Welcome to the new season

Thankfully, we are finally up and running and what a weekend it has been.

For those of you who joined us at Kelham Road, what a perfect start for our First XV with ten tries scored against Syston. It was terrific to see players returning to our club, to see a number back from long-term injury, from studying elsewhere and along with some of last year's colts continuing their impressive development into the senior game.

Our seconds led for the first time by in a competitive game by Charlie Musson won at Market Rasen in what I hear was a great contest. Thank you to AB Project Management for sponsoring the coach travel. After such a great win, I have no doubt spirits were high on the journey home.

This season we have a much bigger squad and real competition for places, with around 50 senior players training. We also have a third team with great leadership from Martin Towndrow. This Friday they entertain Southwell thirds at Kelham Road, a little warm-up game before we invite them en masse to our place on 10 October. Do you have the date in your diary? Our Colts also play on the same evening after their win over Matlock on Saturday.

This weekend our senior Women also welcomed Paviors and secured another victory. Well done to Sarah Driver, our new captain, and to our new coach Shaun Turl who is now rebuilding our squad as we look forward to a great season.

A summer like no other

The well-publicised drought has caused huge problems for many rugby clubs and schools with delayed starts and financial implications felt right across the game. We have been extremely fortunate. Our pitches and grounds are just amazing. To our Pitch and our irrigation teams - Thank you. The feedback from our visiting teams has been incredible.

Thank you to our sponsors

As we start the new season, we would like to thank all of our sponsors who have renewed. Your support allows us to continue our programme of planned works and to back so much of what the club does for our members and our schools community programme.

This season we are also delighted to welcome new shirt sponsors to sit alongside Newark Storage who have been with us for over 3 decades. Whitham Prospect School, Intelli-Hood, and J.O Plowright & Co - thank you. In addition to this, we are also introducing the opportunity to be a Matchday sponsor. Agrovista are our first sponsors on the 10th of October. Stan the sweep has also agreed to be our second matchday sponsor. If you would like to know more, please ask.

BE THE MATCHDAY SPONSOR

New flood lights on Pitch 6.

When we launched the new 250 Lottery last season, one of our first objectives was to add floodlighting to Pitch 6. Due to its success and the support of Lost Village has allowed us to install floodlights ahead of schedule. This will now allow us to manage and protect our pitches simply because we can spread the load, The importance of this is huge, with the benefits being seen later in the season. New members to our 250 Lottery are still welcome. details on how to join are available on our website. Remember that someone is going to win £1,000 in December.

250 CLUB LOTTERY

Autumn Series

You will hopefully have seen that we have announced our Autumn Series of events. "The big one" - " our Legends Evening" sitting alongside "Hoggy's pop-up restaurant" all take place before the 4th of December. If you have any questions, please let us know.

In addition to this, you see today that we have launched our "Family day" that is planned for the 17th of October. Chef Matt will be feeding "Kids for a Quid" with a new single course menu for Mums, Dads, and Grandparents. This is based on your feedback - Let's make it a day that we all remember, whilst supporting our boys against Mellish. Details are again available on our website “newarkrugby.com”.

Autumn series at Kelham Road

Making the most of our space

We all know that we enjoy some of the best facilities in the Midlands. Like most businesses we face some strong headwinds. With this in mind, we have taken the decision to rebalance our cost base by renting out some of our clubhouse space. Our first objective is to find a suitable partner to use our medical room. If you know anybody who might be interested, please point them in our direction.

PHYSIO ROOM TO LET AT NEWARK RUFC

Your feedback is Important.

12 months ago, we learned that 60% of parents who join us on a Sunday morning do not enter our clubhouse. We still want to know why this is. So, we are looking for feedback on our Sunday food menu and wider offering to our members. How can we improve? In addition to this, we are keen to listen to any ideas that you may have. We believe that "Feedback is a gift" - This is how we can learn and improve. So please also share any other feedback you have.

Matchday programme and volunteers

Thank you to Rob Wildman for once again taking the lead on our Matchday programme. We plan to take it digital before Christmas. We are also looking for volunteers to help with our Christmas raffle, The Tractor Show at the showground on the 7th and 8th of November and finally we require an administrator for our Senior women's team, If you can spare a few hours - please get in touch with Ann please at events@newarkrugby.com. It makes such a big difference.

The season ahead

Finally, I'd like to wish all of our players, across every age group, both male and Female a brilliant 2026-27 season. Many of you will have seen that our pre-season friendlies went really well and as mentioned above, the first weekend has been brilliant.

Long may that continue.

David Godfrey,
Chairman,
Newark RUFC