Written By Erin Stait
With the new season under way and a new coach in charge we wanted to give you a chance to get to know him better. Head coach Steve Hopes has been at Chipping Sodbury since 2004, when teammate Phil Player convinced him to start playing the right sport, switching from football to rugby. Through his years of playing he has consistently wore the number 5 shirt only slowing down in the 23/24 season when he was shadowing previous coach Harvey Skelton whilst collecting his official badges.
Across his time playing Steve has achieved many great things he spoke on two of his favourites one being winning the combination plate final and the other was playing for Bristol combination and captaining the side, he spoke on both highlights being massive privileges for him and will never be something he forgets. During his time here he is a coach for our Mini and Youth teams after his son Archie joined Chipping Sodbury in 2017 following him from the under 7’s and now in 2024 still coaching them in the under 13’s squad.
Now talking about the season ahead Steve humbly expressed his hopes for this season is to stay in the league, attract new players and get everyone enjoying playing rugby at Chipping Sodbury, since that’s the goal for everyone. We want to make a team with great moral and big each other up and be able to pick someone up regardless of experience and fitness, because It is all about getting the boys to play with a smile on their face what ever the score or league position is.
Pre-season for Chipping Sodbury was less than ideal with many games being cancelled leaving us no time to rearrange or reschedule these and leaving us with little experience as a team going into the season. We however did play one pre-season game that consisted of three quarters which was not amazing for us since we were not able to show our true skills as a team.
This final quote from Steve will show you the determination he has for this club to do well and the love that has grown over the years for these players.
“I love this rugby club and will continue to do what I can to help players and the club as a whole.”