ALL arrangements are in place as Farnham Rugby Club prepare to entertain 25 teams from all over Europe at the Veterans Rugby Festival from Thursday to Sunday, September 17-20.

The event is planned to co-incide with the start of the Rugby World Cup.

With two days of games, a reception on the first evening, a British beer and wine festival running over the weekend, a gala dinner on Saturday night and the awards ceremony on Sunday evening, it promises to be a great weekend of sport and live entertainment.

As well as the rugby games, local bands are booked to appear, with The Mays playing on Friday night and The Firm on Saturday (ticket-only for Saturday).

All the World Cup games being played at the same time will be shown live in the Festival marquee. With 700 seats available, there should be a cracking atmosphere in which to watch the action.

A free shuttle bus service will be operating from the town centre (Gostrey Meadow and by The Albion) on each of the days and into the evening, and entry into the ground at Monkton Lane is free.

For further information, go to www.evra2015.com

Further down the age-group scale, Farnham Under-11s had the privilege of being involved in the first rugby to be played at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The junior festival was a warm-up to the match between the Barbarians and Samoa, which itself was part of the build-up to the World Cup.

The boys got to see parts of the stadium and were even able to run up and down the indoor track where Usain Bolt would have warmed up at the London Olympics.

Farnham were one of 32 teams invited to compete in a touch rugby competition and did their club proud by winning their section of the event.

The boys who represented Farnham at this historic event were: Luke McGinn, Archie Heath, Tom Humphreys, Theo Clifford, Ollie Cunningham, Rudi Orthmann, Stanley Platt, Tom Jolley, Ollie Buckton, Ollie Waghorn, Austin Bradshaw, Jake Harris, Alex Thorpe, Sam Burbidge, Ned Brooker, Ollie Ryman, Tom Dickin, Toby Swift, James Purnell and Ollie Wilkinson.

Back at Farnham, many enthusiast youngsters received first-hand advice from the Harlequins coaching team at a summer camp.