For those that don’t know, SandMartin is run by Ian Sanderson who has been involved with Billingham for a lot of years. As a parent, a coach, a referee but more importantly as one of our sponsors. Ian has supported Billingham Rugby Club for 16 years from initially sponsoring the Colts side which won the County Cup whose side included the likes of Peter Evans to becoming one of our main sponsors for the last 15 years. Must be some record there surely? Ian along with our other sponsors provide much needed support to the community so when I got the request from Ian it was a no brainier to allow him to say a few words.

Anyhow… I’ll hand over to the man himself Ian Sanderson

‘When you have historic times like these on achieving promotion to national league two status for the first time , it’s a great opportunity to reflect on the journey to this occasion. With this reflection, I realised that I have been the main sponsor or lead sponsor for the club for 15 years. The year before that I sponsored the Colts team, which Peter Evans was part of, which won the county cup for the first time in that year group .

Just after I first started sponsoring the club we had the financial crisis and I was told by Chris Hyndman, that my help and support was vital to keep the club going, along with others, of course. So a really tough start.

Now the club is in a very healthy position and is starting this new era with amazing developments with the clubhouse.

However, for me, the club will always be proud of its roots. It’s one big happy family.

It is a true team. It Starts with professional leadership from the Chairman, where difficult and unpopular decisions from time to time have to be made as part of that role, but keep enabling us to take advantage of opportunities , whilst keeping the vision for the club on track.

Supported by the committee, volunteers, the immensely important Sunday crew as I call it. I started here many moons ago and made friends for life. Hopefully transferring to the Saturday supporters crew to continue the amazing benefits of true friendship and fun.

All of this coming together to create teams of players, representing the club and taking us to these new heights.

I’m proud to have been part of this journey and long may it continue………..

Congratulations to everyone

Our spirit truly is our strength’

Ian Sanderson