Now that Gigg Lane is in the hands of Bury Football Club Supporters’ Society, spirits of the town have been raised and it has brought a renewed sense of community.
The stadium is primarily a venue for football in Bury, but with its more than adequate facilities and accessible location, it has become a ‘community hub’ where the people of Bury can gather and find a central place to support local initiatives throughout the week.
One of those local communities is the Bury Polish Club. After they were inundated with supplies and donations for the Ukraine crisis, they needed space to store it before shipping it to those people who are in desperate need of aid relief.
With Bury Football Club Supporters’ Society’s links to the Bury Business Leadership Group, a quick solution was found. Within 90 minutes of the call going out from the Bury Polish Club, an articulated lorry and a van arrived at Gigg Lane to offload the donations. Supported by a team of thirty local volunteers and members of the Bury Community Fire Station, the supplies were safely housed in the Gigg Lane gymnasium to be securely kept until sent to Ukraine.
Since then, a further two articulated lorry loads have added to the donations and made use of the copious amounts of space available at Gigg Lane. Security has also been set up to ensure the goods are kept in perfect condition for the people of Ukraine.
Last Friday one articulated lorry was loaded with the donations and it will now have found its way to Warsaw for the next part of the journey to Ukraine. Over the course of the next week, further shipments will be made.
The goodwill of the community and the use of Gigg Lane has caught the attention of the national news and we were pleased to welcome the BBC team of reporters who covered the story. We hope it is the first of what we hope to be many good news stories coming from the acquisition of the stadium.
