugby strip
Two inspirational coaches have motivated Dursley RFC players to both strip down to their pants and go the extra mile in a year of charity fundraising.
Back in April they shaved their heads for the NHS Combined Charity Fund, the challenge spread across the South West by Devonport Services RFC and Thornbury RFC pushing for a contest.
With generous support from first XV sponsor, Iron and Earth Equipment Ltd, Ross Reeves, Colts coach and third team captain, took part. Only days later everyone was devastated when he died following a heart attack.
Losing Ross, who’d been an inspiration to many, saw the Colts shaving their heads in his memory, taking the total to £6,244 for NHS charities, an appropriate cause as the club has many players, committee members, partners and parents who are either current or past NHS workers.
Josh Bailey says that first team players then “wanted to do more to commemorate such a great servant to the club.”
So Josh, Jake Ward, the men's senior rugby manager, and Chris Perrett, the first XV captain, put their bald heads together and, Ross having been such a role model, taking many Colts on into senior rugby, they decided on a Year of Fundraising for the British Heart Foundation
That saw them scaling Snowdon, wearing budgy smugglers. On that occasion they were accompanied by Ross’s son Jack who played for England U18s last season and is a Gloucester Academy player. Their strip was prompted by a competition run by Rugby Pass and Budgy Smugglers, whereby a team wearing them while raising money for charity would be in contention for a £5000 kit-out for their club and 100 pairs of Budgy Smugglers to sell.
Says Josh: “This was a chance to raise awareness for the BHF and commemorate Ross with a completely outrageous challenge and, hopefully, win the big prize.”
With only two weeks to perform the challenge, one of the club’s senior sponsors, Smiths, gifted the use of a company minibus and the Snowdozen, set off on Sunday 26th July. Stripped down to customised Dursley RFC Budgy Smugglers, they headed up the mountain.
Josh explains: “Only a handful of us had actually been up a mountain before so this was a venture into the unknown wearing very little. People took pictures with us, gave us cash donations and took our Just Giving details. About halfway up it was absolutely Baltic, which spurred us on to getting up and down in three hours, no mean feat.”
This set a pretty high bar for the rest of the year. They decided to walk the Cotswold Way, once more in Budgy Smugglers, at the end of August. During 102 miles of incredibly hard walking, Frocester Fayre provided a support vehicle with homemade farmshop food and water. Despite injuries to the original team, three - Ed and Dave Sheldon and Jack Pinker - completed the walk in an impressive 43 hours.
As they took time out to recover, Jimmy Exelby from Budgy Smugglers UK and the former Scotland star Jim Hamilton arrived at Dursley to make a socially distanced award of the £5000 club kit out and the 100 pairs of Budgy Smugglers to design and sell on.
The next challenge, delayed by lockdown 2, will take place in the New Year, when they want to cover the 3150 miles distance from Dursley RFC to TMR Rugby Club in Montreal where Ross Reeves initially played. This time they want as many people as possible to take part by walking, running, cycling, swimming, rowing, paddle-boarding etc.
During the most recent lockdown the Dursley RFC family lost Ali Kerr to prostate cancer. Ali was a huge influence at the club, not only playing for many years but coaching minis and youth, serving on the club committee and as treasurer.
Says Josh: “His loss was felt immensely not only within the rugby club but throughout our community. This led to us, as a club, undertaking Movember and also designing our free 100 pairs of Budgy Smugglers to commemorate both Ross and Ali, with all proceeds donated to their respective charities. If they sell at £30 a pair it will make a further £3000 to add to the £6,243.97 from the head shave, £11,764 for the British Heart Foundation Challenges, and £4055 from Movember.
“We want to see what we can do over the course of a year up to July 2021, inspired by two remarkable Dursley legends - Ross and Ali.”
Driven by Josh, a first XV player who’s been at the club for 23 of his 27 years, first team captain Chris Perrett and senior men’s manager, Jake Ward, there’s little doubt that they will do Ross and Ali proud - and they would be proud too of the players putting together 110 shoeboxes of Christmas presents for local primary school children.
