L6VE LIFE

THIS WAS A PIECE I WROTE BACK IN LATE 2015 WHICH WAS PUBLISHED IN '40/20' MAGAZINE AND IS A SMALL TRIBUTE TO LEE NEWTON AND HIS FAMILY.

Recently, I put my boots on in a ‘competitive’ rugby environment for the first time in 15 years as I joined some of my old Reckitts ARLFC team mates to take part in the L6ve Life touch rugby tournament at the home of Skirlaugh ARLFC in Hull.

12 teams of over 35’s, with the odd young ringer thrown in, came together on a beautiful sunny day in an attempt to turn back the years, show that the old skills were still there, have some laughs and reminisce about the good old days.

My main priority was to avoid the need for a phone call to the local ambulance service.

I had trained with the lads a few times, turning my ankle quite badly in the first session which didn’t bode well, but stayed surprisingly free of chest pains and managed to stay the course for the full sessions.

We were actually training for a full contact proper game of rugby league against the current Reckitt’s first team but the majority quickly decided that that would not be too much of a good idea based on our current fitness levels and lack of desire to get our aged bodies battered and bruised – another major concern for me was actually getting my body into a rugby shirt these days, think George Rose and you have the right image.

So, we decided that we wanted to take part in the L6ve Life touch rugby tournament which had been so successful in 2014 and it was a chance for us to do our small bit to help the Foundation.

L6ve Life was founded by former Skirlaugh player Lee Newton who was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND) back in 2013 at the age of 42.

This really resonated with me as Lee is just a couple of years younger than me and I played against him in the very early stages of our amateur RL career – he went on to have a very successful career with Skirlaugh and was a skilfull player – people in the local game knew who Lee Newton was.

I bandied around at a lower level and had nowhere near the ability that Lee had.

MND is a cruel and horrible progressive disease that attacks the motor neurones, or nerves, in the brain and spinal cord. This means that messages gradually stop reaching muscles, which leads to weakness and wasting.

MND can affect how you walk, talk, eat, drink and breathe.

The most famous case of MND is Professor Stephen Hawking who has lived with the disease since 1969.

There is currently no known cure, symptoms can only be managed to help you achieve the best possible quality of life.

Life expectancy for about half of the people with the condition, believed to be around 5,000 in the UK at any one time, is three years from the start of symptoms – however, it does vary from case to case and some people may live for up to 10 years and, in rarer circumstances such as Professor Hawking, even longer.

Back to the tournament.

Reckitts Love Life Squad 2015

We headed to the dressing room to get changed into our very nice kit and immediately the banter I had missed for 15 years came back with comments about physique and certain parts of the male anatomy to the fore.

I quickly made sure I got one of the props shirts and I was right about the George Rose image but at least I managed to get the shirt and shorts on without pulling a muscle. Some of the lads had promised to bring a tub of Vaseline along to help me get the shirt on but, fortunately, it wasn’t needed – not for that purpose anyway!!

We headed to the pitches for a warm up and immediately my 6 year old son, Kingsley, pointed out that my shirt was a bit tight!! I tried to tell him that it was designed that way but he wasn’t convinced!!!!

We had been drawn in a group with Hull Isberg, Skirlaugh B and Dukes and our first game against Isberg went OK – by OK I mean there were no injuries sustained and no-one threw up – the game was certainly faster than the one we had been playing in training and Isberg had players who were fit!!! And fast!!!!

But we managed to stay with them OK even though we lost 3 tries to nil – I always felt scoring tries was going to be a problem for us – we had no speed or skill really!!!

Each match was 7 a side and we had a good turn-out of 15 players, each paying £20.00 for the privilege of playing, and we constantly swapped players around to make sure everyone had some good game time and also ensuring that we had an excuse for losing – no continuity, too many changes etc etc etc.

Next up was Skirlaugh B who had some good players on board along with a young runt who really fancied himself – I don’t think he realised he had some grandad’s in the opposition – and it started to get a little bit serious and the referee started enforcing rules – such as play the ball where you were touched rather than 15 yards further on where you had stopped – ‘tacklers’ started putting their hands up on the spot you had been ‘tackled’ and you had to jog back and play the ball in the right places – spoilsports!!!

Some breathing in going on here!!

Skirlaugh B were too good for us but we did manage to get our first, and only, try of the tournament – well done Johnny Carr who managed to pull his hamstring even though he took advantage of the on site masseurs before we had started!!

That always to happen to the ‘fit’ ones – us big lads never have problems with hamstrings!!!

It was good to see a few Hull KR players such Josh Mantellato, Jordan Cox, Dane Chisholm, Dane Tilse and Kevin Larroyer turn up to support the Charity and the tournament alongside Head Coach Chris Chester and they had a mingle with some of the players and supporters.

By the time our 3^rd and final game started against Dukes, obviously we had no hope of qualifying for the semi-finals, a few of the lads were itching to crack open the beers and it was a case of just put in the effort and see if we could get at least 1 win from the day.

No chance!!! I blame the ref for missing forward passes.

I’m not sure what score it ended up but we finished bottom of the group.

We took plenty of photo’s before we headed for the showers and we had plenty of family members with us to remind us how old we are and help us get our playing kit off without doing ourselves any permanent damage.

The whole day was really good fun and I hope we, as a team and a group of friends, will be taking part next year.

Lee and his family set the Foundation up to raise funds for those who work every day trying to find a cure for the disease and also for the people that help those already living with MND.

Like I said earlier, this is a cruel disease and it is indiscriminate – it can affect anyone. The sooner we find a cure the better.

To do that, more money is needed to fund research and Lee and his family are doing there bit with his Foundation which has raised over £150,000 since it was launched.

You can visit the Foundation’s website at www.l6velife.co.uk or find out more about the disease at www.mndassociation.org .

RIP Lee.