COUNCILLORS have backed a call to support the city’s crisis-hit rugby club.
Long-time Worcester Warriors season ticket holder and former mayor Cllr Stephen Hodgson led the call for Worcester City Council to support the club as it looks for new owners in the wake of administration and expulsion from rugby’s Premiership.
Cllr Hodgson, who traveled across Europe supporting Warriors, said he was “concerned and dismayed” by the club’s plummet, taking a swipe at owners Colin Goldring and Jason Whittingham at a meeting of Worcester City Council in the Guildhall on Monday (October 17).
Worcester Warriors was forced into administration in September and suspended from the league earlier this month with the contracts of all staff and players torn up.
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Cllr Stephen Hodgson, who said there was a “real spirit among supporters to get the club back up and running again as soon as possible,” also called on the council to lend a financial hand to the club by hiring its facilities for events and taking out ads.
Councilors also highlighted the important work the Warriors Community Foundation does to support all sections of the city and bring rugby to many of society’s forgotten, vulnerable and marginalized communities.
Fellow season ticket holder Cllr Lucy Hodgson also criticized the club’s former owners but remained hopeful for the future, paying tribute to Warriors players and staff who worked “tirelessly” and often without pay.
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“Worcester Warriors will play again at Sixways and there will be a new owner who respects the game of rugby,” she said. “We will have to play in the Championship for at least a season but it will be a club with a community at its heart including producing homegrown academy players as well as carrying out the work of the Warriors Foundation.
“Let’s hope it’s not too long until we say ‘Come on You Warriors’ again.”
Cllr Richard Udall said the fall of Worcester Warriors was a “tragedy” and a “disaster” for fans and staff but was an opportunity to “regrow” rugby from the grassroots up and right across the city.
“We really need to change the way rugby is governed and managed,” he said. “We really need a club that is run and controlled by fans and supporters, not absentee millionaires.
“Putting fans and players at the center of the game, not just at the touch line.”