Work on a second playing field at the Langley Rugby Club (LRC) site on Crush Crescent will begin this spring, and will take more than a year to complete.

Club president Brian Anderson outlined the schedule to the Langley Advance Times on Monday, Feb. 14.

The new field, on property purchased in 2021 next to the existing rugby pitch, won’t be ready for players until late 2023, Anderson said.

Work on the new field should begin by May of this year, involving scraping and leveling the site to make it ready for a natural turf field, with water-permeable soil on top of sand.

“We have a heavy slope on that [new] field, so we have to do a lot of excavating,” Anderson told the Langley Advance Times.

Once the preparations are done, the field will be seeded and will need more than a year to be ready for players.

It will be the culmination of a “10-year dream,” Anderson remarked.

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A $250,000 Capital Project Grant as part of the Province of BC’s Community Gaming Grant program is making it possible, with matching funds raised by the 300-member volunteer-run, non-profit organization.

“We managed to save our pennies, and some of our older members are very generous,” Anderson explained.

The addition of a second playing field at the LRC will increase the club’s ability to deliver child and youth programming, which has become a core priority, Anderson said.

Currently, there is only one playing field that is shared between all of the LRC’s programs which has made it a challenge to schedule time, and has at times forced the LRC to use other fields.

Having two fields will also make it possible to make improvements to the heavily-used original playing field, including improving its drainage to limit mud when it rains.

Anderson described that as a “20-year-plan.”

The LRC has a playing enrollment of over 200 female and male players ranging in age from four and under to forty and over.

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In 2018, the club celebrated it’s fiftieth anniversary, noting that the LRC was founded around the time of the first manned moon landing and just before the Beatles disbanded, with the motto: “Respect All, Fear None, Expect Victory.”