Gornal Athletic FC Upgrades and Improvements

We are raising money to cover costs for the repairs and maintenance of our ground and its facilities.
This includes improving our hospitality facilities, upgrading the floodlights, pitch improvements and maintenance for the club house, terraces and stands
FLOODLIGHTS
Our existing floodlights have been in situ now for 20+ years and need upgrading to meet the standards required if we get promoted to the next level.
If we totally upgrade to LED lighting, the cost for this is £18,000, expensive we know, but will provide a close to daylight experience for our evening games and also the running costs will be drastically reduced
If we reduce the lamps, we will need to purchase 12 Phillips 2000w Tubular Bulbs, these will cost in the region of £175 each including the VAT, so thats £2100, yes, a cheaper option but still expensive to run.
Picture : 2 of our 6 floodlights that require upgrading

Gornal Athletic currently have 10 Teams . This includes our West Midlands Regional League Team, U18’s , youth and junior teams, plus the new academy which runs at Ellowes Hall School

Our home since 1949 is the Garden Walk Stadium in Lower Gornal in the borough of Dudley

We are busy planning to renovate the clubroom, changing rooms and outside catering, the pitch due to a lack of use during the pandemic does need a lot of professional work carried out over the summer, and we also need to purchase equipment (new mower, ours was stolen New Years Eve 2020 and some chain harrows) to allow us to maintain the ground ourselves. Up grades to our floodlights are also necessary to maintain the high standards we have set ourselves.

Pictures of our Club Room which is available to hire for any local community group, and as you can see internal decoration is required which is not a problem, but new floor covering would make it more presentable

We are also looking at opening a club shop on the ground, the work to convert a section of the catering outlet for this purpose is underway from this weekend

The Stadium facilities and ground are used by a variety of local community organisations, disabled groups, dog behaviourists, regular functions for the people of Gornal, and in fact the Black Country Ambulance team have booked to play their Internal League Games there.

Ground Improvements include
1. Adding extra Crowd Barriers

Repairs to Terracing (currently closed for safety reasons)

The estimated costs for all of this work is in the region of £30,000, although approx 60% will be funded by grants, so we do need to raise approx £12,000 to enable this work to happen before the new season starts in August 2021.

All donations of £20 or over will be allowed a FREE Social Membership for the year, this will entitle the member to:
PRIZE DRAW - everybody making a donation is entered into a prize draw for £250. The draw will take place on Saturday May 22nd 2021 
Discounts from an Annual Season Ticket
Discounts for room hire for their own private events
Discounts over the Bar on Matchdays
Discounts in the Club Shop
FREE Matchday programme per game attended, this retsricted to one per social membership, and has been kindly donated by Midarc, our local community event planning business

As we are a group of volunteers money coming into the club is minimal. During the pandemic it has been impossible to carry out fundraising events, and with only one home game this winter, there has been no income so that we can put money back into the pot for the season ahead .

Events were planned to raise much needed funds to secure the future of Gornal Athletic. These have obviously not happened because of the pandemic, and like many other clubs and businesses it has hit us really hard financially as a club.

Gornal Athletic will bring the community and football back to the Garden Walk Stadium in Lower Gornal.

Our brand new Academy facilities at Ellowes Hall School with top coaches and training will engage the local community and encourage children and adults to become part of our football family. The ground will once again become a focal point in the local area .

We are currently planning to restart our fund raising functions for later in the summer, but obviously due to the pandemic, this cannot be at the earliest before 21st June 2021

All help is appreciated be it small or large and every penny will count in the short, medium and long term future of Gornal Athletic FC

If we can all stick together during these difficult times , we will continue to strive forward to make Gornal Athletic FC , known as a club which is inclusive to all and has a bright future in grassroots football.

Thank you from all at Gornal Athletic for your support.