With both senior teams at home and in front of a large crowd of supporters and Club Sponsors, the Common was buzzing on Saturday afternoon. Marlborough II started with an earlier kick off against Devizes II and finished the game winning 48-0. While Marlborough’s first team started half an hour later beating Chippenham 36-21. Both teams remain unbeaten in the league and the first team are currently the highest placed side in Wiltshire.
It’s not just the Seniors who are doing well, the Colts have also had a 100% strike rate with 3 wins from 3 in the league. The Juniors are also off to a flying start with the U15’s and U13’s winning 2 from 2 league games and the U12’s and U11’s both going through to the next round of their Cup competitions. Membership is up on this time last year and the Club is also trying to establish girls and ladies rugby on The Common.
Club Chairman, Gary Sharp, said It’s just fantastic, there’s a real buzz about the Club at the moment. We have some real talent on show from our Minis through to our senior sides and an amazing team of coaches, staff, volunteers and members. Thanks to our main Club Sponsors, ‘Compeed’, we look like we mean business with the whole Club wearing the same shirts with the ‘Compeed’ logo on. The support we have had from Marlborough Town Council has been just brilliant. They have checked out the rules on Common Land usage and agreed to allow the Club to put up a temporary post and single rail barrier along both sides of the first team pitch, a stipulation by the RFU for Clubs at level 6 and above, for player and spectator safety. We are rapidly outgrowing the space available to Club on the Common and are looking at all sorts of ideas and alternatives. If the club continues to progress who knows where we could end up, the sky really is the limit’.
The Senior sides and the Colts have moved their Tuesday and Thursday evening training sessions to Tidworth to preserve the pitches on The Common and to make use of the floodlights there. The Clubs main goals for this season is to have the second team promoted to Dorset & Wilts 1 North, increase mini/junior membership and start to try and build the foundations for ladies rugby, but with the first team second in the table and only one level away from the National leagues Marlborough may find themselves looking for a more suitable home for the first team to play their rugby on sooner rather than later.