There’s no doubt that the past 12 months have been extremely challenging for Gloucester Rugby, as has been the case for many other businesses.
It’s been a year since we’ve been able to welcome fans into Kingsholm, other than for a couple of games, and even then only with very low numbers. The impact of that has been huge, not only on our finances, but also, we know, on our fans. People are desperate to come and support their team again.
When we went into the first lockdown last March, the last thing I said to everyone as we sent them home was “It won’t feel like it now, but we will come out of this stronger than we went in”. And that is what’s happened.
We’ve taken the opportunity of the forced interruption to review all our plans and processes. This has resulted in a plethora of changes – some very visible, such as our exciting new coaching team, and some not so visible yet, such as our new stadium PA system.
We’ve also used the break to make sure our organisation is in the right shape to face the challenges ahead. We cut back and made full use of the Government’s furlough scheme, but as we begin to emerge from the crisis we’re now recruiting again. It’s a great time to recruit, and there are some really top people around looking for a new challenge.
At Gloucester Rugby, however, we know that we’re not just another business. We know that we have a big community around us – the local community, the rugby community and the business community – and we feel a keen sense of responsibility to supporting those communities.
When we came to look at how we as a business would recover from the Covid crisis we recognised that there were hundreds of other local businesses facing the same challenges. So rather than just focus on our own recovery we also looked at how we could help other local businesses.
What we came up with was the Gloucester Rugby Business Club. As the name suggests, it’s a club for local businesses to promote themselves through the Club. Each member gets their own page on our website (which receives over three quarters of a million visits each year) as part of our business directory, and we promote that directory to our tens of thousands of fans signed up to receive our emails.
Normally the Business Club costs £99 per month, but for businesses which have been affected by Covid it’s free for six months. There are more details, including how to sign up, here: https://www.gloucesterrugby.co.uk/gloucester-rugby-business-club
As an elite sports club everything we do is about teamwork. That teamwork ethos doesn’t just apply to what we do on the pitch. We know that the quicker the whole local economy recovers the better it is for everyone.
We know that together, we are a squad of thousands.
