Why do we need sponsorship?

Running a community football club is expensive. Doing it properly, even more so. Despite the fact that our club is run by volunteers, there are still a great many costs that need covering to keep the club running on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis.

Throughout many periods in the club’s history, it has survived purely due to the generous pockets of benefactors, such as former committee members, who have met many of these costs out of their own pockets. With a current annual expenditure budget which runs into six figures, the club requires the support of the local community to survive and thrive. This support can come in many forms:

• Supporting club events – such as our galas, annual sporting dinners, and regular social events
• Attending games – supporting the first team in their endeavours
• Providing sponsorship funding
• Providing advertising support

Such support helps us to cover our running expenses, which include day-to-day items such as:

• Building repairs
• Rent
• Ground and pitch maintenance
• Insurances and certifications
• Statutory compliance requirements
• Kits
• Training equipment
• Officials fees and travel costs
• Training pitch fees
• Players’ travel expenses and wages
• Professional coaching fees
• Administration costs, printing and stationery

As a guide, in 2010 we spent over £2,000 on balls alone, and over £5,000 on pitch maintenance. Your support can help to provide the crucial lifeblood that keep’s our club – your community’s flagship football club – going.

Current sponsorship opportunities

Secondary shirt sponsors : Logo on both arms of shirts – £150 per season

First team Player sponsorship : Company logo alongside player’s pen portrait in the match day programme, and on the website (with a banner hyperlink to your own website), and promoted through a press release, on our own website, Facebook and Twitter pages. – £20 per month, or £150 for full season (9 months)

Match ball sponsorship: Half-time refreshments for a party of four, a mention on the tannoy before the game for your company, free tickets for four people to the game – £30 per game.

DEVELOPING FACILITIES

However, at Pontefract Collieries we are not just a normal community football club. We are extremely ambitious, and aiming to provide so much more for the area: to develop our juniors and academy training for youngsters, to improve and increase our facilities, and to develop the club towards Football League status. Improving our facilities and securing the services of professional coaches requires investment, and this is where we need support. Pontefract Collieries have started a DEVELOPMENT FUND to finance the development of the club: this includes much-needed items to bring our current facilities up to scratch; items such as

• Providing a hard surface to the roadway, car park and forecourt area
• Security fencing and barriers to protect pitches and facilities
• Undertaking statutory repairs to electrical installations
• Provision of improved lighting to expand evening training

Having addressed these issues, the fund will be used to further develop facilities:

• All-weather, 3G training facilities – which will also be available for use by the wider community
• Meeting rooms and facilities
• Indoor facilities for use by the wider community

The good news is that any funds raised by the DEVELOPMENT FUND is subject to a “matched funding” grant from The Football Foundation, which means that for every £1,000 we raise, the Football Foundation will contribute a further £1,000.

Donations to the Development Fund can be for as little or as much as you wish to donate. However, larger donations will benefit from full publicity, with press releases and online promotion.

Anybody interested in sponsoring the club or making a donation to the Development Fund should contact the club Treasurer, Paul Mitchell, on 07976 480557 or pmitch77@hotmail.com