Leigh Leopards rugby player Josh Charnley from Chorley announces testimonial year

Rugby League player Josh Charnley turned 32 on Monday, June 26, and he ended celebrations with a surprising announcment.

Posting on his Instagram story to 48.6k followers, the Leigh Leapords winger and former England international shared a link to a new Instagram page he had launched called ‘Josh Charnley Testimonial 2024.’

In the story, Josh, who started his career playing for Chorley Panthers, wrote: “Please give my testimonal page a follow for all information!"

A testimonial is usually a match held to honour a player for service to a club, however Josh has been awarded a whole 12-month testimonial by the Rugby Football League for the 2024 season.

A testimonial year allows a player to give back to his sport throughout a prolonged period of time with a variety of events.

As of June 2023, Josh’s testimonial page has no futher information about his plans, other than that the testimonial will be held in 2024, and features two photos.

On the first picture, which shows Josh posing with a rugby ball, one user called denverclare17 commented with a sad face emoji and then said “dont retire.”

The second photo is a ‘Coming Soon’ poster for the testimonial match,

On this post, daimondfootballboots commented: “Thoroughly deserved and what a guy”, whilst ryanowen10 wrote “Well deserved @joshuacharnley been outstanding brother”

Josh has not yet confirmed he is set to retire, however he has spoken previously about nearly doing so in 2022.

In a career spanning 13 years, Josh started at Wigan Warriors in 2010, then played for Hull Kingston Rovers (on loan in 2010), Warrington Wolves (2018-2022) and even had a spell in the Rugby Union league, playing for Sale Sharks between 2016-2018.

Internationally, Josh played for the England Knights in 2011, and England 2012-2014, representing the country in the 2013 Rugby League World Cup.