Many of Luton RFC’s U16s have been together since the U7s. So, it was with a heavy heart that their coach James Maguire, had to tell them that the team was folding as they couldn’t field 15 players after covid.

“In September 2022 starting the season didn’t seem an option. It was clearly better for the boys to play rugby for another team rather than not get any games with us,” he says. “Our age group above also folded for the same lack of players.  On Tuesday 27^th September 2022, during training, I broke the news, to the parents first, and then brought the players in and told them they had options to switch to Harpenden or Ampthill, small villages either side of Luton with nearly 50 players at our age group, or Stockwood Park across the road. Everyone was devastated, there were tears, frustration as some of the lads, including mine, had been with the team since they were five or six. However, everyone understood we couldn’t play with half a team. We said our goodbyes and left the club that evening, thinking it was for the last time.”

But James had not accounted for the determination of the team and their captain, Ben Spary.

“Ben called me asking me how to unfold a team. I laughed and said I like your enthusiasm, but we need a squad of 18 and I’d been asking them for years to find more players, knowing that this could be an issue in the future. Ben, whose dad had played and coached at Luton and died after a long battle with cancer when Ben was in the U9s, insisted that they could do it and I gave them ten days, saying if we got 18 at training then we would unfold the team. Ben and the rest of the lads called all their friends, went round their various schools, and even got flyers printed and went knocking on doors looking for lads in year 10 to join their team.

A full squad and a tour

“We turned up to training on Sunday 9^th October to see 19 players ready for training, ten of the old bunch and nine new players. We were back in business. We got hammered in the first match against Barnet and knew this would happen most of the season having 50% of players new to the game, but no one cared, we were playing rugby.

“Traditionally, during the U15 season at Luton the team starts fundraising for a tour to go on when they reach the U16s. Now we had a squad, we put together a tour committee and came up with various ideas to raise money. Ben’s mum TJ became our fundraising manager and we decided to go on an organised tour to Portugal, as our U16s went the season before and stayed at a camp for four nights, playing two games. We needed at least £20,000 to send all the team, so they organised quiz nights, sold raffle tickets, ran the BBQ at 1^st team home games, ran auctions and we got to a grand total of about £24,000 by summer this year.”

As U15s, the squad picked up a couple of victories as the team progressed and looked in reasonable shape going into the new season as U16s, with 18 players and six managing adults heading for Portugal on Sunday 22^nd October 2023. They stayed at My Camp about 45 mins from Lisbon and had games lined up against Santarem and Agronomia. The hope was that the tour would strengthen team bonds, but expectation on results was low.

“The team that toured there 18 months before were one of the best Luton youth teams in recent years and they got hammered in one game and narrowly beaten in the other,” explained James. “Santarem had 53 players at our age group alone! We played the national anthems before the game and, with little expectation, the game was 0-0 after 20 minutes. We were looking good and ended winning 21-0, what a performance!”

Then came the game against Agronomia, said to be one of the top four teams in Portugal, and with no fewer than 89 players at U16 level.

“Their coaches told us they were getting two new players a week since the success of the Portugal team at the Rugby World Cup, but we ended up winning 46-0. Two games on tour, two victories and zero points against us, from a team that had folded little over 12 months earlier and half the team new to the sport in the last 12 months.

“This is a tremendous achievement from a group of young players and, ever since we returned, I have to pinch myself as I still can’t believe the journey which has taken us to this point.”