Stow-on-the-Wold are celebrating their first victory ahead of the 2025/26 season.

The Cotswolds club will play the upcoming campaign in the Midlands Division, having played last season in the South West Division’s Regional 2 Severn, and they are delighted.

They are returning to Midlands 2 West and chairman Wayne Loxton is happy for both geographical and financial reasons.

“It will mean less travelling and we will be back in the same division as Shipston, that’s a real local derby,” said Loxton.

“That game is worth £10,000, it’s when we have our President’s Lunch.”

At the time, Loxton described the decision to move Stow to the South West Division as “unexplainable”, but they acquitted themselves well in Regional 2 Severn, finishing sixth in the 12-strong division that included Drybrook, Longlevens and Old Centralians.

Stow were runners-up in Midlands 2 West in 2023/24, ahead of both Newent and Cheltenham, and their supporters will be hopeful that they can compete at the top end of the division this time around.

Loxton, meanwhile, is standing down as club chairman with former player Craig Voisey set to be confirmed as his successor at the club’s AGM on Friday 4th July.

Loxton will continue to be a familiar figure around the club during the upcoming season, however, although more immediately he is hoping former Stow junior Arthur Clark can become the club’s second ex-player to win a full England cap.

The 23-year-old Gloucester second row is in a 36-man training squad ahead of Saturday’s non-cap game against a France XV at Twickenham.

Clark, whose dad Barry is a former Gloucester back row who also played for Stow, is hoping to be named in the England squad for the three-Test summer tour to Argentina and the USA.

Should Clark make his England debut, he will follow in the footsteps of his 28-year-old Gloucester team-mate Ollie Thorley who became the first former Stow played to be capped by England at full level.

Elliott Stooke, another former Stow junior, played for England’s under-20s, and England Saxons and Loxton said: “For a village club we’re batting well above our league.”