The Anglian Vipers are a new rugby league team based in Wymondham. Despite various attempts by different people to form rugby league clubs in Norfolk over the last twenty years, the Vipers are currently the only active rugby league club in the whole of Norfolk and Suffolk. The idea to form a club started with the three founders Rob Humphries, Chris Wildish and David Parkin in 2019, but its development has been delayed until this year due to Covid.
In England, Rugby League is mainly played in the north of the country and isn’t as well known in East Anglia. While there are many similarities the game is quite different to Rugby Union. There are 13 players on each team instead of 15, there are no line outs or contested scrums and the ball gets turned over to the other team after six tackles; as a result each player has more time with the ball, and the game is much faster and requires a higher level of fitness.
The club train and play their matches at Wymondham Rugby Union Club’s ground at Barnard Fields. It is a superb facility, opened in 2018 with four pitches and a fantastic clubhouse. They have entered the East RL competition in 2022, which features seven teams from around the Eastern Counties. The season runs from May to August.
The Vipers have attracted a very enthusiastic group of players, with 40 registered male players, a core group of nine female players and 22 attending the latest training session. The majority of the squad have never played rugby league before, but there are five players with good experience and the rest are mainly Union players keen to learn a new code during the summer; there are even some players who have never played either code before but wanted to try a new sport.
The Vipers’ first ever match was away at St Albans Centurions on 7th May. The Centurions are an established club in the East RL competition with a glittering honours board and have ambitions to win the league this year, so it was a tough test for a newly formed club. The players new to rugby league have been working hard to pick up the rules and structure of League in training, and the experienced players had the task to help them through the match.
The first half score reflected the inexperience in the Vipers team with Centurions taking a 24–0 lead into the break. However, the Vipers’ players learned fast and the second half was nowhere near as comfortable for Centurions, with Vipers scoring two tries and with the final score 38-10.
Since the first game the Vipers have lost 70-22 in a friendly against a very strong Bedford Tigers side, then had their first ever win, 48-38 in the East RL cup against North Herts Crusaders. They then lost heavily against Bedford again in the cup, 70-28, but the following week showed huge improvement losing 32-20 to the same Bedford side in the league and followed that up with their first league win on 18th June, 46-32 against North Herts.
They are now looking to improve over the rest of this season and become a competitive force in the East RL competition over the next couple of years. They already have a number of women involved in the training sessions and hope to arrange a friendly against another women’s team this season. Further ambitions include a youth set up and a women’s team entered in the East RL comp in 2023.
If anybody is interested in playing for the Vipers, attending training, sponsoring the club or just finding out more, please contact them via Facebook or by email at info@anglianvipers.com. Training is currently at 7pm on Monday evenings and all are welcome, whatever their previous level of experience or ability; they are a friendly club who want to spread the rugby league word around Wymondham and South Norfolk - the more the merrier. The club also has a range of merchandise which can be found at northwest.iconsports.co.uk/anglian-vipers.
