Northampton Saints’ second ‘Community Match’ will take place when Bath Rugby visit cinch Stadium at Franklin’s Gardens in a Premiership Rugby Cup encounter.
Following the success of last year’s inaugural event staged against Harlequins, the match against Saints’ Premiership rivals on Saturday 30 September (kick-off: 3pm) will see all of the Club’s outreach programmes come to the fore.
Community Match 2022/23 🤩
— Saints Community (@SaintsComm) October 14, 2022
A look back over what was a fantastic evening on Tuesday showcasing all aspects of the community programmes 🙌🏻
Thanks to those that came on the evening to support @SaintsRugby, and that continue to support us shaping our community 😇 pic.twitter.com/q52z8HNWyD
The visit of the Somerset side will provide the opportunity to showcase Northampton’s Community Department and its many programmes – as well as it being the men in Black, Green and Gold’s penultimate group stage game of the competition, as Phil Dowson fine-tunes his squad ahead of the big Gallagher Premiership kick-off just a fortnight later.
Over 1700 schoolchildren and 170 staff from 84 schools across Northampton have been invited to attend the match free of charge, with a number of schools also offered free Saints in the Schools coaching sessions in the build-up to the match.
As part of the Community Match, Saints players will be leaving Northampton socks in their kitbags and will instead be wearing the colours of teams across Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Buckinghamshire, North Essex and Suffolk – bringing a Barbarians-like colour injection to the Gardens.
Ahead of the game, the Defender Premiership Rugby Cup will take place for the Under 11s age group, as well opportunities for school from the Project Rugby programme to train ahead of the game. Saints Wheelchair Rugby will also be doing a meet and greet in the Supporter Village.
“The Community Match last season was a big success and we’re delighted to bring it back early into the 2023/24 season,” said Saints’ Community Manager, Ben Lawrence.
“Our intention was to bring as many of our stakeholders in schools, clubs and our programmes together for one afternoon at the Gardens and it was a great day for all involved.
“So many young people experienced a Saints match for the first time and the intention is for that to happen again this time around, as well as providing an opportunity for people to hear about all the good work we are doing throughout our region.”
Ben Lawrence, Saints’ Community Programmes Manager
“We want to see even more schools come on board and learn about how they can get involved across our schools, inclusion, health or wellbeing programmes as well as camps and festivals.”
If you are a school or club and would like to get involved in the Community Match, or to find out more about the event, please email [email protected].
