Worcester Warriors Foundation: Cecil Duckworth-founded charity wing of club forced to leave Sixways after £80,000 shortfall in funding
- Published
The Foundation's new home at the Royal Porcelain Works is owned by The Bransford Trust
Worcester Warriors Foundation chief executive Carol Hart has queried club owners Atlas Group's lack of investment after being forced to leave Sixways to find a new home in the city.
The Foundation, the charity wing of the club, has been based at Sixways since being set up by former owner Cecil Duckworth 15 years ago.
But Warriors' loss of Premiership status has cost them a previously automatic annual £80,000 payment from the Rugby Football Union (RFU) as they are no longer part of an elite structure.
And Hart, who says she had little or no communication with financially-challenged Atlas since February, blames the new owners for the Foundation having to leave - and move now to the Royal Porcelain Works, in Severn Street, closer to the city centre, to continue their much-praised work with mentally-challenged younger and more elderly people in the area.
"There's no investment there," she told BBC Hereford & Worcester. "It has been very difficult watching the stadium fall into disrepair.
"The only thing really left is the pitch. Everything that we believed in, the heart and soul of the club, has gone.
"If I'd have bought the business, I'd have been trying to build the infrastructure back up, making it fit for purpose and getting it going again. But there seems to be very little of that going on."
Sixways has only hosted home games for Worcester Warriors women and local non-league football side Worcester Raiders since the men's first team played their last home game in late September 2022, before going into administration.
Warriors were then removed from the Premiership by the RFU, and fans retained hope that they might be allowed to play in the Championship in 2023-24. But, after Atlas overcame doubts to be announced in February as the club's new owners, those hopes rapidly faded.
After angering fans by announcing a name change and a potential semi-merger with nearby fifth-tier side Stourbridge, joint owners Jim O'Toole and James Sandford put on an eye-catching presentation at Sixways, which offered hope to Warriors fans.
But that package involved attracting fellow failed Premiership side Wasps to come in as tenants - and their own ongoing financial issues ensured that could not happen.
'We'll still be here for the isolated and vulnerable in our community'
"Like everybody else, we saw the Atlas business plan two days before they did the presentation at Sixways," said Hart.
"To a certain extent, a few people bought into it. But we haven't seen any evidence of that being fulfilled. We don't know any more than anyone else what the future looks like."
Following the sale to Atlas, and the lack of any public commitment to play elite rugby, the Foundation's trustees had debated for months on how best to move forward.
But Hart's main consideration is to ensure that the legacy created by Warriors legend Duckworth remains fulfilled - and they have now gone public, to reiterate their independence from Atlas.
"The Worcester Warriors Foundation was set up by Cecil 15 years ago to create a legacy for Worcester and to give something back to the community to make a difference," she added.
"We are independent from the club. We work with the most isolated and vulnerable in our community, upwards of 12,000 people every year, whether it's younger people struggling with trauma or elderly people struggling with dementia, using sport as a mechanism and changing lives. And we want to make it clear we will still be here.
"The last 12 months have been traumatic and there have been times when we have wondered whether we could carry on. But it's the Foundation's responsibility to take on the spirit of the Warriors and continue the Cecil Duckworth legacy in the city, which is what he would have wanted."
The Duckworth family have responded to the Foundation's appearance on BBC Hereford & Worcester by releasing a short statement, backing this ongoing work.
It said: "The Duckworth Worcestershire Trust totally support The Warriors Foundation and their move to premises at Worcester Porcelain.
"We are full of admiration for all the good they have done for the community of Worcester and in keeping Cecil's legacy alive."
Atlas partners James Sandford (left) and Jim O'Toole became Worcester Warriors owners in February
Hart does still have ongoing concerns, however, about the whole process surrounding the Warriors takeover.
After the club failed under previous owners Colin Goldring and Jason Whittingham, administrators Begbies Traynor opted to choose Atlas as preferred bidders rather than the consortium fronted by former Warriors director of rugby Steve Diamond and backed by main club sponsor Adam Hewitt.
And, despite speaking on Warriors' behalf in parliament at a Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) hearing, Hart feels stymied that the authorities have no power to change things.
"I was the one who called them out at the DMCS enquiry in front of MPs earlier this year for not acknowledging what we had been going through, but since that point Bill Sweeney, from the RFU, and Simon Massie-Taylor, from the Premiership, have both been absolutely brilliant," she said.
"They have both kept in regular contact every single week and been very supportive. But what they couldn't offer is the cash injection that we needed to keep delivering the programmes.
"What we hoped for was a new process whereby people who wanted to buy a sports club would be able to show their financial viability, in good faith, for the right reasons.
"But, it seems that once a club has gone into administration, the administrator holds all the cards and has all the power. It's so disappointing that nothing has changed.
"With all the collective power of the DCMS, the RFU and Premiership Rugby, they still couldn't make change happen, once the administrator had got hold of the club.
"And unfortunately the administrator made the decisions that they made.
"Our understanding was it was going be the best interests of rugby and the rugby creditors but it appears that didn't happen."
Atlas declined to comment when approached by BBC Hereford & Worcester.