History of the Spire Rugby Trust

Although coming into being under its present title in January 2008, the history of Spire goes back much further. The original founding body was the Rugby Football Union (RFU) Charitable Fund which started in 1958. This had a very wide remit and was funded by donations from within the game and from the RFU.

In the 1980s and early 1990s there was a significant increase in the number of players receiving serious injuries playing rugby. The founders of Spire were then involved in a number of activities to improve the situation and the support that could be given if serious injury occurred.

• The Players Safety Committee changed laws to make the game safer.
  
  
• An Injured Player Welfare Officer was appointed to make contact with injured players when notified to the RFU and act as a first support.
  
  
• Establish a Register of Injured Players to improve continuity of support.
  
  
• Creation of SPIRE (Support Paraplegics in Rugby Enterprise) as a separate charity from the RFU Charitable Fund specifically to support seriously injured players.
  
  

When Ian Beer (the current Chair of the Charity’s Board of Trustees) was President of the RFU Council, he toured the country fund-raising for the new SPIRE charity. This raised over £100,000. The RFU then agreed in 1995 that £1 from the cost of all tickets for matches at Twickenham would be given as a charitable gift to SPIRE. Through this, the charity has established a permanent endowment fund of over £6 million to support the charity’s work. Using the income from investing this endowment fund, the charity has been able to give hundreds of grants over the years to injured players.

The profile of The Spire Rugby Trust’s clients is very broad. The oldest broke his neck in 1952 though the vast majority received their injuries between 1977 and 2001. The youngest client is 22 and the oldest is 74. Sadly despite improvements to the laws and protective clothing, the charity has to help about 3 new clients every year. There are currently 126 people receiving help from the charity.

In 2006, the charity gave out over £180,000 in grants to our clients for a wide range of projects. The charity prides itself on being responsive to client needs. Requests granted have ranged from assisting with costs of building adaptations and vehicles to helping buy a pet boxer dog for a client’s son. Our basic principle is that if the grant will benefit the quality of life and/or physical care of the client or his/her family, we will support it.

With 2008, the Spire Rugby Trust moves into another new era as an incorporated company. This will enable us to work more closely with the RFU and ensure that seriously injured players can be supported from the moment they receive the injury to when they no longer need additional help or support.