Under 11s take consolation in cu

"Sunday 11th February 2007 will go down in the history of Great Harwood Rovers Football Club as the day the first game was played on our very own ground at Lyndon House. The Girl's Under 12's hosted Thornton Wanderers Girls in a North Valley League Cup match. Although the day will be remembered for the occasion, the match is fast fading from memory as Melissa Wolstenholme's team suffered a 15-0 defeat. The game passed off without incident and the pitch held up well despite the recent bad weather and the problems we have had with horses being ridden across the pitch.

We are still waiting on the Council to mark out the remaining 3 pitches but we hope that will be completed in the next fortnight so that all our teams up to the Under 12 age group will be able to play down at Lyndon House.

The clock is now ticking with regards to getting the new changing rooms built. We have a three year deadline to raise the funds and get the building work completed. The Committee are currently looking into what grant funding is available, with particular thanks to Dawn Dunn who has taken on a major role in investigating the various grants that may be available. We are looking at getting plans drawn up for the new changing rooms so that we can get an idea of the cost of the project, which will give us a target to work towards.

We would ask that all managers and officials and especially parents look to get involved in some of the various fundraising events that will be going on over the coming months and years to help push us towards our target."

Great Harwood Rovers are on the verge of completing the signing of a 25 year lease for Lyndon House Playing Fields. The agreement with Hyndburn Borough Council will enable the Club to use the facility as a base for all our home games. Whilst we await the signing of the final lease the Council have granted us a temporary license to allow us to put plans in place to enable us to start playing football there as soon as possible. We have received planning permission for our temporary changing facilities and any of you passing recently will have noticed that we have just installed two shipping containers which we will use for changing and storage facilities.

Special thanks go to SB Tippers and the team of Club volunteers who gave their time and material support.

We are currently awaiting delivery of the new goalposts and it is hoped we will be able to start playing football there by the end of November 2006. We plan to mark out four pitches of various sizes that will allow all our teams from the Under 7s through to the Under 12s to play at Lyndon House.

The long term plans of the Club are to build a brand new changing room complex and to improve the drainage and level the pitches. The project will require the Club to raise a great deal of money to fund the works and although we will be approaching grant providers such as the Football Foundation we will still need to raise an awful lot ourselves.

We hope that all of our members, players and parents will get involved in the various fundraising activities that we will be arranging to help us reach our target as quickly as possible. We will also be approaching many local businesses to see if they will consider helping with our fundraising. We hope that once complete the facility will be available for local schools and other local clubs to use making it a real community facility for the children of Great Harwood.

Andy Counsell
Club Secretary
November 2006