Vaccine is shot in the arm for Biggar Rugby Club to repeat title win

Biggar celebrating their 2019-20 title win, though it was subsequently rescinded after they lost an appeal to the SRU

With the coronavirus nightmare finally looking like it might be ended by next summer due to a mass vaccination rollout, Biggar are already eyeing top spot in the 2020-21 edition of their league, and subsequent promotion to the Premiership.

“We are desperate to win the league next year and go up by rights,” club secretary Mike Booth told the Carluke and Lanark Gazette. “That’s the plan.

“We’re all starting to look forward now and we can see competitive rugby on the horizon.

“If you’d asked me a month ago, we couldn’t see when we were going to start again, and we were starting to wonder if we were going to get a season of rugby in next season, so yes, this is all great news now.

“We are hoping that we will start to go back down the coronavirus tiers so we can go back to that level of training with the seniors.

“We’ve still got 135 kids turning up for training on a Sunday which is fantastic, but it’s been difficult for the seniors to motivate themselves because they’ve really only got fitness training they can do and in such small groups.

“They’re desperate to get back to some kind of team training and then a match.”

Mike finished by saying he was grateful for this newspaper publicising Biggar’s appeal to the SRU over several months until it was finally knocked back in November.

“It was great that we had your coverage,” he said.

“It makes a difference and there’s so many people that kind of stop you in the streets and say ‘we’ve been following your story in the Gazette’, so it gets out there. I know we didn’t win the appeal, but everybody knows we tried.

“I think we’ve got a great team down at the club, not just the players but the treasurer, club manager and all the volunteers.”

“It’s a big deal. We’ve got a charity and a business running. Without all those volunteers, it would just be hopeless.”