THIS Saturday's crucial championship decider at Sixways holds special significance for one man behind the scenes at Worcester Rugby Club.

As a player in his youth, chairman during their amateur days, employee since the sport turned professional, and lifelong fan, Mike Robins is affectionately known as "Mr Rugby".

He is also the club's Operations Director, organising everything from matchday safety, bars and food to the international conference facilities Sixways boasts.

And this week has been one of the busiest of his seven years working for the club.

"Five years of rugby has been distilled into 80 minutes on Saturday," said Mr Robins. "Of course, you try to treat it like any other game but this is massively more important."

The importance of the game to the city is highlighted by Saturday's ticket sales - the match is a 5,700 sell-out, more than double the usual attendance of around 2,500.

To accommodate this, Mr Robins has organised an additional stand in the south-east corner of the stadium, as well as extra bars, fast food stalls and hospitality facilities.

"Our hospitality catering will be feeding about 900 people on Saturday, on top of all the fast food franchises around the ground," he said.

"We also took delivery of 300 kegs of beer this week, which is 26,400 pints or about five pints per person. In terms of organisation it's like preparing for two games."

Since playing colts rugby for Worcester, Mr Robins has always been involved with the club, witnessing its transformation from a struggling amateur outfit to the brink of the Premiership.

"I remember even in the early days of professionalism we were playing against teams like Old Towcestrians ," he said. "Recently we've played Bristol, Newcastle and Leicester. It's a dream come true."

Even when international rugby was staged at Sixways, with South Africa A playing there in November 2001, extra stands have never been needed to accommodate ticket sales.

While its importance to the local community cannot be over-emphasised, the game's national appeal is also reflected by it being televised live on Sky Sports.