Gloucester star shares ‘whatever it takes’ message ahead of the Slater Cup as rugby community comes together to fight ‘cruel disease’

Ed Slater is too young to remember his beloved Charlton Athletic going to Villa Park and being handed their heaviest ever defeat.

On a November day in 1959, Gerry Hitchens scored five times in an 11-1 win, which remains Aston Villa’s greatest post-war league victory.

When Slater thinks of the famous old stadium, memories are stirred of 1999 and Danny Mills bagging the last-minute goal which gave the Addicks a 4-3 victory and delayed their exit from the Premier League.

He was 10 years old then and could not have imagined one day visiting the scene of that triumph as a guest of honour to see two of the most famous sporting teams in the land play for a trophy bearing his name on that hallowed turf.

That is what will happen on Saturday when Gloucester and Leicester Tigers, the rugby clubs Slater represented with such distinction prior to his motor neurone disease diagnosis, collide in the Gallagher PREM.

The Slater Cup

The Slater Cup has reached its eighth edition, but this is the first time the match, which doubles as a fundraiser for MND charities, has been moved away from either Kingsholm or Welford Road.

It is nearly four years since Slater announced his diagnosis, yet the will of these two clubs to support him has not waned; quite the contrary, in light of former Leicester and England star Lewis Moody revealing he is also battling MND.

Tuesday on the Gloucester training field brought a pause in play. Lewis Ludlow had something he wanted to say. The Cherry and Whites’ great called his teammates into a huddle and started talking.

“You’ve spoken to many rugby players,” he told Planet Rugby later. “On the really hard training days, they moan, they think they’re in a dark hole, they think they’re hurting. They think they’re tired.

“I said to the lads, ‘Look around you. Remember what this game on Saturday is about. This is our hard training day, but it could be a hell of a lot worse.

“‘We’re extremely privileged to be where we’re at, to be able to train and go to those dark places. So, let’s enjoy being there and not take it for granted’.”

‘Why? Why has it chosen him?

Ludlow remembers clearly the day the news broke. “I sat there and just thought, ‘Why? Why has it chosen him? Ed has helped me so much. He has a young family, wife and kids. I thought about all that sort of stuff.

“But very quickly, and because of the way Ed is, you switch to, ‘Right, how can we help him? And from there, ‘Right, how can we help this community? And now it’s ‘How much can we help this community?’

“There’s people out there every day that need help. People who don’t have the profiles of Ed and Lewis and the ability to raise money and awareness.

“So they’re the people that need the help and Ed is driving all that. From the start he was the one that wanted to do that. “He said, ‘Look, we need to help other people. We can’t make this about me’.

“And he would absolutely hate it to be all about him. For him, and his 4Ed Foundation, it needs to be about providing grants and resources and supporting other families affected by MND.”

Ludlow thinks of his mate every day, tries to visit him at least once a fortnight. And then there is Billy Twelvetrees, another former England star who played alongside Slater both at Leicester and Gloucester.

Twelvetrees’ initial thought, on learning of his great friend’s diagnosis back in 2022, was to cancel his own testimonial year. He told his wife, Georgie, it felt wrong to go ahead with it.

After much thought, they decided to use it as a vehicle to raise funds and awareness for MND. Four years on, the commitment from the Twelvetrees family has not wavered.

“Billy and his family are extremely close to Ed and his,” said Ludlow. “They were before the diagnosis and nothing has changed.

“When I go round to Ed’s, there’ll often be one of the Twelvetrees clan somewhere in the house, whether it’s Billy’s wife helping Jo out, Billy cutting the grass or the kids playing together.

“What the Twelvetrees family do for Ed probably won’t ever get spoken about, as they’re not a family to shout and scream about it. But it should be.

“In, fact, let me say it: they go above and beyond, and they do it completely out of the goodness of their hearts.

“They don’t want anything, no return, no nothing. They’re just very, very good people.”

Moody has been equally well supported by friends from within the game, particularly former teammates Geordan Murphy and Leon Lloyd.

Others, including World Cup winners Martin Johnson and Mike Tindall, will take part in a fundraising Race to the Slater Cup on Saturday morning, with teams racing on bikes to Villa Park from Welford Road and Kingsholm respectively.

“Growing up, I actually wanted to be Lewis Moody”

“Growing up, I actually wanted to be Lewis Moody,” admitted Ludlow, a fellow flanker and one of only five players ever to captain England on debut. “So hearing his news hit me hard.

“People make links between rugby and MND, but I want to stress that none have been proven.

“I sit here every month in 4Ed breakfasts and 4Ed meals, meeting people with MND who have played no rugby in their lives. They haven’t played a game; they haven’t played a contact sport.

“And yet they’re sat there with the diagnosis. All different ages. People in their early 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, right up to their 70s and 80s.

“There’s people every day being diagnosed with MND that have nothing to do with rugby. But the rugby community is such a good community that we want to raise awareness of it.

“We want to get together, be it at Villa on Saturday or in the annual ‘745’ cross-code game; whatever it takes to raise awareness and money to fight this cruel disease.”

To support The Race to the Slater Cup in aid of MND charities, visit https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/racetoslatercup

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