GREAT Wakering Rovers are a club on the up – and their endeavours are proving to be profitable off the pitch as well as on it.

A new club shop opened at Burroughs Park at the start of the season, called The Kennel, and it has proved to be an instant success.

Members of the club’s youth system are now selling T-shirts, scarves, badges and more as they bid to swell the club’s coffers, with the aim for the club shop to be entirely self-sufficient by the end of the season.

Having won promotion from the Essex Senior League last year, Rovers are now cutting their teeth in the Ryman Division One North and John Galley, commercial manager, and Dave Sexton, PR manager, who oversee the running of The Kennel, said they are confident the new venture will pay off.

“We came up with the idea midway through last season,” said John, who is also the Great Wakering Colts under-11s manager. “We had no idea what it would cost the club so we financed it ourselves.

“We sourced the products but we didn’t know what would be popular and what wouldn’t. Now we are a couple of months down the line we know what is in demand and things are going very well.

“It probably cost just over £1,000 to set up, as the shed we are using was already there, and we recovered almost £200 against Southend United in our first pre-season game.”

A commemorative scarf celebrating Rovers’ league and cup double last year costs £12, a plain scarf £8 and mugs £6, with car stickers and pin badges also available.

John and Dave said if they could bring in about £50 from each home game they would be on course to repay that debt by next summer, although Dave said a good run of home games would help them raise cash sooner.

“Saturday is the best day for us,” he said. “We are likely to see a lot more people at the weekend than on a cold, windy Tuesday night and there has been a lot of demand.

“At the moment we only accept cash, but we aiming to branch out and are looking to sell on Ebay in the future.

“We are learning a lot as the months go on. We know what people want and people are responding to the enthusiasm of the youngsters.”

And the small group of children helping, including 11-year-olds Ryan Galley, Lewis Purton and Olly Mahoney, as well as seven-year-old Eleanor Sexton, have been a unique selling point for The Kennel.

And John said they enjoy the responsibility.

“Olly walks around at half-time asking people to visit the shop,” he laughed. “They all love talking to people and the fans appreciate what they are doing as well.

“We like to include the young people at the club. Any under-15 at a local school can come to our games for free with one of our youth season ticket – this is a family club.”

And John and Dave are hopeful that a mini-revival in the team’s form will lead to bigger crowds at Burroughs Park, and in turn more sales.

“The team has improved,” said Dave. “The objective this season is to simply stay in the league and build from there. We are heading in the right direction and hope we see more people come and support the club, and The Kennel, in the coming weeks.”