The Supporters Club is in the process of completing its year end accounts for the 2022/23 financial year and thought that it would be useful to provide a preliminary report of its activities over the year.
We have a series of functions that are operated on an ongoing year to year basis. These are noted below:
- Programme Sales: during the year we provided the volunteer team who sold approximately 70,000 matchday programmes on behalf of the Football Club.
- 50/50 Draw Tickets: during the year we provided the volunteer team who continued to sell the 50/50 draw tickets on behalf of the Football Club.
- Away Travel: during the year we arranged coaches for the use of Gasheads travelling to away games. In total we provided in excess of 60 Coaches, providing in excess of 2,000 return trips for travelling fans.
However, in addition to these operations, we are pleased to report that we made donations amounting to over £16,000 as part of our commitment to support the Football Club, the “Gashead Family”, and the local community in general. The list of donations is shown below:
- Gas Girls: In 2022/23 we were the primary financial supporters of the Gas Girls by donating a sum of £8,000.
- Gas Girls: In addition to the general sponsorship noted above, and as a recognition of their successful promotion season, we also sponsored the Gas Girls’ trip to the Women’s Euros Final, to the tune of £1,140.
- Football Club: We made a donation of £3,222 to the Football Club to provide needed improvements to the Memorial Stadium for the safety of Supporters. Please note that we have agreed to fund a further series of stadium improvements during 2023/24 mainly for the benefit its disabled supporters. Details of these donations will be announced shortly.
- Nick Anderton: The Supporters Club facilitated the collection of donations from fans in support of Nick Anderton, following his well publicized diagnosis. Using the SC Caps Initiative and by taking bucket collections at a number of pre-arranged games, a sum of £1,928 was raised for the benefit of Nick during the period and we can confirm that this sum has been forwarded to him, via the Football Club.
- Marcus Stewart: In exactly the same way, the Supporters Club facilitated the collection of £580 from fans who wished to support the MND Charity supported by Marcus Stewart following his diagnosis. We can confirm that these funds have been forwarded as appropriate.
- Southmead Hospital/Elliot Anderson Shirt Raffle: In January 2022, the Supporters Club agreed to permit the release of the No 12 Shirt for use by Elliot Anderson, following his loan agreement from Newcastle United. Nobody knew the contribution that Elliot would make to our promotion campaign in 2021/22 but the Supporters Club agreed that the Football Club would return the No 12 shirt to “The Gasheads” at the end of his loan period. We also arranged that his actual shirt would be signed by Elliot and returned to the Supporters Club at the end of the season so that it could be raffled to provide funds for the Supporters Club chosen Charity, being Southmead Hospital. We are pleased to report that the successful raffle of the No 12 shirt raised the sum of £1,295 and this has now been transferred to the charity.
The Supporters Club is run by volunteers, who give their time freely for the benefit of the Football Club, the Rovers Family and the Community in general. We would like to thank each and every one involved for the time that they devote and we would also like to thank everyone for their kind donations in supporting Nick Anderton and Marcus Stewart and for your support of the Elliot Anderson Shirt raffle.