Pete's efforts for Pars sake

It is with great pleasure that Pete Campbell has accepted the role of Honorary President to the Centenary Club Lifeline

Pete Campbell is quite possibly one of the most “well kent” faces around East End Park on any home matchday. Having served on the Centenary Club committee since it was established back in 1985, he has now been Chairman of both the original Centenary Club, and the more recently evolved Centenary Club Lifeline, since 1990!

During that time, he has overseen fund raising events that has put more than £1,000,000 into Dunfermline Athletic Football Club. As the figurehead of the Centenary Club, Pete has done just about it all behind the scenes. Stadium Tours, throughout all the different phases of East End Park in the past 30 years, hosting hospitality tables for prize winning members, organising Sportsman’s Dinners, music events, quiz nights, cheese and wine evenings, race nights. The list could go on and on!

Pete was initially asked to join the committee back in 1985, shortly after the Centenary Club had been set up to ensure enough funds were raised to allow the football club to push for promotion, which it duly did twice in succession the summers of 1986 and 1987. With over 1,000 members soon paying £2 a week, Dunfermline Athletic became the envy of many other clubs in Scottish Football due to the success of the supporter driven initiative.

Jim Harrison was the original chairman of The Centenary Club, and he invited Pete onto the committee to provide additional support to the volunteers who were having to very quickly deal with the quickly growing membership numbers.

Jim had to step down as chairman due to his own business commitments and William Braisby Jnr took over the reins until the summer of 1990. The backlash that followed Jim Leishman’s departure that summer cause a huge number of members to cancel their membership and it was Pete that stepped into the breach as chairman and ensured that the Centenary Club carried on, with its financial support now more critical than before.

Membership once again grew and Pete worked alongside various boards of directors, as well as every single team manager since, to keep vital funding coming into the football club. Numbers again grew during the Bert Paton and Jimmy Calderwood eras in charge of the team, alongside regular member events which were organised by Pete and his committee throughout each football season.

With the numbers sitting at a steady 400, the football club came to Pete in 2013 asking if a new version of Centenary Club could be established in order to significantly boost the income coming into the football club with its new supporter based ownership. Membership numbers quickly beat the initial 500 target and hit the 1,000 mark within a year, all paying £20 a month which went into the club’s income stream.

All the time, Pete’s greatest pleasure has undoubtedly been meeting Centenary Club members, many of whom have been extremely grateful to be standing alongside Pete for a photograph on any given matchday, as it usually meant they were taking receipt of a prize winning cheque! Pete has signed off on cheques ranging between £100 and £2,000 over the years, as well as hosting hundreds of supporters and their guests at hospitality in various lounges throughout East End Park over the past 30 years.

It is with great pleasure that Pete has accepted the role of Honorary President to the Centenary Club Lifeline as it now enters it’s exciting 30th year of supporting Dunfermline Athletic Football Club, and he will deservedly be welcome at all future events that are organised for many years to come. In the meantime, he’ll continue to keep his season ticket in the main stand, whilst enjoying the odd gin and tonic in his usual Legends seat before and after every game we are sure!

There would not be a Centenary Club without Pete Campbell and on behalf of Dunfermline Athletic’s board of directors, Billy Braisby (himself a former Centenary Club chairman added:-

“Pete’s contribution to The Centenary Club for the past 30 years is absolutely without precedent. Everyone who has been involved in helping to run Dunfermline Athletic during this time has reason to thank Pete, and his various committees, for the time, effort and of course financial contributions that have been made since 1985. We’d ask every Dunfermline supporter to acknowledge Pete’s unbroken voluntary service since 1985 and look forward to welcoming him as the Honorary President of Centenary Club Lifeline from this point on."