SUPERMARINE rugby players are pulling on their boots to raise money for a foundation that has helped the family of one of their coaches who is battling a brain tumour.

Steve George coached the U8 team before his diagnosis last year. Since then he and his family have been helped by the Lewis Moody Foundation, which supports people with brain tumours in their times by organising family days.

Steve, who started the Swindon primary schools summer rugby programme at Supermarine and helped to bring O2 Touch to the club, was taken to accident and emergency in April last year after suffering six weeks of headaches, neck ache and poor vision. Doctors had told him the symptoms were down to stress.

A CT scan at the hospital revealed they were caused by something far more serious.

His wife Liz said: “More tests, scans and a biopsy later showed that the tumour was a grade four glioblastoma.”

She described how he underwent six weeks of daily radiotherapy to the brain at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford followed by a year of chemotherapy. The treatment appeared to work and the tumour started to shrink.

But on August 31 this year he suffered a seizure and was taken to hospital where an MRI scan showed the tumour was growing once more.

Steve was started on a different course of chemotherapy but will not fund out until just before Christmas whether it is succeeding.

Liz said: “We were introduced to Lewis and Annie Moody, The Lewis Moody foundation and the brain tumour charity, and they have showed us all as a family amazing support.”

The charity aims to promote awareness of the condition and raise money not only for medical research, but for family days for people who are dealing with it.

“We were lucky enough to be invited on one of these families days aimed at children who have a parent with a brain tumour.

“ I cannot begin to explain how much this day meant to us as a family not only making happy memories during an awful time, which we treasure, but also meeting other families and making friends with people in the same situation as us,” she said.

The weekend starts tomorrow with a cup game between Supermarine 1XV and Weymouth and Portland along with the 3XV Vets against Hungerford. ON Sunday the minis and juniors will be in action against Marlborough from 10am before there is a 5k sponsored run around the pitch at 11.

Supermarine Ladies close the day with a match against Wimbledon at 3pm.

A barbecue, cakes, sweets and a raffle are also planned.

The Lewis Moody Foundation was launched in 2014 after the player met a 15-year-old boy with cancer who later lost his battle with the disease.