Gloucester-Hartpury name ground after Slater charity

Former Gloucester lock Ed Slater (centre) retired from rugby after being diagnosed with MND

Gloucester-Hartpury's home ground has been renamed the 4ED Hartpury Stadium with Vodafone in honour of the charity set up by ex-Gloucester lock Ed Slater to raise awareness of motor neurone disease.

The two-time reigning Premiership Women's Rugby champions play almost all of their home games at Hartpury University and College, which is also home to Championship club Hartpury RFC plus British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) university sides.

As part of a new multi-year sponsorship deal with Vodafone, the club were offered the chance to pick a charity partner to take the stadium naming rights and chose 4ED, the foundation set up by former Cherry and Whites player Slater following his MND diagnosis in 2022.

"Supporting 4ED and his family is something that we're all massively behind as a group," club co-captain Natasha 'Mo' Hunt told BBC Radio Gloucestershire.

"It's about getting the charity out there, making sure we're doing everything we can to support him and his family."

Motor neurone disease is a degenerative condition that affects nerves in the brain and spinal cord, and for which there is no cure.

Billy Twelvetrees, who remains friends with former team-mate Slater and is now a coach at Hartpury, said renaming the ground gives "longevity" to the cause to highlight the impact of MND.

"When I first saw [the sign] I stopped and took a picture and sent it to Ed straight away - he was blown away how big it was," Twelvetrees said.

"It's huge to be in support of 4ED because the rugby community has been behind Ed from the very start of his diagnosis.

"To raise awareness, keep raising awareness for MND because at the moment there is no cure, no treatment and no fix for it.

"The bigger picture was for longevity because the fight of MND is finite, time is finite for people with MND so we wanted it to be a long-term thing."

Slater, who played 78 games for Gloucester before retiring following his diagnosis, also captained Leicester Tigers and won the Premiership title in the 2012-13 season during a seven-year spell with the club.

The two sides now contest the Slater Cup every time they meet in Premiership and Premiership Women's Rugby matches.

The men's Tigers won the cup for the third successive time last weekend while Gloucester-Hartpury retained the women's trophy earlier this season.

Slater, in partnership with fellow MND campaigner Rob Burrow, who died in June at the age of 41, has also helped set up a cross-code rugby match, which will be played next month at Headingley.

Twelvetrees is among the ex-rugby union internationals set to be involved on Sunday, 17 November, alongside Danny Cipriani and Tom Youngs, plus league players Keith Senior, Adrian Morley and Danny McGuire.