These Lads Can Run for 80 minutes is the independent Rochdale Hornets FanBlog - and this is our Just Giving Online bucket collection.

Rochdale Hornets is supporter-owned rugby league club - a co-operative - and, as members/owners, TLCRF80mins felt an obligation to explore all routes to try and raise vital funds to keep our venerable club running at a difficult time. Asking people if they'd chip in seemed like a good idea, so here we are.

In the nine years Hornets has existed as a co-operative, they have prudently managed a very tight budget - and have been fortunate to see success on the field, often against great odds.

But with the 2018 season upon us, the club has experienced a couple of financial setbacks. The failure of two key sponsors left a shortfall in funding the modest budget set for this year - and adjustments in the budget required the club to negotiate reduced payments with our part-time playing staff. Having steadied the ship financially, we were then hit by the postponement of our first home game of the season, through no fault of our own, which effectively wiped out a third of February’s anticipated revenue.

As Hornets fans and ‘owners’ TLCRF80mins has created this crowd funding page to enable Rochdale Hornets fans, Rugby League fans and sports lovers the world over to help us overcome this setback. Whilst the immediate deficit in funds is greater than the £5,000 we are seeking to raise here, we feel that that is a reasonable target to aim for as a contribution to filling the club’s financial ‘hole’. The way we see it - if 500 RL fans donate a tenner, we’ll hit our target: so please chuck as much as you can afford into our Online Bucket Collection - every little helps, as someone once said.

As a community-focused club, Hornets are not just about competing at a national level: we want to make Rugby League as accessible as possible for the people of Rochdale in as many ways as we can.

Through its sporting foundation, Rochdale Hornets undertakes coaching in local schools, the running of kids sessions in school holidays, the running of a wheelchair Rugby League side, the running of a ladies team, a masters team for older/retired players and a heritage programme that curates and celebrates the club’s history in the town it has represented since 1871. And if the club succeeds, so do all of the great initiatives it makes happen.

Thanks in advance.