Today North East Rugby League hit social media by publishing the Men’s Fixtures for the season. Crusaders find themselves doubling up at home for the first two weeks with an opening round fixture against Friarage Falcons before taking on North East Rugby League heavy weights, Jarrow Vikings a week later. Outside of the regular fixtures Crusaders will also take on Yarm Wolves in a friendly which gives us 10 guaranteed games as we come out of the pandemic. Hopefully a decent cup run will give us a couple of extra games.

Crusaders Club shop has its first order via the website!! One of our lucky superstars is about to get one of the Crusaders back packs. We are hoping that in the coming week, we will have the 2021 club apparel for sale via the website. However, until then, back packs, hats, towels, wristbands and badges are all available to buy.

Friday night is Social Touch night at Crusaders and it continues to be a very popular event in our weekly calendar. This week we had 38 players spread out over the site playing in 3 games. Unfortunately due to restrictions we cannot play a Round Robin format, but that’s not stopped the fun! Each week we have a number of trophies up for grabs. Harry King bagged himself the Top Try Scorer for the evening. The Top Grafter Awards were lifted by Zoe Challoner (first session), Leigh Batey (first session), Paula Clark, Seth Clapham, Jo Relph and Amber-lei Duncan. The Most Valuable Player awards went to Alex Gee, Simon Glenn, Owen Allsopp, Dale Hammond, Josh Battishill and Mark Throw.

With numbers on a steady increase since registrations started for the season, it was only going to be a matter of time before Crusaders hit that magical 100 attendees on the same day. That day was Saturday 17 April, when spread over 3 well spread start times, and well spaced out training areas, Crusaders had exactly 100 junior attendees. The scene was set the night before with the adult social Touch players who had 38 attendees split into 6 teams on 3 well spread out pitches. Unfortunately no round Robin Rugby at the moment though. The feedback from the weekend has been amazing with new club members reporting how well organised and friendly everything is. Crusaders currently have 153 registered players which to takes us to 105% of last years total. Unfortunately we can’t count our Social Players into the mix but that would add another 63 registrations! If you’d like to become involved with Crusaders, please just drop any message onto our website chat or drop us an email and we will tell how easy it is to get involved with our FREE Community Club!

Thank you for following our link, by doing so your location will now have marked our map. We’d like to see where in the world, and indeed in this country, people read our posts. With the Rugby League season about to start again it would be great to show our junior players what sort of places around the world people might read their name in a match report or club article! So far we’ve managed to go trans Atlantic, with some views in New York and Texas. We have some views from Northern Ireland and Scotland and all round England. So please share our article, we’re sure our juniors will be thrilled by the power of the web.

In what has been an incredible Return to Play, our Touch Rugby set up has seen another rise in registrations on last years numbers. Despite the pandemic, Social Touch really took off in 2020 with the club registering 51 players and averaging 25-30 players per session. Having only been back in action since last week, however, Crusaders have smashed through last years total and have 60 players registered already. 40 players took part in last weeks session with almost the same amount booked on this week. It’s a good job Robertson Rd is such a large site!

After weeks of planning and sleepless nights Catterick Crusaders returned back to Robertson Road pitches, for the first training session of the season. Every precaution was taken to make the session Covid compliant to meet all the new guidelines. We saw many new faces and plenty of returning faces to the pitches on Saturday. In total we had an amazing 84 players attending the first session of the season learning all the basics after being away from training for so long but following the rules and guideline laid down by the RFL. After the amazing attendance at the first session we hope to see everyone again over the coming weeks and fingers crossed we get loads more new faces turn up to the coming sessions. If you are interested in participating please book yourself onto the relevant age group and make sure you register on Sports TG on the link below. Thank you https://membership.sportstg.com/regoform.cgi?aID=25795&pKey=9d550ce53736bee706a1023b5921ae65&formID=64495

Saturday saw Crusaders return to training after Lockdown. During lockdown the club as a whole ran a fundraising event to allow Catterick Crusaders to have a fee free year for all those attending. During this fundraising time we had lots of physical challenges carried out by members of the club and wanted to recognise the effort put in by the junior element from the club who chose to do there own challenges to raise money to help this great cause. Ryan Broadley ran a mile a day throughout February which was an amazing challenge and was completed showing great determination. Ollie Astle cycled 100 miles in freezing wet weather but showing true grit in completing this challenge. Katie and Callum Coburn ran, walked and cycled 10 miles a day for 10 consecutive days working through blisters and sore muscles to complete their challenge. Everyone who participated in the Crusaders Challenge put a great effort in and assisted in allowing the club to open training for free to everyone attending making rugby league more accessible to the wider community.

Catterick Crusaders Returns to training on Saturday 3rd April 2021. Cubs, U8's & U10's return at 10am. U12's, U14's &U16's start at 1030am. There is the ability to book your player onto the sessions via our new website when booking on you need to confirm you haven't displayed any Covid-19 symptoms prior to training. There will be temperature checks and the NHS covid tracker when attending sessions. There is to be only one parent attending the training session as laid down by the RFL. We hope you are all as excited as we are to be returning to training see you all in April.

As the pandemic restrictions have started to ease, our Touch Rugby set up, Saxon Crusaders, have taken the decision to join the England Touch Association for 2021. By joining the ETA it is hoped the Saxons will be able to maximise playing opportunities in the ETA Development Competition as well as any RFL Competitions. The team has already confirmed its entry into the Weston-super-Mare beach tag festival in August, as something different, and it’s shaping up to be a great weekend. The club holds two Touch Rugby sessions per week. Our first session is a thriving Social Touch Rugby session on a Friday night starting at 6:30pm. We them have team training on a Saturday at midday, to help hone our competition skills. If you’d like to get involved in either session, please don’t hesitate to contact Jason by emailing. crusaders_chairman@outlook.com

Members of Catterick Crusaders took to their laptops this evening to attend the first zoom fitness session. It was a hot and sweaty session raising their heart rates preparing them all for returning to training again on the 3rd April 2021. It was thoroughly enjoyed by all with a lot of determination shown by everyone. There will be more sessions to get your heart pumping with our resident personal trainer. Don't forget to keep your eyes peeled for the next sessions and get yourself booked on.