Worcester Warriors: Family of ex-owner Cecil Duckworth 'devastated' by rebranding
- Published
Macclesfield-born Cecil Duckworth made his fortune as the owner of heating giants Worcester Bosch
The family of ex-Worcester Warriors chairman Cecil Duckworth say owners Atlas are "trying to destroy his legacy" by proposing to change the club's name and merge with Stourbridge.
On Thursday Atlas, led by Jim O'Toole and James Sandford, withdrew a proposal to play in the Championship next season and stated an intention to rebrand.
Duckworth was actively involved with the club until 2015 and died in 2020.
"The Duckworth family are devastated to learn of the rebranding," they said.
"We feel Atlas are trying to destroy the legacy that Cecil and many others had worked so hard in succeeding in bringing Premiership Rugby to Sixways and Worcester.
"We would urge Atlas to renegotiate with the Rugby Football Union."
Warriors had been given until 14 February to meet RFU criteria to play in the second tier but Atlas pulled out of talks because of "a number of key clauses in the contract that we and the investors couldn't accept".
O'Toole told BBC Hereford & Worcester that the decision would "clearly upset and annoy a number of people" but said "it's time for a new start".
Local millionaire boiler manufacturer Duckworth first got involved with Worcester in 1997, injected the funds which led to their first of three promotions to the Premiership in 2004 - as well as the redevelopment of the ground.
He reduced his involvement in 2013, when Sixways Holdings Limited took over, under Greg Allen. But he remained part of the board as club president until his death.
The club have been known as Worcester Warriors since being rebranded and breaking away from the original Worcester Rugby Football Club by Duckworth in the late 1990s.
Plans to align with fourth-tier Stourbridge and change their name from Worcester Warriors to Sixways Rugby need to be sanctioned by the RFU.
Warriors could have been in Championship - Diamond
Rival Worcester bidder Steve Diamond says the club would have played in the Championship this September, and would still be playing under their existing name, if their offer had been accepted.
"It looks like they're clutching at straws," Diamond told BBC Hereford & Worcester.
"There's an old saying that, in desperate times, people do desperate things.
"What would I have done? I'd be playing in the Championship in September."
Steve Diamond first joined Worcester in November 2021 before becoming director of rugby
It has been reported that the new owners O'Toole and Sandford did not pass a 'fit and proper persons test' when the club's bid to be allowed to start next season in the Championship was rejected by the RFU on 16 December.
They had already been chosen as preferred bidders in October by administrators Begbies Traynor following Warriors' early season financial collapse under previous owners Colin Goldring and Jason Whittingham.
But Diamond says his consortium, allied with Warriors club sponsor Adam Hewitt, did actually have RFU approval.
"We agreed with everything the RFU put in front of us, including paying the rugby creditors," he said.
"I feel like the administrator has a statutory duty to the creditors. There are players, sponsors, supporters, staff, who are all owed a hell of a lot of money and none of them will receive any of that because of this.
"If you pass the fit and proper person's test, part of that is agreeing to pay the unlimited amount of rugby creditors, which our consortium agreed to pay."
The complication comes about from the way Warriors were structured under the previous owners.
WRFC Trading Ltd, the part of Whittingham and Goldring's operation which owned the ground at Sixways, went into administration on 26 September.
WRFC Players Ltd, through which the Warriors players and staff were paid, was then wound up in the High Court in London on 5 October, causing the cancellation of contracts.
"The rugby creditors are not looked upon by the administrators as secure creditors, so there's a loophole," added Diamond.
Who wants to support Sixways Rugby?
Diamond was also critical of the proposed name change to Sixways Rugby.
"People are proud of the name of their city," said Diamond. "Sixways is an infrastructure on the M5.
"It's great to have a plan, but this plan has never previously been identified or discussed.
"The people who take over the legacy of Mr Duckworth have to have a plan for Worcester Warriors.
"The DCMS [the Department for Culture and Media and Sport select committee] have demanded a parliamentary hearing and the governing body have been hauled over the coals.
"The plan had to stand up to rigorous questioning - and that appears not to have happened. That's why this tangent has been taken, to go down three divisions to try and amalgamate with another first team at another club."
Name change could be looked at - Sandford
The plan to ditch the Worcester Warriors name was announced by co-owner O'Toole in an exclusive interview to BBC Hereford & Worcester on Thursday.
The decision was made in an attempt to counter what the new prospective owners deemed to be the "negativity" associated with the existing brand - but it immediately led to a local outcry.
Fans made their feelings clear to the BBC both on social media and on air but O'Toole's co-owner, fellow Irishman Sandford, speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live on Friday, said that decision is not irreversible.
Irishman James Sandford played at lock for Ulster, Rotherham, London Irish, Cornish Pirates and London Welsh
"There are parts within our control," he said. "One element of that is the brand.
"If we've got that wrong, I think we can hold our hands up and be honest and say 'it was a step too far'.
"We're looking at everything and listening to everything. We've listened to the fans and community and we can look to re-engage.
"We will stand up and be accountable for our mistakes and if that is one of them we can look at that, absolutely.
"From our perspective, the club itself is the people around it, the community, the fans who are involved. We have come in to clean up a situation that has been created, make no qualms about it, by the previous owners under the RFU's watch."
'We never said we would not pay creditors'
Sandford also insists that the Atlas Group were also committed to paying off Warriors' rugby creditors.
"We have never said that we would not pay rugby creditors, even with the new approach," he told BBC 5 Live. "That's something that's been picked up and run with that's not entirely true.
"Let's be transparent that in December, we had focused primarily on entering the Championship under Worcester Warriors.
"It was made very clear to us we were to sign the insolvency terms as they stood, or there was no point in engaging any further.
"Part of our bid was to pay off the rugby creditors and we had what to our side was an insurmountable sum of a range of £2m and £8m.
"But we had terms put upon us by the RFU to pay that within 30 days without having the opportunity to do any due diligence on those, or understand who was the most critical of those rugby creditors.
"We agreed that we wouldn't pay them in full but that we needed some time.
"It is a difficult and trying time. We knew we were coming into a situation which was going to be challenging but we need to turn this round not for a quick solution. We need to make it sustainable."