{"id":385928,"date":"2026-01-23T11:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T11:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/385928\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T11:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T11:02:10","slug":"championship-stalwart-retires-with-immediate-effect-amid-recruitment-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/385928\/","title":{"rendered":"Championship stalwart retires with immediate effect amid recruitment update"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Championship\"\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Batley Bulldogs forward Adam Gledhill has confirmed his retirement from rugby league with immediate effect.<\/p>\n

The prop has been a stalwart at Mount Pleasant since making his debut for the club in 2014. In that time he has made 247 appearances for the Bulldogs<\/a>, with 26 tries coming along the way.<\/p>\n

The most notable of those tries came in the Million Pound Game when Gledhill touched down in the 44-12 loss to Leigh Centurions.<\/p>\n

The forward had penned a deal for the new season, but work commitments have left the 32-year-old being unable to fully throw himself into the Championship campaign. As a result, he has chosen to hang up his boots.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted to announce that with a heavy heart I\u2019ve decided to retire from playing rugby with immediate effect,\u201d he said in a video posted on social media. \u201cIt\u2019s something that\u2019s been on my mind for quite some time and other things have got in the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been a lot busier at work and I\u2019ve not been able to commit to the club for this year so it\u2019s unfair to the lads and the rest of the team to not be able to give 100 per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had such great memories over the last 11\/12 years at the club. Ones that stick out in particular are playing at Wembley, that\u2019s every little boy\u2019s dream, playing in the Million Pound Game and scoring one of the very rare tries that I do in that game. Memories that will last a lifetime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chairman Kevin Nicholas paid tribute to the prop, while also confirming that the hunt to find a replacement forward is underway.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me he\u2019s been an absolutely outstanding player for this club,\u201d he added. \u201cHe\u2019s totally underrated in the Championship and we\u2019re going to miss him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s going to be coming up and watching quite a bit so you\u2019ll still see him round and about. But I just want to say a massive thank you to Gledders and his family for what they\u2019ve done over the last 12 years and good luck to him in his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re already looking to see if we can get a replacement prop but no one can replace Gledders because he\u2019s been superb for our club.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Batley Bulldogs forward Adam Gledhill has confirmed his retirement from rugby league with immediate effect. The prop has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-385928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}