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Good grief!!!

DorsetDestroyer

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Jul 15, 2014
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Montpellier
This time last year The Dorset Destroyers Wheelchair Rugby Club was just a seed in my imagination (One of the millions of ideas that never see the light of day, but it did)

This week we announced that although we don't start playing until Sunday February 1st, we have had to start a waiting list due to high demand!!! Quite ridiculous, but I can't complain ;):D:D:D:D

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/ne...that___s_so_popular_there___s_a_waiting_list/
 
Problem is that we only have 1 coach, he comes down from Buckinghamshire for 1 day a week and we have to pay travel expenses, plus we also still need another 10 wheelchairs which is another £26,000 plus all the spares as each game tends to end up having around 10 punctures, so you also need spare wheels, tyres and then we have to find the funding in order to be able to set up another day session.

We're going to concentrate on one thing at a time, and do it properly and then branch out a bit later. I'd rather people waited as this is a long term plan and we need to get it right, right from the start.

It would be great to have another session but as most of us are also disabled and working we also don't have the time. :(
 
Thats true. Seen a bit of the game and the collisions the chairs must take a pounding.
 
Great news, and thanks for the update.
I'm probably stating the bleeding obvious, but have you tried contacting whichever 'association' was behind the London Para/Olympics regards funding? Or even the National Lottery/Health Lottery.
If I ever get some bloody money together, I have friends across the channel (bristol channel, no frenchies! ;)), so hope to get down and watch one of your games.
 
Great news, and thanks for the update.
I'm probably stating the bleeding obvious, but have you tried contacting whichever 'association' was behind the London Para/Olympics regards funding? Or even the National Lottery/Health Lottery.
If I ever get some bloody money together, I have friends across the channel (bristol channel, no frenchies! ;)), so hope to get down and watch one of your games.


We got £9519 from Sport England and with the other fundraising money we bought 4 wheelchairs of our own (Now up to 6 and another one to be baked in 2 weeks) Yes, they have to be welded and baked to be strong enough to support our game :) :)

But we also got £3500 from Bournemouth Council and are trying to get lots more as we still need loads of chairs.

You're quite welcome to pop down anytime. Unfortunately we would not be allowed to let you have a go as it's only for people with a physical impairment otherwise teh insurance does not cover you and it is a brutal game, especially when people are trying to break you to stop you being so good.

But it's so much fun lol
 
Well a lot has happened since I last updated!!

We've had loads more money come into help us, whether grants or donations or fundraising. We've managed to raise £72,000 in 9 months and we've now got 16 wheelchairs of our own, so we won't need to share anymore (When the last 4 turn up)

We played a friendly against Team Solent Sharks/The Hammerheads on March 15th and drew 36-36. Mind you the odds were in our favour a bit as we had players with lesser disabilities, but a cracking result for our 1st game.

One of our players was asked to join the Hammerheads to help them out, and he managed to not only score but was a Player of the weekend for his classification :D:D:D

He is now being nominated for GBWR Team Development Squad, and we are very proud of that.

We have so many players on our books that we have decided to leave the venue we are based at, after just 12 weeks, and move to a larger one in order to cope with demand. We reckon we could have as many as 35 players by this time next year.

We are aiming to join the League in 2016, we could have done it this year at a push, but we wanted to have a large team to call on as opposed to having a team that would struggle. So, we are going to concentrate on getting into Match condition mode once a month to get ourselves prepared.

Does anyone have any tips on exercises/drills that could be transferred from able bodied rugby to wheelchair rugby (With a video link if possible to show the players)

Cheers Nick
 
Always enjoy reading these posts. Good to hear the side is doing well. You should start up a blog, maybe it could be a semi-regular feature here.
 
Yeah, great to hear these updates. Fantastic news that you're doing so well, and long may it continue.
 
Latest update - We now have 19 wheelchair rugby chairs, 19 registered players, 4 possible newbies and we've had to move from doing 2 hours a week at our last Sports Centre, to moving to a larger venue and running 3 hours a week (Plus we start an extra session on Friday September 18th, which we already have 10 people on the list for)

We've got 1 team building up nicely with 5 players (Need about 8 to form a Team) and we've got another Team getting ready for the new rules game starting in 2016 (Hopefully) where more disabled players can play equally. (We may have so many players we could put out 2 teams in that League!!!)

