BASINGSTOKE Rugby Club paid the highest tribute possible in commemoration of their long-serving fundraiser Joyce Beeton at the weekend.

The current team took on some of the club’s players from the past in a match to mark the re-naming of their one and only seating area at Down Grange as The Joyce Beeton Stand.

There were many tributes to Joyce, who died in December aged 96, during the sold-out lunch that preceded the match. Chairman of the club Steve Tristram, described Joyce as “the ultimate supporter and contributor to Basingstoke Rugby Club”

His foreword in the match programme said: “Joyce was irrepressible, a fabulous friend and a significant advisor to all the things I should have been doing as chairman.”

Chris Ashton, club member and one of the founder members of Basingstoke RFC, said he’d bumped into Joyce along Pack Lane, Kempshott during his early fundraising in the 1970s. It was the link that forged her association with the club and its fund-raising up until the current day.

Friends Sue and Peter Allen, posted their comments in the programme: “Joyce also ran all the raffles at the pre-match lunches and sold hundreds of ties to unsuspecting gentlemen who turned up for lunch without wearing a club tie. Over a period of 30 years we have estimated that Joyce must have raised over £200,000 for the club.”

Players joined in the comments. Centre/Wing Warren Simmonds added: “Rugby is not always about the game on a Saturday. It’s about making a rugby family on and off the pitch. I can’t think of a better way to remember and support my rugby family than putting on a Basingstoke shirt and playing the game we all love.”

The old guard came away with the victory 30 - 14 on the day.