Buxton Rugby Club director quashes BBC report about closure

This week the club’s director of rugby Karl De Groot featured on the station’s The World Tonight programme in a report about the decline of grass roots rugby clubs.

In the feature Karl told Radio 4 reporter Bob Walker how Buxton Rugby Club does not have ‘a player base that can carry us through to the next season’.

Director Karl described the situation as ‘heartbreaking’ - saying there was a ‘disconnect’ between the way the Football Association and the Rugby Football Union has dealt with the pandemic.

He said: “We’ve got football here - we’ve got guys playing competitive football during August on the bottom pitch and our guys on the top pitch doing personal fitness.”

The Radio 4 programme told how teams were struggling to attract players when Covid-19 regulations prevented all but touch rugby.

Allocations for international fixtures also mean fewer sponsors coming forward to invest in grassroots clubs.

Radio 4 reported how an emergency meeting was expected within weeks at Buxton Rugby Club to ‘dissolve it forever’.

However, speaking to Buxton Advertiser after the Radio 4 programme Karl said the club was ‘definitely not closing’.

He added that the appearance was as part of a discussion on current problems at grassroots level.

Karl said there would be changes however he could not provide any more details until after a meeting with members.

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