Colney Heath FC play in the Spartan South Midlands League Premier Division and in recent weeks they have earned more than £3500 from 1000GBP.com by being nominated as a benefiting non-league club.
The club have been chosen by an incredible 79 people who have signed up to take part in The Ultimate Football Quiz and they were first encouraged to get involved by their new first team manager Matty Day, as chairman Richard Smith explained.
‘
Matty and Tommy Burns took over as our new management team at the start of the season and have created a great vibe around the club. They are always looking for ways to bring everyone together so the new 1000GBP.com football quiz is perfect as we are all very competitive with each other and, of course, it helps enormously with our fundraising.’
Richard has lived in the village for 25 years and, having first become involved with the club when his son joined the U10’s, he filled many different roles before taking over as chairman of the club a year ago.
‘We run three men’s senior teams, one women’s side and multiple junior teams so we rely enormously on the goodwill and support of all our amazing fans and volunteers’ said Richard when we spoke to him this week. ‘
We have an average gate of around 100 with a core group of long-standing supporters as well as some from further afield such as Leighton Buzzard and Biggleswade. We take maybe £200 to £300 on the gate on a good day which usually covers the fees for the match-day officials’
With ticket prices at £8 for an adult, £5 concessions and £3 for junior, Colney Heath FC is a very affordable team to watch but, as with so many other clubs this season, the recent weeks of exceptionally wet weather have caused chaos for their fixture list.
‘I think we only managed 3 matches in February’ said Richard,
‘and that can affect the crowd size as we have to reschedule matches at short notice and during the week, as well as weekends. There are so many variables and that, of course, has an impact on our income and how we run the teams’.
In 2022-23 the first team avoided relegation on the final day but are having a much better season under their new management and are currently in 10
th place. Richard is hopeful for a top half finish.
‘We are all delighted with the progress made so far this season under Matty and Tommy, they have built an exciting and dynamic young team loaded with players that have the potential to play higher in the football pyramid. Our approach is to take in good young players and give them regular first team football and coaching. We really try to look after and develop them, knowing that they will usually move on. But that gives us a lot of pride, although it also means the make-up of our crowd regularly changes as the friends and family of the players move with them when they switch clubs.’
Regardless of the make-up of the team, the club still have the same costs to cover at all levels. These range from paying match-day officials, covering the expenses of the players and washing their kits to providing food and drink, organising the training sessions and paying for artificial pitch hire.
That means for a club like Colney Heath, their involvement with the newly launched 1000GBP.com this season has been an unexpected and very welcome financial bonus as the money they’ve already received is making a major contribution towards their running costs.
‘To have been awarded more than £3500 from 1000GBP.com has been a great help’ continued Richard. “
For a club such as ours it’s like having a very good FA Cup run in the preliminary and early qualifying rounds. And, to give an idea of how much practical difference that money will make to Colney Heath, it adds almost £100 to the playing budget per match for each game of an entire season. We have 38 league games and £100 a match will provide vital extra resource and it means that 1000GBP.com is effectively covering that cost. We’re still only in early March so will keep playing the quiz and spreading the word about 1000GBP.com to other teams as well and hope to earn enough for a few more players!’
