Betteridge hoping for on-field success to support Sarries’ off-field development
Cheltenham Saracens First Team Manager Ryan Betteridge believes the club’s off the field development can be matched on the field ahead of the 2026/27 season.
Betteridge spoke to Severn Sport ahead of his side’s opening pre-season friendly against Slimbridge on Thursday night and was looking forward to seeing his side in action after nearly three weeks of sessions.
“Tonight will be a great test for the boys,” said Betteridge.
“You can’t put too much weight or emphasis on it, because at the end of the day it’s a pre season game and it’s an extension of training, but the lads have worked hard for two and a half weeks now, so just to get back on the grass, get the balls rolling properly – I think we’re all looking forward to it,” added Betteridge.
Saracens won the game 4-2, with Ryan Dobbins scoring a first half hattrick for the Hellenic League Division One side, who will be looking to challenge for the play-offs this season having missed out by two points in the end last campaign.
Betteridge’s side has stayed together for the most part, with the majority of last season’s squad set to be retained for the new season – with experienced duo Luke Hitchman and Harrison Iddles joining the ranks to bolster the group and Betteridge believes they have the squad in place to go better this season.
“I think the goal is to improve on what we did last season, finishing one place outside the playoffs last season, the aim has to be to go one better this year and I don’t think that’s beyond the realms of possibility, but that’ll certainly be our aim anyway,” Betteridge said.
“Keeping the group together is massive because they’ve all got a year’s experience under the belt. We basically started from nothing last year, so the sort of style of play, the ideas we put across was from a blank piece of paper pretty much, but they’ve all got those instilled now.
We’ve added what we felt we lacked, which was experience and a little bit of know how and hopefully that gives us half a chance – but we’ve had a high turnover of players last summer, so for this season to be very minimal it’s great for us because it gives us a platform to build on,” Betteridge added.
One of the eye-catching elements of the night was the new clubhouse at the ground, which will give Cheltenham Saracens their own facility to help bring the local community together, as well as the club’s players and supporters themselves.
A massive thank you to Betteridge who gave us a tour of the facility, which is still being completed inside, but it looks set to be a great addition for the club and the wider community and is just the latest improvement the club are making to their ground.
With the hub set to be completed ahead of the Sarries vs Legends friendly on Sunday 19 July, Betteridge welcomed the new hub as one of the many improvements the club are making going forward.
“It’s massive for us because it gives us a base, it gives the local community something to come and see and attach themselves to and hopefully it grows the following of the club.
Because at the end of the day, we’ve been here for 40 years plus, but there isn’t a huge local connection to the community, however, we’ve put events on and they always come and support them.
So now they’ve got a base, somewhere where they can come and support us on a regular basis and it hopefully it helps grow the club both on and off the pitch,” said Betteridge.
“We’re trying to grow organically and we’re trying to grow within our means. We haven’t got a benefactor, someone putting money in, so this has all been done with local government grants and Football Foundation funding and it is all finally coming together.
If the benefit of this is that we can grow the club, make things like the pitch better and all those sort of things, then hopefully that pushes us to where we want to be as a club,” Betteridge added.
Cheltenham Saracens continue their pre-season on Wednesday night, when they head to the Causeway to take on Cinderford Town.
