Balls for Schools
In 2019 Friends of Scottish Rugby formed a joint initiative with Scottish Rugby to donate rugby balls to Tier Four schools.
The initiative sprang into life when David Mackay (FoSR President) was chatting with one of our ambassadors, on how we best focus our donations and the discussion turned to their school days and playing with worn and soggy leather balls.
Not a lot has changed and with the never-ending demands on school finances, any funds available for new rugby balls are nearly always at the bottom of the list.
It was agreed that FoSR should look to see if we could help and suitably motivated, David went off to discuss with his contacts at the SRU. Happily, they heartily agreed and the rest as they say, is history.
The project was formally launched at Murrayfied on June 20 of that year, where David was joined by former Scotland and Glasgow Warriors centre Graeme Morrison (FoSR Ambassador) at the national stadium, where a few of the branded rugby balls were given out to school children. David said I’m very proud to see what we’re doing to promote grassroots rugby.
Graeme was similarly pleased to see youngsters benefit from the FoSR donation. He said: There is a desire for the sport in some of the more challenged areas around the country and there we believe kids will really benefit from this programme.
Since the launch, 2078 balls have been distributed and a further 420 are in the process:
• 2022/23, 658 balls
• 2023/24, 545 balls
• 2024/25, 450 balls
• 2025/26, 425 balls
• Ongoing, 420 balls
• Total, 2498 balls
Our contact at the SRU is Peter Burgon (Regional Lead Manager – West) and he recently provided the following update.
The latest batch of FoSR rugby balls have arrived at Murrayfield. Each of the five regions has received 48x size 4 and 36x size 3 rugby balls and has a particular plan for their distribution.
• in Glasgow South, balls will be distributed to those school that have consistently attended midweek fixtures and festivals, supporting the greatest level of activity and highest levels of compliance around team-sheets and player registrations. Specifically these schools are Marr College, Grange Academy, St Matthew's Academy and Irvine Royal Academy.
• in Glasgow North the supported schools are Rosshall Academy, Chryston High, Brannock High and St Andrews & St Brides. These schools have all capitalised on Growth & Participation State School Funding and developed particularly strong connections to their local clubs. This supports the transition work that we are keen to develop between school and club environments.
• Caledonia North are running a rural schools T1 event (World Rugby's Touch Rugby format) at Plockton High School between Portree, Plockton, Ullapool, Gairloch, Dornoch and Golspie High Schools. The balls will be used as match balls at this event with participating schools then taking an allocation away with them. In this way, we're supporting greater levels of activity away from the large population centres of Inverness and Aberdeen.
• Caledonia Midlands are currently finalising their plans.
• in the East, Dunbar Grammar, Selkirk High, Royal High, Kelso High and Craigmount High School will all receive balls, following a variety of successful initiatives aimed at growing the girls game in the East. Rewarding this growth with equipment that can specifically be allocated to the girls teams at these environments should consolidate and continue this positive growth.
Les Fordham
Secretary:
Friends of Scottish Rugby