Saturday 6^th February marked the official launch date of the Supporters' Trust's ambitious fundraising initiative Pitch In for City.

This exciting new scheme has been launched with the goal of raising upwards of £150,000 to help fund a new pitch at City's iconic home at St James Park.

The Pitch In for City fundraising scheme was formally unveiled at the Exeter City v Southampton match and kick-starting the campaign was the ECFC Disabled Supporters' Association who we are delighted to announce have pledged £1,000 to the Pitch In fund.

Speaking of this kind gesture from the Disabled Supporters' Association Trust chairman Denise Watts commented; "Both Exeter City and the Supporters' Trust are delighted to receive this fantastic support from the Disabled Supporters' Association and on behalf of the club and Trust I would like to thank them for their amazing generosity".

The ECFC Disabled Supporters' Association are the first fans group to support the Pitch In initiative but donations to the scheme are now filtering through.Project leader Tony Badcock said; "Prior to the Southampton match volunteers were on hand to dispense thousands of campaign flyers to the crowd at St James Park, and is this now bearing fruit as donations are now starting to come in".

Officials of both the Supporters' Trust and the Football Club are due to meet with fans representatives from the various supporters groups this week in a move to launch the scheme across the whole fan base at Exeter City, and the hope is that each of the Supporters' groups will back the campaign with the full weight of their support.

Trust chairman Denise Watts said: "The success of this campaign will be down to the fans and the various fans groups.This club already enjoys fantastic support from each of the fans groups, and I am sure that each group will back this initiative and help us make this scheme a real success".

Individual fundraising via donations is only a part of the overall Pitch In scheme and the Trust is pleased to announce that it has now recruited a committed city fan to assist with research into outside grant funding.

Speaking of this support Tony Badcock said: "Whilst donations and individual fundraising schemes will make up a proportion of this whole project, we are committed to sourcing as much of the funding required for this project from outside of the fan base.With this in mind, we have recruited a researcher who will look at the community aspects of the new pitch, with the view to trying to secure funding from outside sources".

Nick Sauders ECDSA Chairman said: "It makes us all at ECDSA feel so proud that we're able to give this donation towards 'Pitch In for City' and it's great being the first group to give this money towards the project.

"Without the pitch being moved the club can't do the redevelopments to the Old Grandstand and Away End areas at St James' Park where we are need of disabled facilities, this is one of the many reasons we can think of for our donation."