WINNINGTON Park Rugby Club have completed a number of projects and are successfully raising funds for the NHS.

Club chairman Paul Dean is pleased with the progress that has been made at Burrows Hill despite sport’s suspension that came about in March due to the impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

He highlighted the projects completed in this period are:

• Installation of a new drain and spur drains on the second-team pitch

• Ground improvement which included a sub-soil treatment, expansive re-seeding (both elements conducted by Will Burgess an ex-captain of the club and local farmer) and continuous mowing and strimming of every blade of grass

• Painting of every surface within the changing facilities

• Deep clean of the clubhouse

“During lockdown myself and the committee have worked hard to keep our membership engaged with the club,” added the chairman.

“We have communicated on a regular basis with our members updating them on the various projects we have commissioned, informing them of our robust financial position and asking them for help when we needed some volunteers.

Northwich Guardian:

“We have also just agreed to install our first self-contained gym for the members and we hope to have more news about this very soon.

“This has allowed us to start pre-season training on time for all our senior players and our mini and junior sections – there is at least one team training six days out of seven!

“The senior players are especially enjoying our barbecue following training on Thursday evenings.”

Dean revealed how the NHS fundraising had come about.

“About five weeks ago Ryan Williams, one of our first-team players, approached me to enquire whether there was something we as a club could do to not only say thank you to the NHS but to make it personal to the town.

“We decided to offer the ‘Thank You NHS’ t-shirts to the membership of which £5 per shirt would be donated.

“We felt that over the years many of us have visited The Victoria Infirmary not only with rugby associated injuries but also other health ailments and we felt it was the perfect worthy cause.

“Ryan has run this fundraiser by himself and has done a truly magnificent job!

“Currently we have raised over £1,000, however this will probably rise as we have had to put in a second order for the t-shirts as we were overwhelmed with members wanting to say Thank You NHS when we first advertised them.

“We have also erected two large banners at our entrance to Burrows Hill showing our gratitude to the NHS.

“On behalf of our committee I want to say thank you to all our members for being patient during these strange times and to state how grateful we are that they continue to volunteer to help when we ask them. Finally a huge thank you to Ryan for leading our t-shirt fundraiser.”