We've now got an Invictus Gold Medal Winning Wheelchair Rugby player, our coach is ex Team GB and we've got a wide collection of wheelchair athletes in the Club.

We still need to find another £20,000 to get more wheelchairs and need to find a sponsor to sponsor us for the next 3 years, kit etc etc etc. It's been hard work as we've had no backers. Most wheelchair rugby clubs are linked with a University, we decided to do it on our own so we had 100% control over everything, and although sometimes it's been hellish, we're doing it and we can really say "We are the people's club" It's down to everyone in the community who has helped us, donated or given time, effort.

We have 3 referees and looking for more, we are saving up to get ourselves a Timer so we can learn to play within the rules (Instead of someone shouting from the sideline that we've only got 5 seconds left to score!! Which can be quite funny if they are counting out of time with the referee!!)

We've lost several players to injury - 1 is in Hospital getting his amputated leg back up and working again, another has a broken hip and was playing for weeks without knowing and one of our players is back in the spinal unit getting fixed up again ready to start playing soon (I say soon, I mean January). 1 of our players had a double stroke in his eyes and has lost 90% of his vision, so we don't know about him and I've just found out I have been walking on a broken hip for up to 30 years, but the NHS always said the pain was because of my knee caps dislocating so violently when I walked (They removed both knee caps and didn't replace them as the bones are so ****ed!!) So, it's too late, but it's good to know what was wrong with me.

I must admit though, we have the BEST Club in the country (Well I would say that) but we do like a good laugh and although the majority of us cannot drink because of horrendous side effects, we do enjoy a good cup of coffee after 3 hours of hard work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaOQaScA1eM The guy in the orange chasing the ball at the beginning is Ben Steele (Invictus Games) being rammed by Luke White (Team GB) This was just our training session, when we play a proper match, then we go hell for leather!!!


Wheelchair Rugby Challenge is now going to be shown live on ITV every night in the middle of the Able Bodied Rugby World Cup and The Dorset Destroyers are going from strength to strength aiming to get some of our players in the Team GB Squad :) :)
 
This is great news.

I remember seeing Ben Steele at the Invictus Games. Proper big lad.

Congratulations on bringing this on and look forward to seeing you all on the telly soon.
 
Good progress made and hope the injured players recover soon
 
Thank you. Injuries like these are part of the game. If we don't have injuries or medical conditions then we are not allowed to play as it's a sport purely for players in that condition.

It is so much fun though ;)
 
We have been invited to train with the Invictus Games Team next weekend. It's such an honour and we are very excited about having the chance to train with them :) :)
 
Well it's been a cracking few months. We played our local rivals in a "Friendly", (We used all our players just to give them a go at the match) in September, who brought down their top squad and beat us 36-61, but to be honest it was only our 2nd game and our 1st at home, but we have some great potential.
We had 15 minutes left after the match so we played the best of The Dorset Destroyers Vs Team Solent Sharks and we lost 10-12, which means that our main team are not that far away from being ready (This time next year, we aim to be in the League)

We also played West Country Hawks last week in Poole and drew 32-32 - This was an epic encounter, we'd never met before and they have a big side where many of their players are just playing recreationally, so they wanted to play in the "friendly" as well.
After that match we did the best of both teams again and we lost 10-13, but again we know we are improving and where we need to get even better :) :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNgaDReXrGE&feature=youtu.be&t=4m58s This is my favourite moment (And it would have to be of me!!!)

But it was a great success for all 3 clubs as we got a lot of good experiences out of it.

And then this week in the Radio Times I got my letter printed about Wheelchair Rugby, and it was also Letter of the week RT.jpg
 
This time last year The Dorset Destroyers Wheelchair Rugby Club was just a seed in my imagination (One of the millions of ideas that never see the light of day, but it did)

This week we announced that although we don't start playing until Sunday February 1st, we have had to start a waiting list due to high demand!!! Quite ridiculous, but I can't complain ;):D:D:D:D

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/ne...that___s_so_popular_there___s_a_waiting_list/

Awesome. Well done!
 
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