Portsmouth Rugby Club makes gesture to NHS staff amid coronavirus crisis

Portsmouth RFC has dished out 80 cases of its iPro hydration drink to community nurses and staff involved in Patient Transport Services at Queen Alexandra Hospital.

With the club unable to train or play matches amid the strict lockdown measures in place, the decision was made to help those who can be overlooked in the struggle to beat the virus.

Club stalwart Ian Douglas, who works as a community nurse, helped to organise 40 cases being shipped to colleagues working across the region.

Meanwhile, first team manager Ian Alvey had a contact at QA to pave the way to help transport the remaining cases to staff at the hospital.

He said: ‘The donations were very well received by staff, who sent us messages of thanks.

‘We are a community-focused club and these people deserve our support. We shall continue to offer our help in any way we can.

‘The support staff can sometimes be overlooked at the moment so we hope this shows that we care about them.’

The club is sponsored by iPro and provides 100 cases of its drink to the side a year.

The initiative came came about after the club was contacted by iPro to say its healthy flavoured drinks were due to go out of date by the end of May.

‘We realised we weren’t going to be able to use it by then as we won’t be back playing so decided to give it away to those who will need it,’ Ian said.

The drink helps boost energy but is thought to be one of the healthiest energy drinks on the market.

‘The drink doesn’t have any additives and is great for hydration,’ Ian said.

‘It’s been a real partnership effort between us and iPro and we hope the drinks help the staff.’