Whitby Town Launch £30k "Pitch Perfect" Fundraiser

Whitby Town Football Club has launched a £30,000 appeal to replace their pitch.

The club has seen 11 games called off this season, nine of those because of a water logged pitch.

Now the club is launching a bid to lay a new sand-based pitch instead of the current clay based surface.

Manager Nathan Haslam says the current pitch is impacting on recruitment.

The pitch has been an issue of contention for a considerable amount of time, with drainage problems seeing several games called off in the last two seasons. The club has decided that the time to act is now, to protect the future of the club, setting up a JustGiving page for people to donate to.  

With 11 games called off so far this season (nine for waterlogged pitches; two for frozen pitches), problems with the pitch have had a major knock-on effect on the football club's finances. The estimated loss that the club has had to incur due to postponements is around £25,000.

Manager Nathan Haslam says the poor playing surface impacts on the players and on recruitment.

In a statement the club said:

"Of course, this is not sustainable. Another season like this one - with the number of postponements we have seen - would see the club faced with potentially serious questions about its future.

Groundsman Joe Cook and his team have worked tirelessly and mostly against the elements ahead of every home game so far this season just to get games on to the best of their abilities, though through no fault of their own, they have often found themselves coming up short due to the weather and drainage issues.

With this, we are looking to raise £30,000 to kick the work off, which would go towards external funding that we are currently pursuing behind the scenes.

A new pitch at the Towbar Express Stadium @ The Turnbull Ground would not only ease pressure on Joe and his team, but would also open up opportunities for more community use of the pitch - with the opportunity to provide a better experience for local clubs playing cup finals at the ground, from junior level right through to senior level.

It would also help to provide a home for the club’s newly-formed Under-19s team, giving the club’s younger players the experience of regularly playing on the club’s pitch, and allow the club to offer more in the way of community-based projects at the ground, including the use of the ground for the Whitby Town Soccer School, run by Blues players Brad Fewster, Soni Fergus and Sam Spenceley.

As a club, Whitby Town are committed to improving all aspects of the ground to improve the supporter experience and player experience. In recent seasons, the club have committed to several infrastructure upgrades, including:

●    Refurbishment of Turnbull’s Bar
●    Installation of LED floodlights
●    Installation of new substitute benches
●    Installation of new box goals
●    Full replacement of the Scratching Shed roof
●    Installation of a water-harvest system - which gathers water from the main stand roof to reuse when watering the pitch
●    Installation of a new Hospitality Lounge
●    Refit of the club canteen and installation of extra office space for club volunteers
●    Opening of a new canteen in the ground, allowing the club to sell its own food and drink to away fans in segregated fixtures

We feel that the next piece of the jigsaw to improve the experience for supporters, players and sponsors at our club and in our town is to re-lay the pitch at the Towbar Express Stadium at the Turnbull Ground, to a professional standard."

The aim is for a new sand-based pitch to be laid at the ground instead of the current clay-based pitch, with extensive drainage installed across all areas of the field, to give Joe and his team the best possible chance of getting matches on.

The club has set up a JustGiving page for supporters to donate as little or as much as they feel able to. The club says it will also be looking to run fundraising events to help raise the money, which they're hoping to pull together in time for a new pitch to be down by the start of the 2024/25 season.

Supporters can get behind the first fundraiser straight away - with Harrison Beeden’s 2023/24 signed, match-worn shirt being raffled off. Raffle tickets can be bought for £2 via the club’s online shop, with the draw taking place on Friday, 8 March 2024.

If anybody has any ideas that they feel could help the fundraiser, they should contact paulconnolly@whitbytownfc.com or leebullock@whitbytownfc.com