Beckenham RFC 2010-11 - Pre-season Press Release
Beckenham RFC is an ambitious rugby club in the South East London/North Kent Area offering everyone the chance to play rugby. We are one of very few clubs in the country, and certainly the only one in the local area, that can field a team in every RFU category at every age group – Mens, Ladies, Boys and Girls!

Chairman, Paul Skelly confirmed: “We are a strictly amateur club; none of our players receives match fees or expenses. Many of the local clubs, in our league and even in the leagues below, are offering money and other enticements to attract players. We decided that to go the semi-professional route was not for us as we have seen it have a negative impact on many clubs in the long run”

That is not to say we are not an ambitious club, far from it. Instead of just buying in the best players, we are investing our resources into coaching, facilities and providing the very best support to our players so that they can continue to develop and improve their skills. We really believe that with our youth rugby set-up that we can only continue to improve and with our Academy now in its third year, we fully expect to see many of those players involved in the 1st XV squad this season. National league rugby is our aim and we genuinely believe that it is within our grasp. We are only able to achieve this with the continued support of our army of volunteers and our many sponsors; in particular our main squad sponsors; Patrick’s Bar of Beckenham and David Lloyd Leisure; who have give an incredible amount of support over the last few seasons.

Whatever happens after that depends on our ability to maintain, attract and develop players that want to improve and get the best out of themselves. To prove the success of our approach we have secured the services of Luke Harding, the current Kent scrum-half, who after a trial session was so impressed with our coaching set-up that he decided to join Beckenham.
In order to realise our ambitions we decided to focus on our coaching set-up. Last year we appointed Dan Leek as our head coach and he is continuing for this season and we hope for many more seasons to come. Dan assembled his senior squad players at the end of June to outline his plans for the season and confirmed the senior men’s coaching structure.

Head Coach - Dan Leek                     
Dan is continuing in his second season as Head Coach with Beckenham and aims to continue to build on last year’s 5th place finish in the league and Kent Plate Victory having taken us from second from bottom of the league the season before he joined. Prior to being at Beckenham, Dan was with Wasps for two years before moving on to play for Clonakilty and Munster U21’s, he then captained Staines before spending two years at London Scottish. Dan is a full time Community Rugby Coach with the RFU and we are delighted that Dan is able to continue to lead our coaching team.

Backs/Attack Coach - James Brown
James became a valuable member of our coaching staff last year and we can confirm he will be continuing this season. A gifted fly-half, James has been capped by England A, England 7’s, England Counties and of course the Barbarians. He has also played over 80 Premiership games and a host of European and domestic cup games for London Irish, Neath, Worcester and Coventry, including winning the Powergen Cup with London Irish in 2002. James, a qualified Level 2 coach, currently plies his trade as a player coach with the ambitious London Scottish club and as well as coaching our backs will be providing video analysis of our games and offering strategic advice to our coaching team.

Assistant Coach – Matt Leek
We are delighted to announce another high class addition to the coaching team – Matt Leek. Matt, a talented fly half has played rugby at the highest level for more than ten years. He first came to prominence when he was capped by England U16’s and U18’s and was quickly snapped up by Saracens. A fine performance for England in the U21 Sanzar tournament in Australia in 2001 brought him to the attention of Wasps where he played a few seasons before moving on to play for Leinster alongside one of the most talented backlines in recent years that included Brian O’Driscoll, Felipe Contepomi , Gordon D’arcy, Denis Hickie and Shane Horgan. In this time Matt picked up a host of Heineken Cup, Premiership and Celtic League appearances including an Ireland 7’s cap.

More recently Matt has been captain of Blackheath where a persistent knee injury and increased work commitments forced his early retirement from top class rugby.  We are absolutely delighted to be able to announce that he has joined our coaching staff this season. Matt, welcome to Beckenham RFC.

Assistant Coach – Michael Fealey
Michael joined Beckenham as a mini-rugby player and played his way through to the 1st XV before a series of injuries changed his focus to coaching. A qualified Level 2 coach, Michael was head coach at Old Gravesendians for the past two seasons helping them achieve promotion in his first year followed by relegation the next season as they adjusted to competing against some semi-pro teams. Michael has also spent the last three summer seasons coaching in Toronto Canada – primarily the Aurora Barbarians Women’s team in the top division, Toronto representative coach and also won the TRU U18 Mens Summer Games in 2008. Michael has now rejoined his home club and is delighted to be working with such a high profile coaching team and although his playing days are by no means finished, his ambition is to be one of the youngest ever Level 4 coaches in the country.
The above coaching team is supplemented by our rehabilitation and conditioning team lead by Nick Coleman, who will be able to give the very best support and advice to get the squad in the right shape to what promises to be an exciting season here at Beckenham.
Pre-season training for all sections is now in full swing and if you need more information about training or playing, please contact 1st Team Manager, Breda Neville – breda.neville@gmail.com or call/text 07946 581185.