WORCESTER Rugby Club will have two teams playing in league rugby next season following the formation of a new amateur club.

The new set-up, which will be launched at an inaugural AGM next month, will start life in North Midlands Three and aims to become a feeder team to the professional side of the club.

It is being formed to keep alive the amateur spirit of the club and to allow the professional side to flourish in its own right.

Rod Cope has agreed to coach the side whose name will be decided at the Sixways AGM which starts at 7.30pm on Tuesday, May 2.

Officers will be elected on the same night and Ed Craven-Smith, a life-long member who is seeking election as chairman, is urging members past and present to back the new club by attending the AGM.

Organisers are also seeking suggestions for the new club's name as leagues will not allow it to be called Worcester.

"We want to retain the spirit of the club because a lot of people have felt disenfranchised, especially the players as the opportunity to play for the first team isn't there, it's an unachievable goal," said Craven-Smith.

"But we'll be the professional side's biggest supporter and it will be an opportunity to blood players and give them league experience.

"The vision of the professional set up has been slowed through being joined to the amateur set-up.

"We just want to give people the opportunity I had when I was 18 to play league rugby without changing clubs."

"It's back to basics, back to the fundamentals of where we were before."

And he does not feel that the new team will have things all their own way on the field despite facing relative minnows such as Chaddesley Corbett and Greyhound.

"We played Clee Hill and lost to them and although we would have a strong side the current third and fourth team would be the nucleus," he added.