If you wait for a handout or blame RFU your rugby club will disappear

[backrowbandit]

Will Greenwood
Published 17 April 2026 7:00am BST
It began in December 2023.

I was standing in horizontal rain on the pitches at Maidenhead RFC, coaching a session, and there were about 10 lads present. I thought to myself: "What are we doing here? What is the point?" Rarely, in my entire rugby career – both inside and outside the professional sphere – have I had those thoughts. It was a new sensation to me, a revelation. Something had to be done. We could not just sit by and watch our club, our sport – at the grass-roots level – shrink in numbers. We, the masses of volunteers at Maidenhead, had to roll our sleeves up.

Advertisement

A few months later, Exeter Chiefs on social media made Henry Slade look like Brad Pitt. Slo-mo, black and white, it looked incredible. Tigers had done something similar and England Rugby had some stuff like that up. It made me realise that anyone or anything can be embellished nowadays. That's not me being rude about Slade, Leicester or England – excellent players and institutions – but I realised that with great videography, great cinematography, great photography, you could make a crow look smart.

So, I put a post on social media asking if there were any photographers or videographers in the Maidenhead area who would like to come and take a couple of pictures of training, film a session, so that we could put out a bit of content on social media. The intention was to stop people leaving and to show the club off in a light that might attract new players.

Maidenhead players run out onto the pitch
Grass-roots clubs like Maidenhead need all the help they can get
Conor Crowe and Brad Wilkins arrived on the Tuesday; Conor a photographer, Brad a videographer. They turned up, took some great footage, and I bought them a pint of Guinness afterwards. The video made us look like the All Blacks. It was unbelievable. The lads were like: "Oh my God, is this us?" It was! It is amazing what an edit can do...

Two days later, a skills session at 7pm. I turn behind the posts and they're back! "What are you lads doing here?" The reply? "We love a Guinness." They just started coming down, became part of the furniture, doing a few social-media posts and interviews. It all caught the eye of the club's chairman, Steve Bough, who started to understand the power of social media in attracting players.

It snowballed from there. About two months in, Conor said that they might as well just keep going for the whole season. I mentioned, perhaps, making a documentary. Polar Media are an awesome, up-and-coming creative house and they thought it would be a great thing to have on a CV. So, we just cracked on and The Heart of the Game was the end result.

tmg.video.placeholder.alt LbXF3ZjjGLM
The Rugby Football Union cannot just give money and players to every club. We have to roll our sleeves up. At Maidenhead, we have an amazing army of supporters and volunteers, which hopefully has come through in the documentary – Kate Swinn and Jo Randell among them. But the list goes on.

There were some costs. I put some money in, as did the chairman and a few local benefactors who wanted to remain anonymous. It was not to make money, it was just to cover the costs. When the RFU learnt of the project, it loved it, and it put a little bit of cash in to cover the filming, with extra cameras and equipment. But there were no editorial stipulations from the RFU. There was no propaganda. And, incidentally, Conor and Brad did it for nothing.

We tried to explore what was going on in English rugby's grass roots and the conclusion was thus: if you sit on your arse and wait for a handout, or blame the RFU, your club is going to disappear. If you can find a group of people who are prepared to give up their time for free – which, I realise, is easier said than done – like all the volunteers at Maidenhead, people who are prepared to put time into a club, you can create an amazingly healthy community-based centre that has fun, health, well-being and our amazing game at the heart of it. But do not assume, like the old days, that the rugby club has a God-given right to put four teams out.

Will Greenwood with Brad Wilkins and Conor Crowe
Greenwood (centre) with cinematographer/editor Brad Wilkins (left) and director/producer Conor Crowe (right) Credit: Leo Wilkinson
A community club which is run not for profit, just to "keep the lights on", needs great f---ing people. They are not all my mates. I do not get on with all of them. I absolutely avoid some of them at the bar and I know that there are some who would avoid me, but that was no different to the England team I played in. I didn't get on with everyone and some people didn't like me. But, at this level, there is just so much shared respect for what everyone does at the club. We could be better, but we are amateurs.

We get 50 at training now. I'm not saying that the documentary has been the panacea. It might only have been responsible for recruiting four or five players, but that is four or five more than we had before and we need every single one of them, as many as we can get.

I hope I pass, but I have just completed my level three coaching badges. I do not necessarily want to be a professional coach but I am interested in what is going on in rugby. I speak to Bill Sweeney, the RFU chief executive, often, and there is a lot I both agree and disagree with him on. We have pleasant discussions but I am aggressive on a few things. I am no RFU mouthpiece but Sweeney supported this documentary and was interviewed at a time when he was under pressure for his job. I respect him for that; as I do Sir Clive Woodward, my old coach, who also gave up his time.

I love my sport. Rugby won't leave me, can't leave me; it is in me. Whether it's coaching Maidenhead in December on a five-game losing streak, as long as there are lads who want to finish the session slightly better than when they started, I could not give a fig about what level it is. I have found myself down at Maidenhead, where the boys and girls want to get better. And I love it.

The five-part series "The Heart of the Game" is available on the England Rugby YouTube channel.

[The Lurker]

Interesting article, I dare say being a WC winner and Lion probably helped grease the wheel a bit with this project but some excellent points made.

Keighley have some very slick productions on their social media, have they noticed a difference with player recruitment and retention?

[Locked Out]

Well said Will and thanks for sharing BRB. If only every club could energise and mobilise an "army of volunteers"... All too often we come across virtual one man bands in some clubs where so much is done by so few. Those are the clubs that are in danger.

Ripon is well blessed with good numbers and quality of volunteers at all levels from age grade, through to adult and premises/ground maintenance. All working together like a well-oiled machine for the good of Rugby in the community.

Love the video ideas, will look into that. I'm sure there's a volunteer nearby eager to have a go at that!

[avinastella]

He's right, but as a Telegraph columnist, he also gets, and takes, every opportunity to push his club in his articles. Publicity that must surely irk some of his local opposition clubs.