In 2008 my club mate Stuart Mangan, suffered a severe spinal injury while playing rugby for Hammersmith and Fulham and tragically died on the 7th August 2009.

Stuart was only 26.

His injury and death greatly affected us all and as a Vet’s team, we made the RFUIPF our chosen charity and have since raised over £120,000 for the disabled rugby charities through the Legends matches, in Stuart’s memory.

But this year we wanted to do more to raise awareness of a charity that does so much for injured players and their families and in the twilight of our careers, to put something back.

So an idea was discussed with Phil Catt of the RFUIPF  for the Charity with the assistance of HFRFC, to host a grass roots veterans rugby tournament at Twickenham. Incredibly this plan with the generous support of the RFU, has come off and on the 9th June 2018, 130 veteran players from 4 clubs who have suffered catastrophic player injuries, will be putting their bodies on the line on the holy turf.

We have set ourselves a massive target of £40,000, so please help me support the RFUIPF by sponsoring me in this match.

If you would like to see more of what the RFUIPF does to help the injured players and their families adapt and recover from critical injuries and importantly to me, the preventive research they do, to stop tragic injuries happening like this again, please log on to http://www.rfuipf.org.uk

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails.