Turf's Up! Gotham Sports Arena new surface

Aim: This is the home of Community Sport in Gotham. We need to upgrade a 25-year-old artificial turf surface with a modern all-purpose surface.

Who are we?

Gotham Sports Arena provides an important and popular sporting facility for the village and the wider community.  Over the 24 years of its existence it has been consistently used by both local sporting clubs and casual users.

It is managed by a committee of volunteers with members drawn from the Memorial Hall Trust, Parish Council and representatives of the users.  It is maintained by the committee member volunteers who pride themselves that the surface has lasted well over the years.

We have recently upgraded our floodlights to LEDS which makes them cheaper to run and reduces our carbon footprint.  We are grateful for the support of East Midland Airport and Nottinghamshire County Council who funded the project.  Here are some images from the installation:

To complete the job, with your help we can turn this:

into this:

Why are we crowdfunding?

The current surface showing signs of wear and could soon become dangerous.  In Feedback from current and potential users has shown that the surface is also of an outdated design.  The technology behind these sports surfaces has improved over the years, and upgrading to a modern all-purpose design would attract new users as well as continuing to support the existing ones.

How we’ll spend the money raised

Crowd funding seeks to raise a £30,000 contribution towards the total cost of £100,000.  The Arena will be contributing £30,000 of its own funds, and the balance will be met from grants.

Community impact

Gotham Sports arena has provided the following sports:

Tennis:  Gotham Tennis Club, from 1999 to present day, and casual users.  In the past there has been junior tennis coaching. The current club consists of about 25 members playing four times a week. Most members are over 60 for whom this is a valuable source of exercise. The aim is to attract players of working age, many now working from home, and to encourage promising young players.

Here are some images of the excellent tea party held by the Tennis Club as a fund raiser for the new Arena surface.

Netball: From 1999 until the Covid outbreak, this was the base for Gotham Netball Club which had both senior and junior teams playing in local leagues and provided junior coaching.  They also held tournaments with visiting teams from the East Midlands.  It is hoped this will be able to restart with a better playing surface.

Football:  Since 1999 until present here have been regular casual football groups and also junior coaching sessions by the local clubs.  Currently junior teams, both boys and girls, that train on the arena are from Gotham Rangers, Kegworth Imps and East Leake Bantams along with the coaching group SoccerStarz.

Cricket: Gotham Village Cricket Cub have used the arena for junior coaching sessions every summer since it opened.

Rugby and Hockey training has also taken place on the arena.

Private functions: The arena has also been hired for private, sports-based parties.

OUR PUBLIC CONSULTATION.

On Wednesday 21st February over 40 people attended an information sharing - and gathering- about the Sports Arena project. As a result we generated several community fundraising ideas and started to see donations come in. 

How you can play your part

There are four simple ways to help us reach our target, and make this project a reality.

1. Make a pledge. Don’t delay if you’re going to support us because momentum is key to our success!

2. Spread the word. Share our project on your social media pages and tell the world to get behind us! The more people we reach, the more support we will get.

3. Offer rewards. Get involved if you are a local business by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out!

4. Fundraise for us. If you want to run your own fundraiser – maybe a sponsored activity or similar – use the 'contact project' button at the top of our page to let us know. Setting up your own page only takes a few minutes and you won’t need any bank details. Just a fun idea!