A Pandemic Lacrosse Club - Richmond LC & SE Lacrosse Development

By Rob Arnott

Winter 2020

Lockdown was in full swing, Boris was about to cancel Christmas and Tom

and I were plotting how to launch a new junior lacrosse club. People told us we were

mad, that we were doomed to fail, that it was the wrong time.

To be fair to the doubters, we didn’t have any money, we didn’t have a ground and neither of us had any confidence in our ability to coach lacrosse to u10s. But we did have a vision – the start of acompetitive boys league in London and adding a strong programme to the struggling

girls lacrosse scene in the region.

The moment the government gave the green light for organised sport to return we

pounced. We got a website up and running, rented some space at a local park and hit

the marketing hard. We told everyone and anyone about our new venture, teachers,

schools, parent groups, scout troops, youth clubs, the council, we even went door to

door with leaflets. The results were beyond our wildest dreams. In our first 12 weeks in existence we introduced the sport to over 60 girls and boys who had never picked up a stick before. In

the spring of 2021 a fledgling idea turned into a bona fide lacrosse club, and we soon

had a ground, a bank account, charitable status and actual members at u10s (mixed),

u12 boys and u13 girls.

Growing pains

Off the back of that initial marketing push and subsequent word of mouth we also

started receiving invites from schools to run taster sessions or even fully fledged after

school clubs and this is where we started to experience growing pains.

We were a brand new club, run by a group of enthusiastic volunteers who had busy day

jobs. We simply didn’t have anyone who was free during the week to run regular

sessions during or immediately before and after the school day. We called in favours,

took time off work and found a couple of coaches who could help us out on an ad-hoc

basis, and we made it work for a while. But it was clear that if we wanted to develop

long term and fruitful relationships with local schools, who offered a critical pipeline of

youngsters who would sustain our new club, we needed someone in schools, week in

week out.

As a club who had only just celebrated its first birthday, we didn’t have the financial

resources to employ someone full time so we started conversations with other clubs in

the region to see if anyone would team up with us on a new venture, to hire a full time

lacrosse development director. Our conversations led us to Spencer and East Grinstead Lacrosse Clubs who had equally ambitious plans to strengthen their junior programme (in Spencer’s case) or re-establish one, in East Grinstead’s case.

And so, South East Lacrosse Development (SELD) was born. A limited company co-

owned by the three clubs and funded by a combination of club donations, contracts with

schools, private investors and The Lacrosse Foundation, who continue to provide a huge

amount of support to the project.

After a competitive recruitment process, we appointed Sam Perry as our first full time

Lacrosse Development Director. Sam spends his week in a combination of delivery mode

introducing the sport to as many youngsters around our three ‘club hubs’ as he can and

developing our critical relationships with schools, local authorities and other key

stakeholders. Our long-term ambition is to make the business financially self-sustaining

within three years.

In the meantime, Richmond hit a major milestone in November. Our brand new u12

boys team, sporting smart new kit courtesy of The Lacrosse Foundation, played their

first competitive match, giving a much more experienced (and bigger!) Spencer outfit a

run for their money.

Image - Rob Arnott and Tom Roche, founders of Richmond Lacrosse Club, with Sam Perry and the Richmond Stags u12s on the eve of their debut match.