Inside my battle to help save amateur rugby. I volunteer at my local rugby club, Maidenhead, and the sense of family and camaraderie it brings is unmatched and worth fighting for

Will Greenwood 24 October 2024 1:10pm BST

I was born into rugby. There is a wonderful black-and-white picture of me at the Stadio Flaminio in Rome as a two-year-old on the pitch with my Dad, Mum and older sister (part-time mother) just after a game. Dad is still in full kit, in unbelievable shape, epic moustache. I am tucked right up against him, learning rugby by osmosis. My nanny, we joke, out in Italy in the 1970s was Brian Ashton. From there in the amateur era it was Preston Grasshoppers at the age of 13, then Waterloo, Durham University, and Harlequins – all as an amateur, playing because I loved it. Tuesdays and Thursdays 7.30pm until 9pm and Saturdays at 3pm, that drumbeat was part of my life, it set the rhythm

I finished playing in 2006 and lost that regular thud. For too long, about six or seven years. Then around 10 years ago, sat at my office computer, I rang up my old man and he said he couldn’t talk because he was off to coach at Rhyl RFC, well into his 70s.The phone went down and there I was in my suit thinking ‘why am I not doing that?’ I went online, searched for my local rugby club and found Maidenhead. I remembered playing there with England ‘A’, or maybe it was just training, my mind plays tricks. There was an added bonus; a 4G pitch, no filthy kit twice a week.

I jumped in the car and just turned up. I had been preaching, via Sky Sports TV show School of Hard Knocks, for years that everyone is welcome at a rugby club, just turn up. Alan Green was the head coach and I asked if I could join in. Most of the younger lads did not have a clue who I was, and the older lads were perplexed. I have been going ever since. I’m an unpaid volunteer, although I do get a free pint on match days. My kids have played a little bit there with my eldest in the 2nd XV. We have a paid-up coach, David Mobbs Smith, and a legendary chairman in Steve Bough.

Maidenhead play on a 4G pitch with the club boasting facilities as good as you will find anywhere in the game Credit: Polar Media House/Maidenhead Rugby Club

Sounds rosy, and it can be, but it has been hard physically and mentally. It got to a stage a couple of years ago, I think it was in December, when I found myself training with about 12 lads just before the Christmas holidays. Then there was the Papa John’s Cup at the back end of last year when there was a whole heap of positive footage about those teams who played. But when you dig down, everyone in our pool pulled out. Those who wanted to went through by default. You always need some context in life.

The reason I am mentioning all of this is that if we had kept doing the same thing, we would have ended up with 10 players this Christmas, then eight the next. Which made me think we have to do things slightly differently.

This is a club situated between the M4 and M40, surrounded by decent schools, with a 4G pitch and facilities as good as you will find anywhere. One caveat might be that we took a decision on paying players, or to put it another way, we put in a structure with clear parameters. The 1st XV match-day squad get £50 each. That’s 18 players, only three on the bench, because if you have more than that you put a stress on getting a 2nd XV out. There are great clubs around us. Rams and Chinnor, for example, are leagues above us and pay decent coin, chasing the Premiership and having to spend. And good luck to them. But there are also clubs in our league, at Level 5, local clubs and no need to mention names or get into the pros and cons, who throw some decent cash about. They have some players there where you go, ‘wow’. These clubs are a strong attraction for the best players in the area.

I enjoy some time doom-scrolling on social media – don’t judge me for it – and love the updates from England Rugby and a lot of the international sides, while Exeter make Henry Slade look like an Armani model every weekend. Really cool footage. There is a narrative, they are telling you a story. You understand the person behind the athlete. And I thought, why don’t we do that? I reached out on Instagram and two lads, Brad and Conor, who have a production company called Polar Media, replied. They turned up with their cameraone night and produced some unbelievable footage.

So I said if I can find a way of covering your costs – which I’ve done with the chairman and a private benefactor, putting some funds in a pot to buy them go-pros and some editing time – then I think there is a story to tell about that level. No one cares if Bracknell snatched a last-minute draw against us, but if I could show you our lock Phil Wells, who works shifts on the train lines, or Kate Swinn, our lead volunteer co-ordinator, who works at Vodafone and must have 500 hours in a day, these are incredible people worthy of highlighting.