Championship club launch fundraiser for floodlights as large shortfall revealed

The Fox's Biscuits Stadium, home of Batley Bulldogs
Batley chairman Kevin Nicholas and Commercial Director Danny Maun will walk to the Bulldogs’ opening game of the season at Oldham in a bid to try and raise £30,000 for new floodlights at the Fox’s Biscuits Stadium.
The Bulldogs begin their 2025 Championship campaign with a trip to Boundary Park on February 23, with supporters invited to join Nicholas and Maun on their journey to the game on foot.
Before that game comes around, Batley are in Challenge Cup Third Round action having been drawn at home against Dewsbury Rams.
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Championship club launch fundraiser for floodlights as large shortfall revealed
The extent of the floodlight issue has now been revealed, with chairman Nicholas launching a GoFundMe page to try and make up the £30,000 shortfall – that even after a grant from the Rugby League Facilities Trust along with various sponsorships.
Detailing the situation, the GoFundMe page reads: “My name is Kevin Nicholas and I am the Chairman of Batley Bulldogs.
“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.
“(This comes) after a failure resulting in us having to play a home game away from our stadium at Dewsbury and a temporary repair thanks to help from a sponsor, Lee Kerr of K2 Mechanical & Electrical.
“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, in 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 to try to raise funds for this cause.”
Floodlight Fundraising underway as Chairman announces sponsored walk to @Roughyeds@ and launches GoFundMe appeal to raise extra monies ahead of Sunday’s @TheChallengeCup fixture against @DewsburyRams at The @foxs_biscuits Stadium.
2PM Kick Off!If you can help please visit… pic.twitter.com/k6vqUdZXnR
— Batley Bulldogs RLFC (@BatleyRLFC) February 3, 2025
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