Following the recent announcement by the RFU that the remaining part of the season is now cancelled, we will now need to temporarily shut down our club for what we believe will be about 3 months at least.

It is really expensive to play in the National Leagues and to achieve ‘Top 50’ status. Additionally, there are significant operational costs to keep us there, in addition to the costs of supporting our Ladies, our Youth’s, our Minis, our Social Rugby sections and of course maintaining our extensive top-class facilities. When your income dries up literally over-night, we have a big problem on our hands! To compound the financial problem of not being able to host our remaining home games, our two largest fundraising events, namely the Greene King IPA 7’s and Club Ball, have also had to be postponed, with increasing uncertainty as to whether they will actually go ahead at all. If you then throw into the mix that a main club sponsor is stepping back next season, then you can begin to see and appreciate the size of the task in front of us.

(If you or your company would be interested in becoming a main or secondary sponsor please get in touch: chairman@bserufc.co.uk ).

We are not alone, in that most clubs will be suffering the same problems as us and I would expect we are now all in the territory of only the strongest will survive, particularly in our league. And although the RFU have offered limited financial support for some smaller club's it is unlikely we will be included

My overwhelming impression, particularly following our emergency meeting last week, is that if everyone pulls together, by that I mean not just committee members but staff, players, coaches, our valued members and of course our sizeable, loyal supporter base, we can get through this tough period in our history.

I spend a lot of time during each working week at our club and every time I enter the ground’s, I feel so proud of what we have all achieved from successes on and off the pitch, both in the past and present day. It has however been hard fought and my worry is that if we slip back, it will be so much harder to get back to where we are today. This does not need to happen, so if we really do pull together and if everyone did as much as they could to support our club now, we can ride out this difficult storm!

Your club really does need you more than ever before!

Please give as much as you can afford, every penny donated will be massively appreciated.

In anticipation, we thank you so much!

David Reid (Club Chairman)