Masters Season Review

Jason Grant MBE : Red Shorts

“It’s no secret life has been pretty tough since early June. I have had to step away as club Chairman due to family reasons. I’m lucky to have a loving family and a supportive working environment. The other group that has my back, is my Masters mates. Providing support, but most of all distraction and a great deal of fun and laughter.”

GAME DAYS:

On the pitch, we have had our biggest season to date. With a total of 10 games. Our first outing happened as soon as contact games were sanctioned again, against our near neighbours North East Thunder Masters. A great turn out, but at a cost as we didn’t see posh Cumbrians, Longers and Foxy, again due to long term injury’s. Allegedly Longers now has a Harrods Gold Card after consuming his own body weight in Foie Gras and Truffles.

Official launch weekend saw us combine with NE Thunder and travel to Kippax for their festival.

April saw back to back games, firstly against Boothtown at home and the Barrow away. The Boothtown fixture was most memorable for the ear pearcing shrieks of pain from Jay as he was bundled into touch by 3 of Boothtowns biggest guys, sustaining an injury that he was lucky to come back from ……… ok, he actually had an ickle muscle tweak whilst running but we wanted to big him up! At the Barrow game, there was a rare weather phenomenon that dropped the air pressure at 10ft above the pitch! This meant that Jase’s usually dialled in kicks in general play sailed out on the full, not just once, but twice!

May was relatively quiet with just a single outing at the Cumbria Festival, again in Barrow. For this one Goadie actual travelled home from a holiday in Spain a day early to play!

June saw the return legs of the Boothtown and Barrow games. The Barrow game produced the End of Season Comedy Moment, when Don looked up and decided to pop the ball to Ben just in front of JT (playing for Barrow) who was sporting a menacing smile, before, during and after smashing Ben into the following week.

The first outing of July saw us take part in the North East Festival at Yarm Wolves. Darren provided the comedy moment for this one, having been ill advised the legal tackle height had been changed to just below the eyebrows. Ouch. Double ouch, when it transpired his victim happened to be one of the best Masters Match Officials who just fancied a run out! The second outing was against our new friends Doncaster Toll Bar.

We tend not to play in August, as that’s when most people take holidays so our next outing was supplying massive support (10) to NE Thunder for the National Festival at Blackpool. Our final outing of the season was the return leg of the Doncaster Toll Bar match.

Paul Goad: Yellow shorter with Tags.

“Discovering Masters in my 60’s has given me a new lease of life. In the short time I’ve been playing I have made countless friends from all over the country and know that in the coming seasons I will make many more.”

RUGBY ON YOUR TERMS:

The ethos of how we approach Masters has greatly improved this year. Some players choose to travel for the game only which is always appreciated. Some players have decided to make a full day of it. “The Breakfast Crew” set off early for away days and take in breakfast on route and are always the last to leave having had great hosting by our opposition. On a number of occasions players have stopped overnight, post match. Whatever players choose to do, on match day, we have shown we can and do, turn up with great numbers for each game.

SOCIALS:

Outside of the usual post match socials, we have had a number of other social events. The Breakfast Crew is most definitely a social event. On top of this some of us stayed over in Barrow after our game against Barrow Masters. WAGS were invited to Blackpool which made for a great weekend of laughter, with Ma Kelly’s Showboat on North Shore making a tidy profit that weekend. Again a small number of us headed of to the Grand Final and an overnighter in Manchester. Finally a number of us took in the Cumbria v Nigeria game.

Paul Clarke: Yellow shorts no tags.

“When I finished reffing that awful masters game between Crusaders and North East l was more than happy to quit Masters all together then some of you talked me in till still doing both I could have quite easily stopped there and then but l’m glad my Masters team mates talked me round. The rest of the season was great both playing and reffing.”

GUESTING AND REPRESENTING:

This year our players have taken lots of opportunities to guest for other teams, either at Festivals offering themselves up or by turning out for a specific club in one of their planned fixtures. We also achieved our first representative accolade, with Ian McKechnie taking the reins as Scotland Masters Head Coach.

Ian McKechnie: Edinburgh Cannons, Veterans, Scotland Head Coach.

Jason Grant MBE: North East Thunder, MND.

Darren Cunnington: Edinburgh Cannons,Veterans, MND.

Adam Thompson: Blackpool Scorpions, Beverly, Eastmoor Dragons and Hull.

Gareth Smith: Blackpool Scorpions, Beverley, Eastmoor Dragons, Blackpool Stanley and Morley Knights.

Don Payne: North East Thunder and Carlisle.

Paul Goad: Morley Knights, Doncaster Toll Bar, North East Thunder, Carlisle, Brixton Bulls, Chester Gladiators, Barrow and West Warriors.

Ben Smith: Blackpool Scorpions, Blackpool Stanley, Doncaster Toll Bar, Crosfields, Morley Knights, North East Thunder, MND , United Kingdom Armed Forces.

Jay Wainwright: Doncaster Toll Bar.

SUPPORT TO THE WIDER CLUB AND RL COMMUNITY:

Two key elements to our Masters from its conception was firstly, it should have no financial impact on the club at all and secondly it should help suitable worthy causes where possible.

In April Jase set up a Crusaders Inclusion Fund so anyone needing support, had direct access to funding. To raise money, Jase set up a Go Fund Me and set out to complete a cold water dip for every day in April. This challenge was heavily supported by the Masters team, with some of them even joining him at Couldron Force for a dip. A total of £557.12p was raised (£580 in actual sponsorship but GFM take a cut) which was handed over to the club.

The Masters team also sponsored former junior Owen-Tyler Cole as he transitioned over to York Acorn U18’s.

Scottish representatives Alasdair McKechnie and Oliver Redding also received small donations.

The team also financed the post match(es) food for the Newcastle Thunder LDP v Scotland games.

Finally, the team were quick off the mark to towards Doncaster Toll Bar’s support to Simon Robinshaw.

Not including the Go Fund Me money, that was an impressive £700 worth of support! Something we are really proud of.

Gareth Smith: Yellow shorts no tags.

For me it was the random message from Jase, “Go on Gaz, Masters, you know you want to”

Me, “nah, ankles broke blah, slipped disc blah!”Before l knew it l was sat in the car with Olivia, ready to set off for first session and still trying to talk myself out of it but away we went. The first person I saw was Don, “**** you doing here?”

“Me dad (Jase) asked me,” was my response. The rest is history, I’ve met a great group of lads off back of it and the Breakfast Crew days out are stuff of legends!

SPONSORSHIP:

To maximise the use of subs and to not have a financial burden on the club. the team has had to source a number of sponsors. These sponsors have not only provided playing kit, but also polo shirts, off field and training gear and the end of season awards. A big thank you to Marstons, Burties Hair Design, e-Creative Designs, Top Third, Lighthouse Risk Management, The Hildyard Arms, iSecure Group, JDN First Aid, Inkorrections Laser Tattoo Removal, Ripon Garden Maintenance, Thirsty Work, 4aces Catering Solutions, Richie McGrath Pre Training and Breaking andAA First Water Coolers.

Also a massive thank you to Emma the club Treasurer for managing our funds via the club account, which keeps us in line with the club constitution.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdonL4nh/

Darren Cunnington: Red Shorts

“I have found confidence and found a family I lost the day I left the Forces, but I had found it again and I have been in a happy space.”

2025 season has been awesome. Registrations are up, players per game are up, yet again we didn’t drop a game. We’ve had so much fun along the way.

2026 looks to be even better, with interest from new players already coming in and a bigger fixture schedule already confirmed!

If you fancy getting involved please get in touch!