Throughout the 2023/24 domestic season, we’ll be highlighting a different club each month to showcase the great work being done in the community by clubs around the country and our club for February is Border City Lacrosse Club.
Border City was founded in Carlisle, Cumbria in April 2019 after a call went out on Facebook for men in the region looking to get involved in lacrosse.
The original founding group included current Club Captain, Joel Castley, his brother Jack Castley, Laurie Clark, Dan Clements, Ross Irving, Mike Orme, Josh Soper and later Morgan Tebb-Roger (when home from college in the United States).
The club started small but this eight-strong group of lacrosse enthusiasts met for a series of throw-arounds on the Harraby 3G pitches in Carlisle, with some of their early training sessions seeing just three players attend.
With huge perseverance, however, the numbers of regular attendees steadily grew as time went on and the club played its first game in June 2019 against Newcastle Knights before joining the Scottish domestic league the following September.
Whilst Carlisle isn’t a traditional hotbed of lacrosse when compared to other areas of the north of England, many people in the local area have had experience of playing lacrosse through PE at school and have a basic knowledge of the game.
Indeed, there was quite a number of ex-players from the north of England, southern, and Scottish leagues, as well as former university and college players in the area who had no means to continue being involved in the game without constant travel.
This all changed in 2019, of course, when Border City was founded with the original aim to get people in Carlisle and the surrounding areas involved in the game, enjoying some training and a bit of a throw-around.
As often happens with this sort of thing, the idea snowballed fairly quickly and the desire to play competitive lacrosse was still strong in a lot of the players who joined the club.
As time has gone by, Border City have relied less and less on that original batch of ex-players and have successfully started developing the game in Carlisle with a large proportion of the current team having never played lacrosse before joining the club.
The club tends to pick up a couple of ex-university players and some new starters every season and currently the numbers are fairly reasonable for a club of their size.
They have had amazing support from The Lacrosse Foundation since they were founded, initially aiding them with equipment purchases, but later funding extensive coaching in schools which has brought a whole group of young players into the game and now the club.
They recently had their first homegrown player, who was introduced to lacrosse at the club, make appearances for the senior men’s team, join the England Lacrosse Aspire Programme, and into the first team at Durham University.
Border City currently has one men’s league team, the Border Reivers, which is made up of Border City and Newcastle Knights players.
After just being relegated from the Championship, they are adjusting to life in the first division and are holding their own against most teams.
The men’s team is coached by the experienced Graham Bland who for many years played for clubs like Hampstead, Buckhurst Hill and latterly Stockport and is well known in the game.
A fledging women’s team currently trains once a week and combines with Newcastle ladies to play regular friendlies; the number of players in this team has grown considerably over the last year and they hope to enter a team into the league as soon as possible.
The women’s team is currently being coached by Vics Law as part of some coaching work she is undertaking for the club in Cumbrian Schools with the assistance of ex-Heaton Mersey player Jo Racle.
A junior boys team has just over 10 players who train once a week with a big conundrum being how to give the young players the experience of regular competition to help maintain their enthusiasm in the sport.
As a club, Border City welcomes all players including absolute beginners and everyone who wants to play for Borders is made to feel at home from day one.
The aim of the club is to establish lacrosse in the region and become wholly sustainable with junior and women’s lacrosse available.
Their number one priority is to make lacrosse, and all the benefits which go with it, accessible to anyone; they particularly believe in inclusivity and also in promoting and protecting the mental health of their members through encouragement and support both on and off the pitch.
Border City operates out of Brampton, Cumbria, training on the astro turf at the local secondary school on a Monday night from 7-8.30pm.
The school currently teaches lacrosse to all year groups so are well kitted out for training sessions with permanent goals and an understanding nature.
They have their own grass pitch a few minutes from their training base at Cotehill Park Sports Ground which they share with Irthing Vale Cricket Club.
They have welcomed Border City with open arms and the two clubs have spent the last few years completely upgrading the pitch and facilities; whilst they aren’t quite at the standard of facilities of some well-established clubs in the league, they have financed and installed a changing room and shower, installed electricity and started renovating the clubhouse with big plans for providing food and drink in the coming years.
During the second weekend in September, Border City hosts an annual eights tournament and 2024 will mark the fourth edition of the event.
It is an opportunity for teams to engage in a really friendly tournament focused mostly on pre-season fun and game time. They hope to extend the competition to include women’s teams this year, having only been run for men’s rules to date.
Border City as a club is trying to create a strong lacrosse culture based on support and encouragement across all age brackets. It is their ambition that lacrosse will become widespread in Cumbria and the Borders with youngsters from all walks of life having the opportunity to play such an amazing sport.
Border City can be contacted by email on [email protected] or find them on Facebook HERE and Instagram HERE.