Rugby Rebels

Welcome to all new members!

I hope you were able to join the team website without any problems. If you have any feedback about the experience, please send a comment, either directly to me via email or through the website - 'Team Info' > 'Contact Us'. If you haven’t already done so, I’d advise changing your password – if you have any problems, please let me know.

The purpose of the website is to organise weekly football training for the children in a way that ensures we have consent from all parents and we are able to plan an engaging session.

I aim to post a ‘news’ update every Friday morning confirming the training session the next day. You will receive an email notification when the post goes live and you can find the posts in ‘News and Chat’ from the website menu. The schedule we are committed to is Saturday morning, from 10am to 12pm, at Whinfield Recreation Ground, Rugby, CV21 3SA. We will meet at the hard court / basketball court near the playground at the Clifton Road end of the field. Although there will be football matches taking place on many of the nearby pitches, there is plenty of parking available at the end of Butlin Road and next to the Rugby Town football ground. If you’d like to stay and watch our training sessions, you are more than welcome to.

As the recreation ground is provided for all the public, access to a space to play is on a first come, first served basis. As such, we ask that the children attend with two pairs of football boots; one pair of hard court/astro-turf boots and one pair of studded/moulded football boots. This will allow us to be flexible if our preferred location to play is unavailable and will make sure it is safe for the children to take part in all weather conditions.

To give you a bit of background about me, I am the father of Kerr Hawkins who is studying at Lawrence Sheriff in Year 8 (as of 2025/26). I have enjoyed playing football at a (very) amateur level for more than 40 years and have been coaching my children for around 6 years. As well as completing the ‘Introduction to Coaching Football’ online course with the Football Association (FA), I have also completed the ‘Introduction to First-Aid in Football’ and ‘Safeguarding Children in Football’ online courses (screenshots can be found on the website in ‘Media Gallery’ > ‘Team Galleries’ > ‘Important Information’). I had a basic DBS check performed at the end of 2025 – if you’d like to see the documentation, I will be happy to present that in person.

We are a group of people with the objectives to have fun and to develop skills, fitness and friendships. Although we are not an official club, we still feel it is important to put into place a number of policies that we’d like the players and volunteers to adhere to: 1. Keep it positive and respectful – always encourage, never insult others 2. No photos – mobile devices with cameras to be kept in our bags and no images of the players will appear on this website 3. Maintain a safe environment for all – we all take safeguarding seriously, whether it be on or off the pitch If you’d like to discuss this further, please speak to either myself or Sumanta at one of the training sessions.

The website is provided by a company that has created a dedicated grass-roots football team management tool. We are currently using the free features of the website (hence we are using ‘Team News’ posts instead of the ‘Schedule’ or ‘Availability’ sections), but there is the option of using their free mobile application on either Google or Apple devices. If you wish to use the app, go to the mobile app store and search for ‘teamstats’ – you should find “TeamStats: Football Management” by TeamStats. Once you’ve installed and opened the app, select ‘LOG IN’ and type in your username/email and password and you should be presented with the ‘Rugby Rebels’ feed. Click on the three-line icon in the top left of the screen to view the familiar menu.

ACTION REQUIRED:

It would be of great help to us if you could please add your emergency contact details either to your account on the website or via a Microsoft Forms submission.

The privacy settings on the website have been set so that only myself and Sumanta are able to view these details – public access and access by other Rugby Rebel member accounts to this information is denied.

Microsoft Form https://forms.office.com/r/EA03ryCF0i

TeamStats website Go to ‘Squad’ on the left-hand side of the website Select ‘PLAYERS’ Find your child in the list Click on the six-block grid button and select ‘EDIT DETAILS’ Here you will see ‘DETAILS’, ‘PERSONAL’, ‘PHOTOS’ and ‘PROFILE’ tabs Go to 'DETAILS' and fill in a ‘Main Mobile number’, ‘Secondary Email address’ and ‘Secondary Email address’ On the ‘PERSONAL’ tab, find the ‘Notes’ text box and list any medical conditions your child has

And finally, if there are any of you that would like to help out occasionally, please let us know. In order to maintain adequate safeguarding, at least two adults need to be present at each training session. There will inevitably be weekends that either myself or Sumanta will not be able to attend, so it would be good if we were able to call upon support from parents who are able to stay and watch occasionally.

I will endeavour to plan engaging, beneficial training sessions that are fun for all children attending, and I look forward to meeting you.

Neil Hawkins Coach neil.hawkins@proton.me

Rugby Rebels squad

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The Rugby Rebels Home Pitch

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