THE manageress of a club which was damaged by a fire has expressed her gratitude after the community pulled together to repair the building.

Club Haydock, on Church Road, formerly known as Haydock Catholic Club, was engulfed by a blaze in the early morning of Sunday, January 4, causing extensive damage to much of the Church Road club.

However, over the past couple of months people in the area have rallied to help get the building up and running again. And the venue, which also the base of Haydock amateur rugby league club, hosted a charity boxing night to celebrate the efforts made.

“It was absolutely awful when the fire happened, it was the worst time of my life,” said manageress Sue Ball.

“The rugby players helped with all the clear-out and we’ve done the electrics and lights and everything.

“The whole community has just come out and done it. It’s people from all over Haydock and other people who saw about it on Facebook helped to clear up.

“I’m especially grateful to Danny Gee who has organised everything and I would have given up without him and also Brian Sharman of MJ Electrics.

“There are too many to mention and people have donated lots of stuff. Everybody did all the work for free and some donated things as well. Everyone just kept on turning up to help.

“It’s just amazing and I can’t thank them enough. The plumber came and did the toilet and we are still doing the electrics.”

And it was a momentous night for Sue when 300 people packed into the club for a boxing night held at the end of February.

“All the rugby lads raised £2,000 for the rugby club and that was amazing. It was a really emotional night.

“We now need people to use the main room and to get chairs and tables in there,” added Sue, 44.