Last season finished on the other side of the world. The Spartans came home from the Bingham Cup in Brisbane with six wins from six and the Hoagland Bowl, the club’s first tournament silverware in twelve attempts. This season begins the way they all do, with a Saturday afternoon in September.

Fresh back from Brisbane, and with the squads preparing for the season ahead, Matt Whiteley looked back on Mark Bingham’s legacy and the tournament that carries his name in The Observer.

The First XV

A second season in NOWIRUL The County Courier Division 5 East, in a division that has been rearranged around them. Marple 2nd XV, Leek 3rds and East Manchester 2nd XV have gone up, and Broughton and Congleton 2nd XV come in, so eight of this year’s eleven opponents are already familiar.

There is no pre season this time, so the league opener is the side’s first match of any kind. It comes at home to Congleton’s Second XV on 26 September, and the season runs through to 17 April, when Crewe & Nantwich’s Thirds are the last visitors of the year.

The Second XV

The Second XV go into this season as champions. They won IGR UK North 2 last year, played eight and won seven, scored 454 and conceded 166, and finished six points clear at the top.

What they enter now is a different competition. IGR UK League North is four clubs playing each other home and away: Typhoons, Sheffield Vulcans, Leeds Hunters and Liverpool Tritons. The Spartans have played every club in IGR UK before now, and Tritons are the one of these four to have beaten the Second XV last season, 29 to 24 in Manchester at the end of February. That fixture comes round again on 9 January. We want to change this season’s scoreline against Tritons and come away with two wins!

The season opens at home to Sheffield Vulcans on 3 October and closes at home to Typhoons on 23 January.