This week we are featuring a club member who is highly valued by the club and is partly responsible for how well the club is doing to this day! This week we got in touch with Glenn to see if he will share a little bit about his involvement with Penrith RUFC. Here's what he had to say...

Name: Glenn Savage

Years at Penrith RUFC: "Started playing for the Vags around 1968 so that makes it 52 years involved with the Club, before that it was playing for the Grammar School against the Old Boys."

A look at his time at the club:
"I played second team rugby with Brian Teasdale learned more about the nightclubs of Newcastle and Stockton than how to play rugby, great fun though.

Buses were unreliable so remember the call to change on the bus ready for kick off as soon as we got there!

I played hooker and advanced to the first team where I was Vice Captain for a couple of years when Gorden Salkeld was Captain.

I was also Team Secretary then which meant letting everyone know who they were playing for and where. You try telling Choc he was dropped from the first team!

I retired through injury and became Club Secretary. This was when we had the old Club House and no money. The one thing that made us money was our Sunday lunch time strip shows, unfortunately they became too risqué so we had to abandon. Problems with Stewards as well as we could never get the stock take to balance, all changed when we appointed Graham Robertson, no one would argue with him.

I was involved in building the Squash Courts, at this time as I was one member of the committee who played the game. My mate was subscription secretary so I got to be member number 1.

Played squash for the Penrith team for a number of years but never won much.

I dropped out for a while but came back in when the grandkids wanted to play rugby. Became a qualified mini rugby coach and enjoyed six seasons highlight of which was our under 8 team getting to the final of a tournament at Newcastle Falcons ground and running on at half time in front of 8,000 people.

During this time I started raising money for the club through grant funding and this has continued to this day. I have raised £143,285 so far in the last 15 years." - Wow! What an achievement!

His fondest memory at Penrith RUFC: "Just being involved in a great club and making a host of friends. Started to cycle to games a couple of seasons back, home and away. Best trip was to Kirby Lonsdale had to stay the night though."

What he hopes Penrith RUFC will achieve next season: "Would hope Penrith stays at the top of Cumbria Rugby and maintains the level it now enjoys, something I never achieved in my playing career and that it continues as a successful community rugby club."

What he enjoys most about Penrith RUFC: "Just going to the Club and seeing what we now have remembering the old days when the Club House was falling down and the dip that is now a housing estate was used as a training ground, who can forget being pushed up and down that hill. Didn’t concentrate much on rugby skills in them days but we were fit."

A massive thank you to Glenn for giving us an overview of this time at Penrith RUFC. Hopefully it brings back some fond memories for some and shows our younger members how great it is to be involved with your local rugby club for years to come! On behalf of the club, we'd just like to take the time to really appreciate Glenn's efforts for the club, both past and present! It takes great people to make such a great club, and Glenn certainly is one of those people.