Kingston Park hosts Inter Police Forces fixture
Rugby playing Police officers from the North East are getting ready to take on their Yorkshire counterparts in a match at Newcastle Falcon’s Kingston Park ground on Friday.
Officers from Northumbria, Durham, Cleveland and Cumbria will join together and face a team of their colleagues from the North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and Humberside forces.
The fixture, which is the first of its kind that has been held in the region, has been arranged to help identify players to support and represent the newly Formed England Police Rugby Football Club ( EPRUFC).
Forces are regularly struggling to find enough players to field competitive teams and are hoping that by working with neighbouring police forces and holding these regional matches they can come together for the benefit the England team.
Northumbria officers PC Greg Haynes and PC Anthony Moody currently represent the national team and are looking forward to the clash.
PC Haynes said: “It’s a brilliant idea for the regional forces to come together and play against the other regions. It means that some of the forces that struggle to make up teams and numbers can join together and field really strong squads and play in competitive games. This really helps raise the standard and improves the quality of the rugby and that can only be of a benefit to the England Police squad.
“Rob Hawkins, who plays for the Falcons and is a special constable with Northumbria Police, has been really supportive with what we’ve been doing and we are looking forward to him hopefully joining the police full time and eventually making the EPRUFC team – if he’s good enough that is!
“We would like to thank Newcastle Falcons for use of the wonderful facilities. It’s well known that Dean Richards was a police officer and has been very supportive and we appreciate the support of our respective RFU constituent bodies, Northumberland and Yorkshire, who will be sending both representatives to the game.”
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