Born out of a recognised need for a strongly structured, sustainable and successful wheelchair rugby club in the Herts/North London area.
Saracens Wheelchair Rugby Club
Saracens Wheelchair Rugby Club at Stoke Mandeville Stadium Guttmann Centre wearing green.
It was founded in 2018 as Hatfield Comets Wheelchair Rugby by five eligible players and a volunteer, with support from GB Wheelchair Rugby (the National Governing Body for the sport) and from London Wheelchair Rugby Club (the longest established “Quad” wheelchair rugby club in the UK, based at the National Orthopaedic Hospital Stanmore).
The club was gifted or loaned chairs by GBWR, LWRC and Stock Mandeville Marauders and commenced training under the guidance of Peter Freeman who had been volunteering at LWRC since he discovered the sport at London 2012.
The club was established as a Wheelchair Rugby 5’s club as it allowed players with less severe impairments as well as Quad eligible players to join in.
The original or Paralympic Quad variant was invented to allow players with the highest level of impairment to enjoy competitive sport in one of the only full-contact disability sports. WR5 was introduced by GBWR to expand the support while remaining true to the founding athletes. The most noticeable difference between the two variants is the number of players on court (Four in Quad and Five in WR5).
SWRC players training with facemasks
SWRC on a training session
Both variants have players classified according to functional impairment between 0.5 and 4.0 with a maximum number of points permitted on court (8 and 10 respectively). This ensures that if a team has a less impaired player (eg. a 3.5 point player) then they need to put a lower point player (with greater physical impairments) on court to stay at that average of 2 points.
The Quad classification overlaps with the lowest classes of WR5 thus a Quad player classified as a 3.5 point player would be a 1.0 player in WR5. There is also a 0.5 point reduction for female athletes to encourage participation. It was until Tokyo 2020/1 the only Mixed Gender Olympic or Paralympic sport with male and female athletes on court together.
The newly formed club rapidly found new players wanting to join and learn about the sport.
Originally we had three members with Spinal Cord Injuries (“SCIs”) out of the five founders, but the wider eligibility of WR5s opened up the sport to other conditions. We have players with conditions including Spina Bifida, Cerebral Palsy, Multiple Sclerosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Acquired Brain Injury, Stroke and degenerative conditions as well as amputations.
Peter and other members long-term support of Saracens Rugby Club coincided with Saracens Sports Foundation’s commitment to inclusive and disabled sports programmes and lead to Hatfield Comets becoming Saracens Wheelchair Rugby Club. Independent of the Premiership team and commercial activities of Saracens, but proud to be part of the Saracens Family.
