New rugby league academy to launch in Leicestershire
Leicester Storm community rugby league club are set to link up with a Leicestershire college to establish a new rugby league academy in the East Midlands.
Brooksby Melton College will be hosting the club’s games, and also allowing Storm to use its new £3.65million state-of-the-art sports facilities, due to open next month.
Storm are set to play their home games at the college’s Brooksby campus throughout their campaign this year in the Conference South.
A new rugby league academy for students will also be launched, allowing students to combine their academic studies with developing their rugby league talents.
“For us, hosting games is very exciting,” Mark Bendle, assistant principal at Brooksby Melton College, told the Leicester Mercury.
“It brings people into the college who normally wouldn’t come in.
“Sport is a growing area, so we’re hoping that the option to study sport here with a rugby league academy beside it will only increase the number of sports students we have with us.
“The academy model is very much one where students do their academic study for about 13-hours-a-week and then have a further 10 hours within a sports academy.
“It could be a development academy or an elite academy, allowing students the ability to grow within their sport of choice.
“The chance to set up a rugby league academy allows us the opportunity to provide students with top quality rugby league coaching alongside their course of study.”
Ty Watson, chairman of Leicester Storm, is delighted that his club can access the state-of-the-art facilties at the college.
“This link up brings to an end a long search for a place that the Storm can call home,” he said.
“It’s nice to have found people with a similar vision for the sport of rugby league as ourselves with facilities that are second-to-none.
“Immediately, this move puts us right up there with the professional clubs in terms of facilities.”
Leicester Storm’s fixture against Gloucestershire Warriors on Saturday April 11 will be the first game to be held at the college.
The Leicester rugby league club was founded in 1986, and rebranded as Leicester Phoenix in 1998. In 2010, it became Leicester Storm.