
One Championship rugby league club have launched a fundraiser in order to replace their 30-year-old floodlights.
West Yorkshire outfit Batley Bulldogs have taken to GoFundMe to try and raise the “shortfall of £30,000” in order to fully replace their floodlights.
The rugby league club’s chairman has launched an appeal outlining the need for the new lights whilst confirming that he, former player Danny Maun and his son Theo, will walk the 30 miles between Batley and Oldham in a bid to help raise those funds.
Batley start their Championship campaign against Oldham on February 23rd and the trio have said that other supporters can join their walk to Boundary Park to see the club in action that day.
Prior to Batley’s opening game of the Championship campaign, they will play against Dewsbury Rams in Round Three of the Challenge Cup – a game that will be played at Dewsbury on account of the lack of functioning floodlights at Batley’s Mount Pleasant stadium.
Any sponsors achieved will go directly to funding the complete refurbishment of the lights at Mount Pleasant with chairman Kevin Nicholas confirming that a grant has already been obtained but that a £30,000 shortfall remains.
In the GoFundMe description, he states: “My name is Kevin Nicholas and I am Chairman of Batley Bulldogs Rugby League Club.
“At the Club, our floodlights are over 30 years old and in need of a total overhaul where lights need replacing along with a rewire after a failure, resulting in us having to play a home game away from our stadium at Dewsbury.
“Now thanks to other sponsors Peter McVeigh of Status International, with help from Matthew Oldroyd and Aidy O’Hara of AAK Electrical, we have a plan for total refurbishment including 48 new LED lights.
“As well as enabling us to have reliable lighting for matches and training into the future we will also become a totally LED stadium which with our wind turbine and solar panels makes us more environmentally sustainable and will hopefully reduce our ever escalating electricity costs.
“We have obtained a grant from the Rugby League Facilities Trust and some sponsorship already but we now have to raise a shortfall of £30,000 to complete the project.
“Myself, ex player and now our commercial man Danny Maun his son Theo and anybody else who wants to join us are walking 30 miles from Batley to Oldham to our first League game of the season at Boundary Park Oldham on 23/2/25 to try to raise funds for this cause.”
A link to the GoFundMe can be found here.
