On a recent visit to Cork City, I called into St Vincent's Hurling and Football club; I was met by Club Secretary Vincy Stokes after an impressive tour of the clubs grounds and facilities Vincy had this to say. "In 1943 St Vincent's Hurling and Football club was founded to promote Gaelic games in the Blarney Street and Sunday's Well areas on the North-West side of Cork City.

Later, as the city grew, their catchment area expanded to encompass Gurranabraher, Churchfield and Knocknahenny. From small beginnings few could have imagined that Cumman Uinsinn Naofa would develop so quickly to become such a thriving and successful club in such a short space of time.

By 1946 the club had won the Junior Football County Final and boasted to being one of the first clubs in the county to own their own pitch. The grounds would be redeveloped on a couple of occasions over the decades culminating in the activities from the early nineties which have seen the building of a state of the art complex housing several dressing rooms, meeting rooms, a large training hall, 3 adult size pitches and a social club on the Blarney Road. Recently a large All Weather Synthetic Training Pitch has been installed by Thornton Sports Ireland Ltd, Thornton's specialise in the construction of Synthetic artificial 'Astro' grass pitches and we are delighted with the end result. Although we have a number of pitches we still seem to be under constant pressure to supply training areas for our every growing number of teams. Located directly behind our complex it sits perfectly allowing easy access to changing rooms and parking. When not in use for team training it is a reliable source of income from rental hire. We have further plans to add floodlighting to one of our pitches.

On the playing side, the club has won numerous honours over the years at all levels including the intermediate hurling county title in 1968 and a senior hurling league in 1972. Recent years have heralded great success at underage level with various teams winning honours at the premier and A grades. The highlight of this has been the winning of the Minor Premier County in 1998. These players would go on to join with members of other successful underage teams from the 90's to help the club win its first intermediate football title in 2006.

St Vincent's are building constantly on their numbers and facilities and have great plans for the future of their club, they are in a most enviable position having their own Social Club, Sports Complex, three Pitches and now with an All Weather Synthetic Training Pitch, they are poised to compete on many levels within the county calendar.

"This year we battled hard to win the County Intermediate Football final, our lads were well up for it, it was a long physical encounter drawing twice in the final with St Finbar's until our third encounter which we lost by four points, fair play to St Finbar's on their win. We look forward to competing again in the 2009 championship and with the added bonus of an All Weather Synthetic Training Facility hopefully it will give us an added advantage next time

You could not, but be impressed by the passion, drive and vision of St Vincent's, through the hard work and dedication of their elected officers and club members so much has been achieved. We wish them the same success on the field of play as they have enjoyed off it.

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