Two Borders rugby clubs share in £12,500 grant handout by new charity

The Borders clubs have been handed payouts of £2,500 each by the Grass-Roots Rugby for Everyone Awards Trust, known as Great for short.

Kelso will put that funding towards upgrading their floodlights at Croft Park and Hawick’s youth rugby operation will use their to help cover travel costs for their age-grade teams.

Kelso’s grant was handed over to club president Eric Paxton by their ex-winger Roger Baird, also a Great trustee, at their Poynder Park main ground.

Hawick have yet to be presented with theirs.

“It’s great to be able to come back down here and see the work that is going into developing youth rugby,” Baird, 64, told the Offside Line website.

“The senior team are a great advert for that, with so many young lads who have come through the school and Kelso Harlequins, with a great development officer in Murray Hastie and others doing a great job too.

“When you hear about the costs they have now – buses costing £500, for example, just to go and play another team in the Borders, or nearly £1,000 for a game in the city – they need help.

“The club here are going all week long, with lots of the town’s clubs using it during the week, walking rugby getting older people together, and that’s fantastic for the community.

“This is where rugby starts for us all and where you fall in love with the game, so we have to find ways to give kids the opportunity to play with their mates.”

Three other handouts of £2,500 went to Stirlingshire’s Strathendrick, Coatbridge’s Waysiders Drumpellier and Forfar’s Strathmore Community Rugby Trust.

Representatives of those clubs and trust were presented with cheques by Scotland national rugby team head coach Gregor Townsend, a patron of the charity, at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium last Friday.

Great was founded last year and its other trustees, chaired by Andy Scott, are Caitlin Cooke, Willie Allan, Jonny Gaul and Shonaig Macpherson.

Melrose director of rugby and vice-president Rob Moffat is among its trustees, along with ex-Gala centre Iain Berthinussen and John Brown.

Explaining the charity’s purpose, Baird, a 27-times-capped Scottish international and 1983 British and Irish Lion, added: “It was the brainchild of Andy, a Stewart’s Melville stalwart.

“Andy had this idea of appealing to people to help grass-roots rugby and give kids the chance that we had in this great game when we played.

“I’m totally of the mind that one of our main educational pillars is sport, and the greatest thing in sport is team sport and the life lessons that it gives to kids about discipline, looking after your mates, being on time, what you put in is what you get out – just life lessons.

“Great is a vehicle for people to donate money, leave money in their wills, do a monthly donation or a one-off donation or whatever, to help us help communities engage more children in sport and enable them to experience all the benefits we did growing up playing rugby.”

Thanking Great for its grant to Kelso, Hastie said: “In partnership with Kelso High School, we have well over 100 youth players training weekly at Croft Park during the rugby season.

“As a club, we want to ensure that our players and coaches have the best environment for their development.

“Kelso are very grateful to the Grass-Roots Rugby for Everyone Awards Trust for their grant as we look to continue to promote and grow the game of rugby in the Kelso community.”

For further details, go to https://greatrugby.scot/