As 2024 draws to a close and we welcome 2025 with its new challenges we have to thank all of our sponsors, supporters and volunteers without whom Canterbury Hellfire would simple not exist. We are very lucky as a Wheelchair Rugby club to have such close ties to Canterbury Rugby club, Sittingbourne Rugby Club, Kent RFU as well as the local community of East Kent. These close bonds not only help to spread the word about our amazing sport but help us stay afloat.
Wheelchair Rugby is unfortunately an expensive sport with chairs costing upwards of £8000 and running costs of around £100 per chair per year. There is also training and event hire which we thank EKC Canterbury College and Canterbury Christ Church Sports Centre for their support. In total we need around £4,000 just to tread water. It would be amazing if we could just rock up to a pitch and grass, grab a ball and start a session. The reality is we need a team of volunteers to transport the kit to a sport hall, get the chairs ready and help players transfer into them, set up the court ready for a match and then the reverse at the end of each session.
So we are very blessed to have local organisations such as the Cornwallis East Kent Freemasons who were generous enough to donate £1,000 to Canterbury Hellfire. Led by the efforts of Bill May who came to Canterbury Rugby to learn about what we do and to the recent Gill Laurie cup against Brighton Buccaneers to see Wheelchair Rugby first hand, an event which we won two games to one bring the cup back home.
This donation will be used to fund entry into the GBWR WR5 National Competition which is going to be a major step up for the team after only playing in the development leagues and friendlies with other teams over the last few years. The Nationals will be chance to show how much we have grown, how skillful our team are becoming and learn from playing against the very best teams in the United Kingdom at the moment.
