European Touch Championships shaping up to be best ever

The 2018 European Touch Championships will see Europe’s top Touch players heading to Nottingham next summer, with the competition set to be bigger and better than ever.

With eight months to go until the action taps off at the University of Nottingham nearly 50 teams from 15 countries have been confirmed, with another 30 strong expressions of interest.

England Touch Association (ETA) chief executive Gregg Cropper reported the update to the association’s Assess Create Execute (ACE) management planning sessions this past weekend.

England is the reigning European Touch Championships gold medal holder, with the country’s teams having performed better overall than any other nation in 2016, and the ETA management is determined that this will be repeated on home soil in 2018.

But the ACE weekend is about more than just helping the national teams achieve the best they can, and over the next few weeks the ETA will be unveiling:

• The ETA’s first ever full-time paid chief operating officer
• A streamlined membership structure
• New-look competitions
• A coherent structure to the season
• A greater emphasis on development at all levels of the sport
• Expanded work in schools and a renewed focus on Touch in universities, including the England Scholars national team
• Clear training periods for the England teams in the build-up to the European Touch Championships
• More support for clubs, including a new club information toolkit as they get introduced to the sport and grow for the future

“The ACE weekend is very important for England Touch,” Cropper commented. “Our volunteers on the management and board live all over the country, so it is important for us all to get into the same room to discuss our plans for the future.

“Touch in England has grown massively over the past few years, and at times it has been challenging for the ETA to keep up with the increasing number of members and clubs who have joined us.

“But we’re now in a strong position to take the ETA into a new era and capitalise on the Euros in Nottingham next summer. We’ve had a great response to our recent recruitment drive to strengthen our management, both operationally and as non-executive directors, and it’s fantastic to see so many people wanting to help us take the next step on our journey.

“We’ve got a very committed group of volunteers who want nothing but the best, and we will be working with our clubs, who are also packed full of dedicated volunteers, to make Touch one of the biggest participation sports in the country and the England teams successful.”