Biggar – giving new meaning to being at the heart of its community

Biggar RFC is one of 35 community rugby clubs being gifted a defibrillator – a machine which can shock the heart to restart a normal rhythm.

The club, whose men’s first XV finished fourth in the Arnold Clark National League Division 1 and whose women’s first XV topped the Arnold Clark West Regional League Division 1 and have since earned promotion to the Arnold Clark Women’s Premiership for next season, also boasts a thriving youth set-up in both the boys’ and girls’ games and has recently completed a major building project expanding both its clubhouse and high- performance gym, all as it is about to mark its 50^th anniversary this August.

One of the club’s biggest stars, Scotland Women centre Emma Orr, whose brothers and father all played at the club, where she first started in the minis, was on hand to help the club celebrate the installation of the device from Hearts + Balls.

Preparing for Scotland’s meeting with Italy in the Guinness Women’s Six Nations Championship at Hive Stadium on Sunday, she said: “Thanks to the generosity of Hearts + Balls we are extremely lucky to have now that second defibrillator here at Hartreemill.

“It’s just such an important piece of equipment to have. If we need it in an emergency – and hopefully we won’t – it can save lives.

“I think with the new facilities here, it’s drawing more and more people to the club.  We want to make people safe when they are here and having a portable defibrillator means if anyone is in need, we can get that to them without any issue.”

Hearts + Balls, a charity with the aim of “helping rugby help its own,” is celebrating its 25^th anniversary and is making a £33,000 contribution to fund the greater uptake of defibrillators in Scotland’s rugby clubs, in partnership with Scottish Rugby and the British Heart Foundation.

All clubs receiving defibrillators have added the machines to the Scottish Ambulance Service “circuit”, which means that ambulance control rooms know when a club is open, and that defibrillator would be accessible to a member of the public should a cardiac arrest occur nearby that club.

Hugh Dan MacLennan, Chair of Hearts + Balls Charitable Trust, said: “Because of the happy co-incidence of our 25^th anniversary, we have made this our flagship project.

“We have been absolutely delighted with the positivity, not just with people coming and saying they would like to be part of it, but also, interestingly, since we started distributing the defibrillators, the feedback we are getting, the gratitude and the sense of purpose that the rugby clubs have, it could not have worked better.”

Some clubs who applied for a defibrillator, already had a fixed device within clubrooms but were keen to ensure they could provide the same life-saving application on their pitches further afield.

Hugh Dan added: “The medics will tell you, there is this golden minute and the period when you need to get a reaction when somebody is in trouble.

“Quite a few clubs made the point that they may have had a defibrillator anyway, but the problem is if it happens out on Pitch 3 or 4, it’s going to take us a while to get there.

“So, what they asked for was an additional resource, of a portable defibrillator and we have been happy to take that on board.”

Gordon Young, President of Biggar RFC, hailed the project as “immense.”  He added: “The local community uses our grounds for all sorts.  I’d estimate we have probably 1,000 people through our grounds every week and having that second defibrillator, in addition to the fixed one that we have next to our gym, means that should anything happen, we can get there that bit quicker.”

Dr Karen Barclay, Rugby Development Welfare Manager at Scottish Rugby, said: “With 35 new defibrillators, all of which will be registered on The Circuit, we will without doubt be saving lives in our communities with this initiative.

“The partnership with Hearts + Balls has been phenomenal. Without their help, we could not have achieved the level of success that this campaign now has.

“We are delighted to be able to celebrate the launch of this campaign at Biggar, where the rugby club really is at the heart of the local community.

“If people are interested in learning more about CPR, I’d encourage them to head to our website and complete a short online module.”

You can access Scottish Rugby’s free First Responder Course HERE.

As a charity with rugby in their hearts, Hearts+Balls wish to develop further relationships as they continue to support rugby players who have sustained life changing injuries throughout Scotland. We are all in this together, helping rugby to help its own-is the charity’s motto.

With this in mind, if any club is looking to support a charity in 2025 and would consider fundraising for Hearts+Balls then please contact: [email protected] for a chat and further information.