Things are starting to come together – literally – for Tetbury Rugby Club.

The Gloucester Three club have recently acquired some land behind Tetbury Audi in the town near to the rugby club’s HQ and hope to have the area ‘rugby ready’ within 24 months.

That’s great news for everyone connected with the club because at the moment they are split in two with the seniors based at the recreation ground in Hampton Street and the minis and juniors using pitches at Sir William Romney’s School in Lowfield Road.

“It means the whole club will be playing at the same place when the new field is ready,” said head coach Stephen Knight. “We’ll no longer be a split club. Our ethos is one club – it doesn’t matter if they’re under-6s or the seniors. Two years ago, for the first time, every player at the club had the same kit, the same badge. It’s so important for the players’ and the club’s identity.”

Knight, 35, is just starting his third year as head coach and his seventh as a coach.

His playing career was cut short when an operation to remove gallstones went “horribly wrong”.

“I came out of hospital on the first day of the 2011 World Cup,” Knight recalled. “I knew playing rugby was no longer an option but rugby is a massive passion for me so I decided to coach.

“I remember strolling across to the minis and juniors pitches and teaching tag rugby. I’d never played tag rugby, in my day you just played rugby!”

Knight, a teacher at St Mary’s Primary School in Tetbury, was a quick learner but he was keen to be as good a coach as he could be so he enrolled on a number of courses.

He is now a Level 2 coach and is studying to become qualified at Level 3. That will not happen overnight, of course, but in the meantime he is putting everything he has learned so far into helping Tetbury win promotion this season.

“It’s going to be hard but we would like to challenge ourselves in Gloucester Two,” he said, “but we are very respectful of the challenge Gloucester Three will give us. If we’re not on our game we’ll stay in Gloucester Three.

“But the ambition is to win promotion. We want to give ourselves the best shot of getting ourselves higher up the league pyramid.”

While the 1st XV are obviously the club’s flagship team, the junior section is very much a thriving concern.

“I read a stat somewhere that there are more people playing rugby in Gloucestershire than in the whole of New Zealand,” chuckled Knight. “We’ve got 250 boys and girls playing in our junior section which is fantastic and we’ve got a couple of players in the Gloucester Academy.”

The club also won the County Under-14 Cup last season so the future is certainly looking bright.

Knight, meanwhile, is looking forward to the day when his little boy will be enrolling for the junior section.

“Arlo is only 15 months,” he laughed, “but he’s with me now in his England Rugby babygrow. And he’s surrounded by about 15 balls!”

His mum Michaela is already a rugby wife… soon she’ll be a rugby mum as well!