Cirencester Rugby Club chairman Rich Millbank is looking ahead to the new season with optimism.

The 46-year-old served as interim chairman for much of the previous campaign and is happy to lead from the front.

“I originally took on the interim role in October. I was willing to volunteer to make sure the club kept running really smoothly,” he said.

And Millbank is just one of a number of people who have put their hands up in recent times to support a club that was founded back in 1949.

They also have a new president, a relatively new head coach and a new 1^st XV captain and, at the time of writing, Millbank was looking to appoint a new vice-chairman.

Millbank, who has been involved with the club for six years, is excited by the new appointments.

“John Newman is our new president,” he said. “He’s a proper clubman through and through. He’s an ex-player and an ex-coach, his sons play for the first team.

“Nick Theakston, the outgoing president, served 10 years and will enjoy seeing the club from the sidelines, alongside Cat Hage who also stepped down after her 10-year committee stint.”

One of John Newman’s sons, Noah, will captain the men’s 1st XV this season and Millbank continued: “He likes to play in the back row but now and again he has covered in the front row. He’s a great clubman and the team will support him happily.

“His brothers, Luke and Oli, have also played regularly in the first team.”

Noah Newman has taken over as skipper from long-serving captain Ollie Gibson, although the second row will continue to play a big role, both as a player and club captain.

They will all work closely with head coach Chris Maundrell, with the club looking to regroup after a difficult campaign last time out that saw them finish ninth in the 12-strong Counties 2 Gloucestershire North.

A reorganisation of the divisions means that Cirencester will be competing in Counties 3 Gloucestershire North this season, which in effect means they have been relegated.

And while that is obviously a disappointment, Millbank also sees it as an opportunity.

“We had a hell of a lot of injuries last season,” he said. “We’ve moved down to Level 9 but dropping down and having a good year or two can be a good thing, it gives us a chance to consolidate.

“We want to enjoy our rugby and build from there. The transition from the Juniors to the Colts and then into the Seniors is so important.”

Millbank, as you’d expect, has been heavily involved in helping to bring the youngsters through.

He coached the club’s under-15s last season – his son Max played for them – and will be assistant coach for the Colts in 2025/26.

Millbank is a former chairman of the youth section, a role that has just been taken on by Hamish Anderson, someone Millbank says is “a force of nature in the youth set-up”.

Millbank is also a Level 7 referee and he added with a laugh: “My life is consumed by rugby.”

It certainly is and his involvement in the game has gone up another couple of notches since taking on one of the most important roles at the club.

The one-time back row, whose boyhood club was Redruth, is a big supporter of ‘Friday Night Lights’ rugby and he said: “Having floodlights installed has changed our club.

“People like playing and watching rugby on a Friday night, we’re trying to ensure that we have a fixture at any level on every Friday night.”

That’s part of the immediate future but Millbank, an operations director for an American sports company in Gloucester, also has his eyes on the medium and long term.

“I’ve set up a working group called Cirencester RFC 2030,” he said. “The aim is to work out where we’re going to be in five years’ time.

“What will we look like on the playing side? What will our finances be like? What can we do for the town?

“There’s a lot of chatter about developing our ground and improving the clubhouse, but as a club we’ve got to decide what we want to be and where we want to be.”

Hockey, lacrosse and skittles players in the town all use the clubhouse and Millbank, who is not part of the working group, added: “It may be an opportunity for the club to decide whether we want to stay where we are, or an opportunity to decide if we want to move half a mile down the road.

“The working group has a fully open brief to enable them to tell us what the membership wants to see happen.”

The Whiteway enjoys a prime site not far from the town centre and Millbank fully appreciates that while some people may be open to a move, others are not.

“We’ve got a real melting pot of characters at the club, we’ve got some really well-connected people,” he said.

Some of those people have been serving the club for many years and their efforts were recognised at the club’s recent AGM.

“The outgoing president awarded life membership to Sharon Scrivens, who has helped the club for decades and is currently the club manager,” said Millbank. “She joins a small group of six living life members and is the first woman to become one. 

“Sharon is a superstar. She fixes anything she touches and has made such a big impact on how the club runs. I was absolutely stoked for her, her face on realising the award was coming to her was just amazing.”

Scrivens will continue to devote many hours to the club, of course, and dad-of-two Millbank, who is married to Madeleine, will look to her for support as he plots the way forward for the club.

But if he has his way it won’t be him making the big decisions in 2030.

“Sometimes I feel 66, not 46,” he said. “In my head I’m only going to be chairman for another year, but once in it can be very difficult to escape!”