1st XV v Bournville – Saturday 12th September 2026

This Saturday is one of the two matches earmarked as National League “derby days”, the other being the Saturday before Christmas. This takes Lymm on a journey to South Birmingham to play Bournville.

Bournville, who were promoted back into National League 2 last season, are not entirely new opponents for Lymm as the two teams met in the Midlands Regional Premier League in the 2013/14 season. Then Lymm narrowly prevailed across the 2 fixtures with a narrow 23-20 victory at Crouchley Lane being followed by a 16-16 draw in Birmingham, where the Lymm try scorers were Oli Higginson (no surprise there) and….John Millington (big surprise here!).

Last Saturday when discussing this fixture, Cormac Nolan did recall having missed a last kick conversion to steal a win in the second of these matches. For those of you in need of a dose of nostalgia, the Lymm squad that day 13 years ago was Jordan Widdrington, Joe Cooper, Harvey McCormack, John Millington, Tim Oakes, James Yates, Tom Darbyshire, Kieran Williams, Adam Bray, Oli Higginson, Tom Baker, Adam Fletcher, Tom Bray, Joe Knowles, Dave Williamson, Jack Worton, Andy Rowley and Cormac Nolan.

Lymm will travel down the M6 on Saturday in a positive frame of mind following the very impressive 5 league points secured in their victory over Loughborough Students last Saturday. For their first fixture in National 2 (after an absence of a couple of seasons) Bournville were dealt a challenging away trip to Redruth, returning to the Midlands pointless following a heavy loss to the Cornishmen. Lymm won’t be reading too much into this though as we know only too well the negative impact on player availability and performance these long away trips can have. Bournville are bound to be more comfortable returning to their home ground and another close encounter along the lines of the 2013/14 tussles is expected.