Another successful year for Leamington's Rugby4Heroes festival
Last weekend Rugby4Heroes returned to the Old Leamingtonians RFC for its ninth year.
The rugby and music festival, which started on Friday evening and ran until Sunday afternoon, helps to raise money in memory of the service men and woman from Warwickshire and the West Midlands who fell during Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Hide AdThe festival is also used to remember two soldiers in particular - Private Joe Whittaker from Stratford and Private Conrad Lewis from Claverdon. Both soldiers were killed in action in Afghanistan.
Throughout the weekend there were senior and junior rugby matches, live music performances, stalls, a rugby ball bucking bronco, as well as military vehicles including a tank and helicopters.
Visitors on Sunday also had the chance to see the flyover of the Battle of Britain Memorial flight.
Mike Vallance, project leader for Rugby4Heroes, said: “The reaction to this year’s event has been a very positive one. The event ran very smoothly and there was excellent rugby from both seniors and juniors.
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Hide Ad“It was a very busy weekend overall and the weather was certainly against us on Saturday but rugby folk are hardy folk so they still came out.
“It was great to see a real nice mix of ages from babies to 94-year-old war veteran Rusty Waughman, who used to fly the Lancaster Bombers. His attendance allowed us to pay tribute to him. The Lancaster Bomber was due to flyover on Sunday but couldn’t fly because of further engineering work.”
The Rugby4Heroes team are already looking at next year’s event, which will be the 10th and final festival.
Mike said: “We are currently fixing the date for 2018, which will be the 10th year. It is a lot of hard work to do the event but we love it.
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Hide Ad“Local people give their time and hard work. We want to make next year very special to raise money for the charities but to also thank the volunteers by putting on a great show.
“Next year will be the grand finale for the festival.
“My team and I would like to thank everyone for their support, thank everyone who came and thank all who volunteered as well as all the teams and all of our sponsors. We couldn’t do this without them.”