RUCK Roots Takes on Gateshead Beer Festival for First Charity Event

RUCK Roots proudly hosted its very first charity-sponsored event at this year’s Gateshead Beer & Music Festival, held at Gateshead RFC. Armed with two custom-built beer pong tables, some fantastic prizes, and a very competitive crowd, we spent the day raising awareness and funds for the MND Association— and honestly, we could not have asked for a better day.

Held at Gateshead RFC in Low Fell, the festival is one of the North East’s favourite local events, packed with craft beers, live music, great food, and even a cameo from the Hairy Bikers’ Si King!

After two glorious days of sunshine, it was of course our sponsored day that brought relentless rain from start to finish. Thankfully, heroes with hay bales arrived just in time, somehow turning the muddy pitch into a rugby-meets-country-fayre setup that worked an absolute treat.

From 12pm until 8pm, the tables barely stopped. Families, mates, volunteers, and members of both the men’s and women’s teams all got involved in the “beer” pong (don’t worry — the cups were filled with water! We wouldn’t waste good beer!).

Some people came for one game and stayed for hours defending their titles. There were huge celebrations, painful misses, overly serious tactics, and the occasional tantrum after a bounced-out shot.

In other words: the perfect rugby community event.

Things stepped up another level thanks to some brilliant prizes donated by RUCK.

Every game winner throughout the day earned a spot in our final draw, with the overall winners taking home 2x tickets to England vs Fiji in Liverpool this July.

As if that wasn’t enough, five runners-up will also receive rugby union mystery shirt boxes courtesy of our partner P Sports.

Safe to say people suddenly became very invested in their throwing technique.

Rugby has always been about standing shoulder to shoulder, and in recent years our sport has seen members of its own community bravely share their diagnoses with motor neurone disease (MND). Their stories have deeply affected the rugby world and reminded us how powerful this community can be when it comes together.

That’s why RUCK Roots ran our event in aid of our partner charity the MND Association. This incredible charity raise awareness and vital funds not just for research into treatments and finding a cure, but also to improve the quality of life for people affected by motor neurone disease.

Most importantly, thanks to everyone who played, donated and supported the event, we raised almost £200 for the MND Association while helping raise awareness for a hugely important cause.

A massive thank you to Gateshead Beer & Music Festival and Gateshead RFC for having us for our very first RUCK Roots charity event.

We’re already looking forward to the next one — and trust us, we’ll be aiming even higher.

If you’ve got an event you’d like RUCK Roots to get involved with, drop us a message at ruckroots@ruck.co.uk.