Ampthill RFC

I think you mean 'the National Leagues' rather than simply 'Nat 1.'.

The majority of Nat 1 & 2 Clubs run 3-4 Senior Men's teams, a Women's Team and a full range of MJ's from U5's to U19's but, we are seeing an increase of 'one team' Clubs, who of course are run on the whim/cash of some personal ego/egos and give nothing back to the game. Here again, eventually the cash will run out, leaving no foundations etc!

I can't speak on behalf of Richmond as a club, but as a supporter of several decades who knows a lot about the club and speaks frequently to the people who have been chairmen and presidents in recent seasons, I can say this: since 1999, Richmond only pay players a match fee and a win bonus. When we first went up to the Championship in 2016, we increased the match fee a fair bit, I think to £300 from £175, with the win bonus going up to £100 from £50, but I may be wrong in the exact figures. That is the ballpark. A cap was placed on the total any one player could get in a season because the fee was raised and there were concerns people might get the wrong idea about being paid to play - and the cap was £9,000 as I recall. No player came close to it, in fact I believe nobody got above half that number for the season.

We have a loose "jobs bureau" where if a lad is interested in a certain profession they can get advice and maybe an introduction or two from club members who work in that line. I have done that myself once. I am not aware that anyone associated with the club employs or has ever employed any of the players. Again, I may be wrong. The sort of arrangement some clubs have where players are employed by the person or people who effectively run the club does not exist at Richmond to the best of my knowledge.

There are no players on salaries or contracts that pay money. I am not sure whether players get contracted to us as part of registration - a lot of the language around this subject is ambiguous. But players joining the club from elsewhere are told they cannot earn their living from playing rugby for Richmond.

We usually have a couple of Harlequins youngsters (Lucas Schmid and Frank McMillan this season) and have benefitted from having the likes of Kyle Sinckler, George Merrick, Louis Lynagh (who with his brother Tom was a Richmond mini) and Lennox Anwanyu in the past. The board has recently told members that the club would have nothing to do with a league that expected us to open our First Team to a large number of players from another club.

That is what the club calls the Richmond Way - not a phrase I like, to be honest - and it is all driven by the experience of going bust in 1999 and deciding 'never again'. You can be cynical or sceptical about it, but that is how it is.