Rugby club in weekend rampage

Current and former members of the University of York Rugby Club have reportedly been involved in a weekend of mayhem as part of their President’s celebration.

President’s weekend is an annual event in which alumni return to the University to see how the club is performing.

The club had booked out a room in The Graduate, a popular student pub on Lendal, on Friday night.

A member of the bar staff told Nouse: “There were about 60 people at the bar, all members of the party booked by the rugby club. Over the first hour or so it was fairly good humoured with only a bit of noisy chanting, but some of them began to get more rowdy.

“They started downing pints and smashing their glasses on the floor, which was covered in broken glass by the time they were kicked out. Two women had been hiding in the toilets and only felt safe to come out once they had left the pub.”

After leaving The Graduate, members of the group are reported to have gone to The Willow where, after having pulled down their trousers and exposed their genitals, several members were thrown out of the venue. A third year student who was present described how she was “disgusted” and went on to say “They’re not exactly helping the rugby and sports club image”.

According to members of staff The Graduate has had previous trouble with the Rugby Club, with other incidents of anti social behaviour.

In a separate incident on Saturday the Rugby Club reportedly visited The Courtyard and according to one member of the bar staff “they took over the whole bottom half of courtyard” and “were standing on chairs and filling up well over 20 condoms with beer, some just spinning them round their heads in the air.

“The result being beer everywhere and smashed glass covering the floor.” A section of The Courtyard was then forced to close for an hour while staff cleaned up. He noted, however, that the majority of the group were not involved in the incident and many members of the club seemed “very apologetic”.

Tomasz Chadwick, President of the Rugby Club, told Nouse: “Despite the event attracting more than 60 alumni, it is saddening to hear that certain people affiliated with the club have acted in such a way as to lessen its reputation.

“There are various members on committee that have worked extremely hard to enhance our club’s status for a number of years now, and it’s frustrating that certain individuals have let them down in this regard, especially, if those individuals are no longer current members.

“We can only apologise to those that we may have upset, and will continue to do our best to limit and if not eradicate seriously antisocial behaviour. I hope that those responsible for these actions are held accountable as individuals so that the club can move forward without any lasting and damaging effects.”

Cassandra Brown, York Sport President, commented: “I’m just very disappointed at their choosing to damage the club’s reputation – this kind of behaviour simply isn’t acceptable and the York Sport Union will be working with the club to ensure this kind of immaturity isn’t demonstrated again.”

Article source: http://www1.skysports.com/rugby-union/news/12507/9042264/autumn-internationals-wales-wing-alex-cuthbert-could-face-australia

Rugby club in weekend rampage