‘The Longside’ Raises Funds for Clarets Trust with the help of Burnley FC
‘The Longside’ is an independent, informative Clarets website and message board-
www.thelongside.co.uk A community of online posters meet and discuss the club in a friendly, family-orientated environment. This community spirit has now branched out into the real world and posters regularly meet up for pre-match sessions in pubs for both home and away games and for other social events.
The site recently became the proud sponsors of Claire Judd, Burnley FC’s Physio and the website can now be seen as a kit sponsor for Claire in the Club’s match day programmes.
Phil Lea [Turfmanphil], the site’s Features Team Co-ordinator says ‘We are just unpaid volunteers, proud of our website trying to do anything we can to raise our profile, and wherever we can enhance the Clarets community and help Clarets Trust. We are not a business and Burnley FC have been very good to us, helping us in many ways to secure this sponsorship deal by ensuring we can pay over easier terms.
This idea was the brainchild of one of our team, Gareth Jones [Rose&Crown Claret] and we suddenly realised with the help of the Club that we could pay for this deal by a few of us sharing the costs .
This announcement has whetted the appetite of our posters and we will be having a Special day at Turf Moor on the 17th December for the Watford game with about 12 of our posters being entertained by the Club. The day will include a tour of Turf Moor with Clarets Legend, Andy Lochhead, a three-course meal, a kit presentation with Claire and Jeff Brown on the pitch and then seats in the Bob Lord Stand for the match. We even held a Clarets Quiz on the website and the winner will now be attending the day courtesy of ‘The Longside’. The Club have been fantastic again and have offered a very good deal for the day.
The fun does not end there however. We will then be having our Christmas bash later that evening in ‘Romeo&Juliets’ with up to about 60 Clarets fans attending!
Jeff Brown has kindly offered to host the event and we hope to have some other high profile guests attending.
All profits will be donated to Clarets Trust and we will be holding a raffle with Claire’s kit being the first prize, a signed copy of Willie Irvine’s Book ‘Together Again’ for the second prize and a bottle of bubbly donated by Romeo&Juliets as third prize. ‘
Dan Milner [ Tranzic] organising this event says ‘ This is a marvellous example of how a community of Clarets both online and in real life can work with Burnley FC and Clarets Trust for the benefit of all’
Anthony Fairclough, Commercial Manager at Burnley FC adds “ We have had an extremely successful year with player kit sponsorships and I feel that with the addition of the pitch presentation and the VIP treatment to the sponsors on the day, we are getting excellent feedback through comments from sponsors who have already had their presentations, as with all our sponsors I am extremely grateful to all the team at ‘The Longside’ Clarets website who have supported the club by sponsoring Claire Judd, sponsorship at all levels is as important as the next and this has provided major support to the Club and the Clarets Trust and I look forward to seeing them at the Watford game for their presentation with Claire‘
Peter Pike, the Chairman of Clarets Trust had the following to say in relation to this initiative 'We are delighted that 'The Longside' has taken this initiative to raise funds for Clarets Trust in this quite unique way. It is so pleasing to see an online website support the Trust and work with Burnley FC for the benefit of all the Clarets supporting community'
If anybody would like information about ordering tickets for the ‘Longside Xmas Night’ please contact thelongsider@yahoo.co.uk