Why Gloucester are swapping Kingsholm for Villa Park - for a day
Changes to Prem academy boundaries two years ago meant that Gloucester's catchment area now stretches as far as Worcestershire, Birmingham and Warwickshire. This added to Villa Park's appeal, with the hope that establishing a game in the region will grow Gloucester's fanbase but also attract more young players through their pathway. "It's an untapped potential for us," said long-standing back row Lewis Ludlow.
"Hopefully some underlying rugby talent around these parts that we can try and encourage to come down to Gloucester. " It's also about creating a day fans will remember. Harlequins have turned their Twickenham 'Big Day Out' into the biggest annual domestic rugby event in the world.
Fireworks, laser shows, special edition kits and music acts have all featured and been adopted by others. "We want this to be an entertaining day for our supporters and not to be a seen as a trek up to Villa Park," said Brown. Centre Max Llewellyn adds that responsibility also lies with the players to put on a good show.
"If we can perform on the pitch it will create a good atmosphere and it'll be electric in the stadium but with such a good following with Gloucester I'm sure a lot of fans will be down here to support us," he said. Leicester have won five Slater Cup meetings while Gloucester have two The fixture has another, much more human element, as both clubs contest the Slater Cup, named after former Gloucester player Ed Slater who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 2022. Saturday's game will be the eighth time the cup has been contested, with Leicester the holders following their 45-14 win at Welford Road in December.
A contribution from ticket sales will be donated to the 4ED Foundation and Ludlow says the importance of the campaign has only grown, particularly in light of former England captain Lewis Moody revealing his own MND diagnosis in October. "It's become a lot more than a game for Ed and he'd be the first person to say that now," said Ludlow. "Sadly it's not enough, it needs to continue, the awareness needs to keep rising and the more money we can pledge towards all of these great foundations, not just to help the people with the higher profiles.