Bilsdon Park clubhouse: June 2025 update
Where the clubhouse build is up to. The costs, the grants, the private donation, and when we hope to start building.
Read the update
Bilsdon Park: a home of our own
After 50 years, we are building our own clubhouse on the ground we named after the family who started it all.
The ground we made ours
For most of our history we did not have a permanent home. In 2016 the club took on the former Hessle High Lower School site, and after a committee vote we named it Bilsdon Park, after Peter and Janet Bilsdon. It gave us pitches we could call our own and a base to grow from.
What it did not have was a proper clubhouse. No changing rooms for players and officials, no showers, no warm room to meet in, no kitchen to feed people on a wet Saturday. So we set out to build one. To see how we got here, read how we got here.
Why the clubhouse matters
A pavilion changes what a grassroots club can do. Ours adjoins the existing sports hall and is designed to hold changing rooms for players and match officials, showers, toilets, a multi-function club room, a working kitchen and an office.
That means kids who get changed in the cold now have somewhere warm. It means parents have somewhere to stand out of the rain. It means a room the community can use through the week, not just on matchdays. For a club run entirely by volunteers, it is the difference between getting by and being set up for the next 50 years.
Inside the clubhouse
A look around our new home at Bilsdon Park.
The project so far
Figures from our most recent development update. We will refresh these as the build and funding progress.
- £620000Estimated project cost
- £97000Raised by the club so far
- 6Years of fundraising
- £20000Still needed to finish it properly
How the money has come together
Fundraising ran quietly in the background for six years and stepped up in 2022, once the lease on the site and planning permission for the pavilion were granted. Every pound the club and its individual teams have raised, plus donations from people and businesses, has gone into a separate account for the project. That pot is the club's own contribution and currently stands at £97,000.
On top of that, a large private donation that we worked on for several years has been agreed, and it has been a huge help in getting us close to the line. We have an application in to East Riding of Yorkshire Council for commuted sums of £170,000, several smaller grants secured from the East Riding of Yorkshire Charitable Trust and the Co-op community fund, and a Football Foundation application for around 40% of the cost almost ready to submit. We have applied for dozens of grants along the way, many of which came to nothing because the funder does not back sports, or CICs, or capital projects. We are still trying to raise another £20,000 so the finished clubhouse is as good as it can be, with no corners cut.
Three ways to back the build
Every contribution, large or small, gets the clubhouse over the line and fitted out.
Donate
Give whatever you can through our JustGiving crowdfunder. Every single penny counts towards finishing and fitting out the clubhouse.
Sponsor a brick
Put your name, or someone you want to remember, into the fabric of the building. Get in touch and we will tell you how it works.
Sponsor the club
Local businesses can back the club and reach our players and families. See our packages on the sponsors page.
Help us finish Bilsdon Park
We are nearly there. The last stretch is the hardest, and it is the part the community can do most about.
Donate or sponsor a brickHow to find us
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