This year, the Women’s Rugby Club is looking to grow the funding of our club to make it more accessible and aid the awareness and support of women in this male-dominated sport. With the funding raised, we will be able to lower memberships and match fees, in addition to creating more opportunities for developing players!

Our Story

The University of York Women’s Rugby Club (UYWRUFC) is a large and continuously growing sport that has two participating teams in BUCS in addition to a development team focused on growing confidence and skill. Both the first and second teams compete in Roses, with a rugby whitewash last year! (A streak we intend to continue).

Many of the girls joining our club are new to rugby at the start of university and we want to expand the interest and awareness that rugby is a girl sport too! The skills in our club range from brand new players every term to semi-professional players!

This Challenge Week, we are completing three challenges; 7,200 push-ups in one day, a 12-hour run, and a three-day long yes challenge! Alongside additional individual challenges such as a half marathon.

Any donation, big or small, will be hugely appreciated and will make such a massive difference and help our club and the sport as a whole grow!

Where will the money go?

The money raised will be incredibly beneficial to our club as it will help us lower membership and match fees, maintain a good number of coaches for the 60 players at every training and keep safe, up-to-standard kit and medical supplies.

Primarily, the money raised will help us to fund the cost of coaches, as with 60 players at most training sessions, we need to ensure they are learning to play rugby safely. This sport is such a brilliant chance to try something new and exciting and we want to make sure that UYWRUFC offers a safe, fun opportunity to as many people as possible.

Why is this so important?

At the heart of our Challenge Week fundraising is the chance to make our club more accessible to all players! Not only have many girls never had the opportunity to contact rugby before, but also the cost of living currently there is a financial barrier for many people unable to pay the fees to play sport. Therefore, with lower memberships and match fees, the incentive to try a sport (that they will love!) is even stronger.

Rugby is a heavily male-dominated sport, and with good quality coaching and multiple development officers on our team, we want to grow the awareness of women in rugby and help York stand out as a welcoming space for new players!

The Challenges

Below are some of the challenges we will complete as part of the week:

• On the 11th of March, the whole club will participate in a Bereal Push-up challenge; in which every member will complete ten push-ups once an hour for 12 hours! With a total number of 7,200 push-ups!
• From the 12th to the 14th of March, the whole club will participate in a Yes challenge! Allowing donors to request random challenges to which our members MUST SAY YES!
• On the 15th of March, the runners of our club will be continuously running from 8am to 8pm!

Find us here

To keep up to date with our challenges and club activities follow our instagram @UYWRUFC. Here is where we will post all things Women’s Rugby!

Help us succeed!

We would love you to donate as much or as little as you are able and any donations are hugely appreciated. Your donation could also help us unlock fundraising challenges which will help us reach our goal even faster (you can see these on the challenges page).

If you are looking to support an individual athlete or challenge please put a message with your donation saying who!

Alternatively, if you are unable to donate then please do spread the word by signing up as a Challenge Week Ambassador for our club, and sharing our social media posts to your own socials so as many people as possible can read about our efforts!