1885 Business Club’s reaches it first anniversary in style

The 1885 Dunfermline Athletic Business Club is exactly one year old this month and the club marked this anniversary at the weekend by donating a further £10,000 to the football club.

This money is largely being used to cover the costs of refurbishing the undercroft within the Norrie McCathie Stand. This donation follows on from a similar contribution which was made by the 1885 Club back at the start of the season which has been used to sponsor the players' team bus for the current season.

In the 12 months that the 1885 Club has been in operation they have organised a total of five networking events featuring the journalist Bill Leckie, the politician Ruth Davidson, retired football referee Stuart Dougal, former Scotland football manager Craig Brown and the former chairperson of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Michael Cavanagh.

In addition to this social events have included a curry night at the Royal Bengal restaurant, a Christmas party night in the Kingdom Suite with Abbamania, and an 'Away Day' to Stirling Albion last month for the Pars match, including full hospitality.

1885 Club director Eric Spreng stated 'I think that we are now exactly where we wanted to be with this initiative when we launched the 1885 Dunfermline Athletic Business Club one year ago. I believe that every event that we have put on has more than lived up to expectations and the feedback that we have received from members and guests has been excellent. We have around 50 members at the moment but we are hoping to increase this number significantly over the next year or so and recruitment is very much our focus now.'

DAFC Director, Billy Braisby himself a member of the 1885 Business Club remarked “it is absolutely vital that our club continues to raise funds to ensure it can reach a point when it can become sustainable, and the cash raised this year by the 1885 Business Club has helped our club massively. On behalf of the board I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to its success in its first year and we look forward to it going from strength to strength.”

1885 Business Club Chairman, Gary Davidson is pictured presenting the cheque to Billy Braisby at half time, during Saturday’s match against Stenhousemuir.

Membership is open to any business or retired business person with an affinity to Dunfermline Athletic Football Club. Membership costs £25 per month (plus a one off £50 joining fee). Anybody thinking of joining should go to the website 1885club.co.uk, e-mail garry@1885club.co.uk or speak to any of the 1885 Club board members who are mentioned on the website.

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