Relaunched Worcester out to 'create own history'

BBC News

21-07-2025

Worcester Warriors chief executive Stephen Vaughan insists the club will be ready when they return to professional rugby this autumn.The Warriors' brand-new squad trained for the first time last week as they build towards their first season since administration at the start of the 2022-23 campaign.They were admitted to the second-tier Champ Rugby in April and will make their much-anticipated return at home to Coventry on 4 October.Under head coach Matt Everard, the Warriors have recruited a blend of former Premiership players alongside young newcomers."We obviously started with a blank piece of paper a few months ago," Vaughan told BBC Hereford and Worcester."It's quite a proud moment, really, to see it all come from an embryonic thought and suggestion to reality now."Despite the experience brought in, such as former British and Irish Lions back Billy Twelvetrees and Saracens prop Fraser Balmain, Everard faces a big challenge to mould together his quickly-assembled squad. "Naturally, we will not have the combinations that other teams will have and all the rest of it, but we're not seeing that as a weakness," Vaughan said. "We're seeing it as an opportunity to create our own history."
'Worcester is a Premiership set-up'
The Warriors were a Premiership side for all but two seasons from promotion in 2004 until 2022, and Vaughan is keen for a return to the top flight, but he has also tempered talk of immediate promotion."Worcester Warriors and Sixways is a Premiership set-up," he added."It needs to be in the top flight at some point, but considering where it was from administration to where we are now, I think it would be crazy of us to start putting ridiculous targets in place."But naturally, we'll go out to try and win every game."Vaughan, who was group CEO with Wasps when they also went into administration in October 2022, soon after Worcester, says the club will be "unapologetically commercial" to avoid history repeating itself.Plans were submitted to develop their Sixways home last November and Vaughan wants to host concerts and events at the stadium to give the club a sustainable future."We have to make sure that we're more commercial going forward, develop the site, because that's the way we can then invest more money into the rugby," he added."But not in a way where you can create investor fatigue or a situation where you're relying on one single individual, because we've seen what's happened in the past."