By Martin Eastwood, Huddersfield Giants Supporters’ Association
The Huddersfield Giants Supporters’ Association (HGSA) is celebrating its 15th season and we’re inviting more fans to get involved.
From small beginnings, started by former chair Dave Calverley and a few determined others in 2009, we now boast a membership of 400+ and have thousands of followers and supporters on social media.
We still host the monthly events for the fans, the speakers’ evenings, and still organise the fans’ forum and help with the cricket fun days. We also use the Legends bar on first team matchdays. These are all the things put in place by Dave and previous committees.
In our 15th year, we also still work closely (although independently) with the club, strengthening our ties with the club, its supporters and the sport. We act as a conduit between the club and the fans, and are in regular communication and meet with club representatives regularly.
As well as the club, we also have ties with the Community Trust, the charity arm of the Giants. We’ve also supported them with the Giants Women who are an exciting up and coming team themselves as well as giving our support to the club’s reserves, academy and scholarship sides.
All the teams play out of the Laund Hill complex, which is a great facility, so why not come along and see for yourself in 2023?
“We also help with other members of our community where we can. The last few years, we have collected donations for the Welcome Centre Food Bank, something we aim to continue this year.
“Last year, we helped facilitate a first ever visit to a rugby game for local, young refugees, many of them recent arrivals from war-torn Ukraine. Hopefully many of these will have enjoyed it and want to come back and hopefully bring their families too.
Our committee and chairperson may have changed but our aims are very much the same, that is to raise valuable funds to help junior development at the club through various means, but we need you to help us.
Without the support of our members and the community, we wouldn’t have been able to present a cheque for over £17,000 to club chairman Keith Hellawell last season.
One of our big success stories has been the pre match Legends bar at the stadium, the decision was taken to make this a ‘members only’ bar following the feedback from our members.
Needless to say, our opening night against Warrington exceeded our expectations with a record number of renewals and new members for 2023, could we hit 1,000 members? That would be an extraordinary achievement in comparison to some other, far better supported Super League clubs.
So for 2023, we ask that you continue or begin your support for us, and the club, by taking out an annual membership for just £5 a year by using this link www.giantssupporters.co.uk/join
We are solely run by a small number of dedicated volunteers and we’d like more, so if you feel like you could help us then please get in touch via our social media.
Thank you.
HGSA
