The England/North Wales border is not currently known as a hot bed for the sport of Lacrosse, and until now was lacking in clubs for local players to play in. Until this season that is. One of the new clubs hitting the lacrosse radar for the 2010/11 season will be Chester Romans, the product of Dave Nash, formally of Portsmouth Uni Lacrosse Club, who returned home to the area and decided he couldn't do without his lacrosse fix.
The first step in getting any new team off the ground is of course recruiting a solid core of players, and Dave Nash tells TopJLax that he "was suprised by the amount of interest from the local area - with a number of experienced men's players already based in and around and a solid base from Queen's School to begin the foundation for a ladies team". You only have to look at the Chester website to see that there are players on their listing previous clubs such as Norbury, Boardman & Eccles, and Mellor to name but a few. The other key ingredient is a strong base of people committed to helping the club get off the ground, and here Dave was helped out by Jason Perrin (seems like he gets everywhere in the lax community these days) after contacting each other on Laxforums.
The City of Chester has a long an colourful history with the Romans, being founded originally as a Roman Fort next to the River Dee in 75 AD. The founding members of the Club wanted to incorporate some of this history into the name and so the "Chester Romans" were born, with a nickname perfect for merchandising, and building the club up in the local area... it's certainly more colorful than "Chester Lacrosse Club" and great for the kids to call themselves the "Romans".
This season the Mens team will be entering NEMLA (As we wrote this article the particular division had yet to be decided). Entering the league has once again brought to the foreground the discussion of where "new" clubs should be placed, as not all "new" clubs have a base of players new to the game, and in the case of Chester Lax the team has a mix of new players but also has the large amount of experienced players as well.
Whatever league Chester end up in the aim is to continue to bring in players and field a seconds team for both the Women's and Men's team within 1-2 years. In the long term, the teams intends to start a development programme which they hope will really boost lacrosse in the area. The team are already working with local School Sports Partnerships, the council and the ELA to get into school and get teaching lacrosse.
12 Years ago there was an existing Women's team that played in the Chester area, based out of the Cheshire County Sports Club, and on a trip back to the ground all that was left was a few rusty goals, but the ground itself had flourished into a bigger and better sports club. Within 10 mins of meeting Mark Fearon who works at the Club Jason Perrin had managed to secure a home for the Chester Romans.
With a good sports club, and a good ground to play on, the foundations are in place, and with a full roster of Men's and Women's team that had their first training session on Saturday 13th March this year the future looks good for Lacrosse in the England/North Wales area.
With a good sports club, and a good ground to play on, the foundations are in place, and with a full roster of Men's and Women's team that had their first training session on Saturday 13th March this year the future looks good for Lacrosse in the England/North Wales area.
