Carluke Rovers have made an application to the SFA for full membership.

Amongst other things, this will mean that should the club be successful they will be guaranteed entry into the preliminary rounds of the senior Scottish Cup.

This is an exciting development for Carluke Rovers, the local sporting community and the town.

To achieve this status the club still has to go through a stringent qualification process which includes a lot of paperwork and making sure the John Cumming Stadium meets the grounds criteria required.

As background to this one of our objectives as a club is to work more closely with all the local football teams to give kids and young adults a pathway to senior football without having to leave the town.

At the moment after the age of 16 there is little or no opportunity for youngsters to continue playing at their age group without playing somewhere else.

With the support of the local juvenile teams we would like to change that and give every youngster the opportunity to play for a local team all the way through to the senior team at Carluke Rovers should they choose to do so.

Part of this SFA application relates to our home ground meeting certain criteria. Fortunately the John Cumming Stadium ticks a lot of boxes, but there are a few areas where we need to make improvements and changes to qualify for full membership.

These investments in the stadium will be for the benefit of all clubs who use the pitch as well and spectators watching the games and training.

To this end we are undertaking various fundraising activities to make the necessary improvements to the John Cumming Stadium to achieve our ultimate target of £10,000 in the coming few months.

We have been given a boost in these fundraising activities from Domino’s Pizza who will be opening in the town on Monday. They have agreed to add £1 to our GoFundMe page for every pizza they sell in the first week of opening at their new Carluke shop.

We would therefore be grateful to the community if they could help our fundraising cause and make sure we all buy a pizza from domino’s in that first week.

We are also being fully supported by South Lanarkshire Leisure and Culture who are advising us on what help is available to us through the council to achieve these upgrades to the John Cumming Stadium as well as advising us on health and Safety matters.

As with most things in life there is a cost for this and we would be grateful for any financial support that the towns’ people can give either through buying pizzas from Domino’s or by donating directly to our GoFundMe page on the web by typing gofund.me/ff157156 or search for “Carluke Rovers” on the GoFundMe homepage.

This is an exciting development for Carluke Rovers, the local sporting community and the town. We would be grateful for any support individuals and businesses can give in what we appreciate are difficult times.

Reporter – Brian Yule
Carluke & Lanark Gazette