WELCOME
This Saturday we extend a warm welcome to the players, officials and supporters of Chester RUFC.
We also, of course, extend a warm welcome to this week’s match officials Gavin Jones, Simon Williams and Jock Gill..
To EVERYBODY - Enjoy your day

TYNEDALE v CHESTER
This is Chester’s seventh visit to Tynedale Park where they have always been formidable opponents. Their team has won at Tynedale Park on three of their six previous visits and they beat Tynedale 46-19 at Chester last October.

LEAGUE RESULTS.
Fourteen matches: Tynedale 5 wins (374 points), Chester 9 wins (365 points)
Chester are well ahead on wins, but Tynedale on points (just).

CHESHIRE’S RUGBY UNION CLUBS.
The Tynedale club web-site before last week’s match against Lymm RFC said that, apart from Lymm and Chester Tynedale’s 1st XV had played against a number of other Cheshire clubs over the years. (Cheshire has 52 rugby union clubs compared with Northumberland’s 22, so it is well represented at all levels of rugby).

A list of Tynedale’s 1st XV fixtures against some of those clubs would include Wilmslow, Birkenhead Park, Winnington Park, New Brighton, Sale FC, Caldy and Macclesfield, as well as Lymm and Chester from our League.
The article asked whether, as many of the fixtures had resulted in wins for Tyne, that would “augur well” for the trip to Lymm? Perceptive readers would notice that the writer was not talking about drilling for oil but was actually suggesting that Tynedale might get a good result against the high-flying Lymm team, which had beaten Tyne at Corbridge earlier and had only lost one match all season!
Well well! ** Lymm 33 Tynedale 47 **

SOME RECENT TYNE v CHESTER MATCHES
9th October 2021 CHESTER 32 TYNEDALE 31
12th February 2022 TYNEDALE 38 CHESTER 14
22nd October 2022 TYNEDALE 14 CHESTER 21
18th February 2023 CHESTER 29 TYNEDALE 27
Season 23/24 None
19th October 2024 CHESTER 46 TYNEDALE 19

WHERE DID THE CHESTER RUFC 1ST XV GO IN SEASON 2023/24 ?
In Season 2022/2023 most leagues were reorganised, renamed and resized and new regulations were introduced to enforce the principles of the Future Competitions Structure.

Those principles reflected what players, clubs and administrators said were their priorities, and these were supported and agreed by the RFU, namely:-
1) Reduce the number of games played in the interests of player welfare.
2) Give more free weekends to allow players time off to recover or pursue other interests.
3) Reduce travel distance/time and allow for more local derbies.
National League rugby was restructured to create National 1, a league of 14 teams (level 3), and Nat.2, three leagues of 14, split into North, West and South (level 4).

Chester RUFC were moved into Nat.2 (West) at the end of that 22/23 season, then moved back here for 24/25 – so we met again in October.

ADJOINING FIELDS TO THE RESCUE.
In 1932 Chester had moved to rented facilities at Boughton Hall as tenants of the Cricket Club. Here they stayed for almost 30 years until an old American army camp, along with adjoining fields at Vicars Cross was purchased and the Club moved there in 1961.

In 1994 a new clubhouse was built, partly financed by the compensation gained from the A55 Chester by-pass which cut through and separated the ‘bottom pitches’ from the first team pitch and old clubhouse in 1991.
Can Tynedale compete with that?
In season 1899-1900 at Hexham, Tynedale obtained “a new field of play not far from their former one, which had to make way for a road-making scheme”, and this was a problem which would recur thirty years later.

In 1926, in Tynedale’s Jubilee year, the club had exercised an option to purchase the field at Dene Park. Hexham for £1,550, raised by donations, special efforts and a loan from the Rugby Football Union.

Was this to be a stable, permanent home for the first time for 50 years for a nomadic club? No, it was not quite so simple. Within four years, in 1930, a new trunk road was proposed which would run right through the club’s land and across the pitch, which at that time ran in a north/south direction. Fortunately the club were able to purchase Broad Close, an adjoining field, which enabled them to have two pitches, running east/west. However, the pavilion was left stranded on the other side of the new road! The new ground was officially opened in October 1932.

In 1975 Tynedale purchased Tynedale Park, Corbridge and moved there in 1977.

WHY DID THE CLUBS NOT MEET IN THE LEAGUE UNTIL 2015?
In 1999-2000 Chester were promoted to North 1 (along with Darlington Mowden Park) from North 2 East, just as Tynedale were being promoted from North 1 to Nat.3 (N), so the clubs did not meet at that time.

There were then two near misses for Chester-
2008-09 They lost 15- 40 in a play-off v Hull (North 1 runners-up)
2010-11 Chester lost 14-16 away in a play-off v Sheffield Tigers (Nat.3 Midlands runners-up)

In each case they missed promotion into the National Leagues, and by 2008, until 2015, Tyne were in National One, so it wasn’t until September 2015 that the two teams met.

CHESTER THIS SEASON
Chester currently sit 2 places below Tynedale in 7th position having accrued 46 points, 6 points less than Tynedale.
Chester’s home form has out-performed their away form having won 7 of their 9 home matches as opposed to winning only 1 of their 9 away matches.
Whatever the stats show there’s no doubting that in our league this season every single match will be a closely contested, tough encounter with Tynedale v Chester certainly no exception.

CHESTER’S LEAGUE RESULTS TO DATE:-
Preston Grasshoppers 30 Chester 32
Chester 19 Lymm 51
Hull Ionians 30 Chester 19
Fylde 47 Chester 24
Chester 59 Sheffield Tigers 17
Harrogate 22 Chester 16
Chester 46 Tynedale 19
Otley 19 Chester 14
Chester 39 Hull 19
Leeds Tykes 75 Chester 31
Chester 47 Billingham 22
Wharfedale 22 Chester 19
Chester 31 Sheffield 43
Lymm 52 Chester 26
Chester 25 Fylde 19
Sheffield Tigers 19 Chester 14
Chester 38 Hull Ionians 33
Chester 29 Harrogate 26

CHESTER’S WEBSITE
https://www.chesterrufc.com/

MATCH OFFICIALS
Referee: Gavin Jones
AR1: Simon Williams
AR2: Fraser Gill

BALL BOYS
Tynedale Under 12’s

WEATHER FORECAST
Thick Cloud, light easterly wind, 4 degrees

OTHER TYNEDALE (Senior Section) MATCHES THIS WEEKEND
SATURDAY
Middlesbrough Wasps v Tynedale Raiders (2pm) – CaNDY 1 League
Novos II v Tynedale Hadrians (2pm) – CaNDY 2N League
Tynedale Centurions - no fixture
Tynedale Vets v Wigton Vets (1.30pm) - Friendly
Duns Colts v Tynedale Colts - Cancelled

SUNDAY
Tynedale Colts – no fixture

SELECTED SQUADS