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Touch’s future is bright with the next generation
The Junior Nationals growing with each passing year. Rapid expansion of school events. Regional School Games organisations proactively including Touch in their programmes. More universities joining the BUCS University Touch Championships. The single biggest age group of individual members for the England Touch Association. And a 9.2 Net Promoter Score from teachers stating they would recommend Touch to another teacher, friend or family member.
In the week when England Touch and schools event organisers, Try Sports, announced the calendar of 2025 tournaments, the above list represents just a few reasons as to why Touch is in a positive place with the next generation of players, and why out-going Chief Executive Officer, Chris Simon, believes that the next few years will be transformational for the England Touch Association.
England also had another successful international year for its youth teams, winning five Golds and a Silver medal from the six categories at the 2024 European Junior Touch Championships.
But for this success to continue, and for Touch to realise its potential by making the leap from being rugby’s best kept secret to being the biggest participatory code, then the schools, youth and university demographics are going to be the underpinning foundation.
And in this the future is certainly bright.
In the south-east alone, five times more schools entered the Try Sports regional competition in 2024 than in 2022. And while there were only girls teams in 2022, in 2024 there were girls, boys and mixed teams entering.
Furthermore, across the five events held this year some 70 schools registered, who between them entered 100 teams and brought c.1,200 players.
Further expansion in 2025 sees tournaments held at venues as far afield as Bristol, Reigate, Wigan and Harrogate.
At the same time, our partners, In2Touch Thames Valley launched a National Junior Touch Cup, which in its inaugural year brought 20 teams to the West Midlands, with a date in the diary for July 2025 for Royal Leamington Spa and another being confirmed for the north east of England.
Elsewhere a number of Regional School Games have included Touch within their programmes, with increased numbers of schools introducing the sport to their students. Not only that, but an increasing number of schools are also going on to play in local social leagues against teams of all ages, which is one of the unique aspects of Touch compared to other codes of rugby.
“Having such a thriving sport among young people is one of the things I am most proud of in my time at England Touch,” commented Simon. “We have had successful England teams for a number of years, but the pool of players was relatively small.
“Now we have tens of schools and thousands of players who play in the Try Sports series of events, whereas even just three years ago we were not able to offer this level of competition pathway, and the rapid growth has been really exciting to see.
“This participation is now filtering into clubs, reflected by the nationwide spread of entries into the In2Touch Junior Touch Cup.
“Meanwhile, at University level having BUCS accreditation has helped to bring more clubs and teams into the University Touch Championships, and this is far and away our most diverse demographic in terms of gender and ethnicity. It is also remarkable to see the number of international students who play in the UTC, who have grown up playing Touch and then factored in the quality of the Touch club as part of their choice of where to study here in the UK.
“As always, we are indebted to the hard work of so many people, from the staff at Try Sports and In2Touch who are putting in plenty of hard yards to spread the message about Touch, the teachers and coaches who give up their time to introduce the sport to new young players, and the England Touch volunteer workforce. Thank you to them all.”
Try Sports locations and dates
In2Touch Junior Touch Cup info
