The players at Gloucester Walking Rugby, average age mid to late 60s, are planning to go on a trip.

And the trip isn’t just a 20-mile jaunt over to the Cotswolds or down the M5 towards Bristol – they are hoping to go much, much farther than that.

“The plan is to go to Portugal,” said Paul Thompson, one of the driving forces behind Gloucester Walking Rugby. “We’ve been invited to play in a tournament in Vilamoura, I don’t think we’ll have any problems finding enough players!”

And the team, known as the Relics, have certainly earned the right to play in one of the hot-spots in the Algarve as Thompson, a former player with Longlevens and Old Cryptians, explains.

“We won the Kingswood Trophy,” he said. “We actually won it before Covid so we’ve had a longstanding invitation to go to Portugal.

“Hopefully, we’ll be able to go this year.”

Walking rugby has been strong in and around Gloucestershire for a number of years now and Gloucester Walking Rugby has some 50 players signed on.

“We play on Mondays and Wednesdays during the day and on Thursday evenings,” said Thompson. “We play at Oxstalls on the artificial pitch at the back.

“The majority of our players have retired; some of them are over 70. I’m one of the younger ones, I’m only 62.”

So what makes a good walking rugby player?

“A fantastic sense of humour,” laughed Thompson, adding, “and like in normal rugby, you need good hands, be able to pass and to step forward.”

Anything else?

“Some people argue that you need to be able to disguise your running when you should be walking,” said Thompson with another laugh, “or walking with urgency as it’s been called.”

Clearly the aim of the game is having fun and there are certainly plenty of people having fun – there are more than 50 teams playing in the south west alone and it’s also popular in Wales.

“We’ve got people playing who haven’t played rugby since school, they love it,” said Thompson.

“Others who are playing hadn’t touched a rugby ball for 10 years. To see the look on their faces when they catch the ball for the first time is brilliant.”

And the fact that they are able to play in competitions all over the country as well just adds to the appeal.

“We’re playing in eight competitions this year, we play all the year round,” said Thompson, a forward back in the day.

“There are teams of seven with three rolling subs and we play four five-minute quarters.

“There’s no tackling, it’s like touch rugby only we’re walking. It’s minimal contact, some of us even play in glasses!”

The minimum age for competitive walking rugby is 55 for the men and 35 for the women and the Relics are keen to see more women take up the sport.

“Yes, we are,” said Thompson. “At the moment we haven’t got any women signed up, we’d love that to change.”

And it’s not just on the pitch that the players are having fun, they have fun off it too.

The Relics recently held a prizegiving evening at the Fountain Inn in Gloucester with awards handed out to Ian Grubb, Rob Vallender, Davis Curwen and the Relics chairman Colin Rose, who was named Relic of the Year!