The phrase ‘Punching Above Our Weight’ could have been coined to describe the impact of Albion Rovers Community Trust. Run by a small band of dedicated trustees, the Community Trust achieves a great deal, benefitting both the football club (financially and reputationally) and the Coatbridge community.
Just a brief update of recent and forthcoming events to give a flavour of what we do.
On Friday 18 March 24 members of our Memories Group had a brilliant day out at the SFA Museum at Hampden, including lunch. This great day out was made possible by Community Trust Funding. The next meeting of the Memories Group will take place on Friday 22 April in the lounge at the stadium at 1.30. We are delighted to welcome along Ciaran Donnelly, a Rovers legend, who gave great service to the club over a period of more than 10 years. It will be great to welcome a Hall of Fame member to our group meeting: possibly a goal against Rangers at Ibrox will get a mention!!
For the first time since 2019, the Community Trust will again be organising a Spring Holiday Football Camp for kids between the ages of 5 and 11. Our coach will be ex- Rovers’ manager Kevin Harper. It’s great to have Kevin as the coach and I’m sure the boys and girls will have great fun and learn a lot from Kevin during the week- long camp (Monday 11 April to Friday 15 April).
Our Wednesday Walkers group is having a break for the holiday period but will be back on Wednesday 20 April at 11 am for our weekly walk followed by our weekly talk over a hot drink and a roll.
Our SPFL Trust Football Fans in Training Group are now on week 9 of their 13- week programme. The group of 15 meet on Monday evenings and enjoy this excellent programme aimed at a healthier lifestyle through a mixture of physical activity and sensible lifestyle choices. It is great for us as one of the smallest community trusts to have one of the biggest FFIT groups in the country: biggest in numbers of course.
When FFIT finishes at the end of April, our successful weekly Walking Football will start again on Monday 2 May. More details shortly about this great chance to play football on the Cliftonhill pitch at a slower pace than the first team of course!!
Last but not least news of success for the Trust in gaining funding from the North Lanarkshire Recover Grant Fund. In the Community Trust we firmly believe in the motto if you don’t ask, you don’t get and we asked the Council and we were successful in receiving a significant grant that will enable us to buy ground maintenance equipment to be used by our volunteer group to maintain the front of the stadium working in partnership with the Council. The A89 is a busy road and it’s to the club and the Council’s advantage that the front of the stadium looks it’s best and is source of pride to the town.
If you would like to know more about specific Community Trust events or to more about the Trust itself, please contact me through albionroverstrust@gmail.com.
