Stenhousemuir and East Stirlingshire raising funds through 'Donate a Ticket' initiative

Clubs across Scotland are finding another avenue through which to raise funds during these difficult financial times.
Raith Rovers fan Ruaridh Kilgour (left) set up the site for supporters to donate the cost of a match day ticket to their club.Raith Rovers fan Ruaridh Kilgour (left) set up the site for supporters to donate the cost of a match day ticket to their club.
Raith Rovers fan Ruaridh Kilgour (left) set up the site for supporters to donate the cost of a match day ticket to their club.

The ‘Donate a Ticket’ website gives supporters the opportunity to pay the normal cost of match day entrance to see their team play.

Although still in its early stages, many clubs across the SPFL and Lowland League have already signed up including Stenhousemuir and East Stirlingshire.

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Set up by Raith Rovers supporter Ruaridh Kilgour, the site then ranks each team based on how much funds have been raised through their site, creating an element of competition for the clubs.

He explained: “The initial intentions for the website was just to help Raith, but then I realised it could quickly become something for all clubs.

“We launched last Friday so that was our second weekend there, and there’s been £5500 raised.

“A lot of clubs have their own fundraising things on the go and I can understand a lot of clubs don’t want to bombard fans with different ways to fundraise, but it’s starting to pick up now.

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“It’s completely non-profit, free for the clubs, and no commission taken.”

Ruaridh is hoping that convincing more of the countries ‘big’ clubs to sign up will help promote the site to a wider audience.

“We’ve got a promising email from the supporter liaison at Celtic, and if we can get them on board, hopefully it will snowball throughout the rest of Scotland and get everyone else in.

“I would love to get Falkirk on board as they are another fairly big team, but I’ve not heard anything back from them yet.

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“I’ve spoken to most chairman in the SPFL, and as much as they all love the idea, a lot of them have said they can’t do it just now.

“They hopefully come back in the next week or two, and use this website.

“We’ve around seven SPFL clubs on it just now, the rest are all Lowland League, and we’ve got Glasgow City from SWPL.”

Although still in its early stages the site has been praised by the clubs who have signed up including Stenny and The Shire.

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Warriors’ CEO Jamie Swinney said: “We felt, like many clubs, we had supporters from day one asking how they could help.

“It’s a good idea for all Scottish clubs, with the league tables and the leaderboard.

“We’ve promoted it, some clubs haven’t entered it yet, we put a few tweets and Facebook messages out and we’ve done okay so far.

“If we can get something like what we did in our first week, £400-£500, every week that would be fantastic.

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“It would be great to see every single club on board, it would be good to show a bit of unity.”

Supporters like to see competition, it has the making of being a successful idea and I hope other clubs decide to get on board.”

East Stirlingshire Director and Chair of the Shire Trust Ian Fleming also praised the creativity of the site and joked that the first thing he looks for on visiting is to see how Stenny are doing.

He said: “When I look at our one I look at where Stenny are and hope to do better than them.

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“They contacted us with a rough idea of what it involved and it seemed so simple, it’s another way to give the fans an opportunity to contribute to the club in a way they would have each Saturday.

“We have our own Gofundme page already and this was another avenue for the fans to donate something.

“The clubs at the lower end seem to have signed up, if the bigger clubs sign up then the whole thing gets more publicity.”

To find out more about the site or to donate to Stenhousemuir, East Stirlingshire or any other club which has signed up so far visit the website HERE.