RUGBY: Ivel Barbarians are becoming Yeovil Rugby Club

THE Yeovil-based club known as Ivel Barbarians is to be re-named as Yeovil Rugby Club.

A vote was taken on the name change at the club’s annual meeting earlier this summer.

The decision to change the name was taken in a bid to find a way of making the club more easily identifiable to the local population and potential sponsors and players.

A report on the club’s website says: “Much as we would like to think we are universally known in our own local town, sadly that is not the case.

“A need to change the club name to incorporate the name of the town has been spoken about for a number of years.

“The current committee decided we had to act now to try and boost playing numbers and club revenue – especially club bookings where people who don’t know Ivel Barbarians will readily recognise that a club bearing the name Yeovil in the title is a local facility.”

Initially the committee proposed two names – Yeovil Barbarians Rugby Club and Yeovil Rugby Club.

The change of name was discussed at the club’s annual meeting in July and Julian Cox, the first Ivel Barbarians chairman, who also came up with the name Ivel Barbarians in the first place, spoke passionately about the need to go-ahead with the change in order for the club to be linked with Yeovil.

A vote was taken and came out in favour of Yeovil Rugby Club.

But a club report added: “We must emphasise that nothing else will change.

“The club logo and playing strip will stay the same as will the club history and pictures mounted in the clubhouse.

“League structures are already in place for the coming season and we are entered as Ivel Barbarians.

“The club will gradually shift to the new name over the course of the season with the changeover completed by the annual meeting in 2015.”

Tags:
Sport.