Killeevan Sarsfields - a club with a plan
December 30, 2010
A cursory glance at Killeevan's playing record in league and championship in Monaghan this year would indicate a very disappointing year and a year when very little happened that was of much import in the grand scheme of things. That however would be to completely miss out on a year that saw great strides being made by the club as they progress along the path of implementing their development plan. By JP Graham.
Club chairman, Darren Greenan was obviously disappointed with Killeevan's exit from the junior championship although he would contend that they gave a very good account of themselves despite the fact that they were missing key players at vital times. He would also agree that the league finished on a somewhat disappointing note with Killeevan conceding a couple of their final matches but as he ruefully reminisced it was all over at that stage anyway and those late matches had no bearing on the outcome of the league one way or the other.
"If we just look at our year in that light though it would be very wrong because to my mind and as chairman of the club I believe we had an absolutely fantastic year when we made great strides on so many fronts as we lay the foundations towards building for the future," said Darren.
"A club's senior team is only the tip of the iceberg really because so much work goes on at the different levels below that and in that regard Killeevan had an outstanding year when we achieved an awful lot and made great progress on so many fronts.
"Our theme of building for the future can be looked at from a point of view of the amount of work that is going in at under age level, the success the club has enjoyed at underage level, the fact that we have started a ladies team in the club. We established a hard-working Ladies Committee, we had our hugely successful fund raising scheme, Club 100, we opened our new Astro Turf pitch and developed an adjoining area that will be used as a training ground, the club was also the organisers of a Rock Festival and we got to the All Ireland finalm of Scor na nOg, a first for the club. Add to that that we are making progress in involving members and especially children from right across the communities and I think we have had an outstanding year that everyone in the club can be justifiably proud of.
"Our work at underage level starts with children as young as four years old and they are being brought along by using the fun aspect of our games in our Sarsfields Nursery which is looked after so well by Tommy McQuaid and husband-and-wife Oliver and Anne McFarland. If we win the hearts and minds of these children at that age we will be able to work right up through the different age levels with them and we will build up a much, much stronger player base for the years and the decades ahead.
"There is fantastic work being done at U8 and U10 level, Jim and Gerard Graham along with Anne McFarland and Jimmy Reilly with the U8's and Minor McPhillips, Seamus Reilly and myself with a helping hand from Finian Smith has seen a lot of work done with those two age groups. In fact involving young players like Finian Smith and Gerard Graham was a conscious decision by us to get lads like that who had benefited from being members of County Development Squads, to work with underage players and bring back the expertise that they had picked up into the club and it is by using all of the expertise at our disposal that we can maximise going forward.
"Michael Quigley, Fergal Kierans and Enda Kilpatrick do excellent work with our under 12 squad while at under 14 level we also have some of our senior players involved with Casement Lynch and Gerard Hughes along with myself working with Minor McPhillips and Paul Mooney to develop these young players and give us a strong base at minor and up to under 21 level in the next five years.
"While we didn't have any success with any of those groups that were in competition there was a lot of work done and the attendance at all of the coaching and fun sessions would indicate that the children are also enjoying it which is the main thing. We have to make our games and our activities attractive and enjoyable.
"The one group at underage level that we enjoyed success with was our order 16 team who won the league division 3 outright. The nucleus of that team was our successful under 14 team from last year and we also won the under 14 two years ago so we are getting an experienced group of players together there. In fact to help them with their development we realised that the division that we were in, division 3, was not perhaps stretching the lads the way we would have liked, so we actually moved up a grade and played in the division two championship. We didn't win as many matches as we did when we were competing in division 3 but it still benefited the players because they were playing against better and stronger opposition.
"At minor level we were joined with Eire Og but this was a very young group of players, in fact all of them will be eligible for minor again next year, but we felt that it was good to play at that level from the point of view of gaining valuable experience. Player development is a core theme of ours and has to be a core theme in every club and at all levels but to develop players and put in the work needed we need to have proper facilities and after much soul-searching the club decided on developing an Astro Turf pitch so that we would have top-class facilities and more importantly a top-class surface, an all-weather surface, to implement our player development programmes.
"We are very fortunate in that regard too that our coach, James Lovett is staying with the club for next year. He did tremendous work this year and got a great response as he brought a whole new dimension to training and next year it will be even better as he will be working with some of the under age squads as well which will bring those lads on a ton."
The development of the Astro Turf pitch however wasn't as simple a project as it as it may sound because there were difficult elements to it, particularly a major engineering job that had to be completed to culvert the river that runs behind the stand but doing that also allowed the club to develop another area of ground that will be used as a grass based training area in the future.
"We spent a total of something in excess of a quarter a million euro to develop the Astro Turf pitch and put in place the ancillary works but is not only a fantastic facility for us and for our players but it is actually turning into a revenue generating facility in the club as well. Even with preserving the facilities for the exclusive use of our players we still found that there was free time and we now have on average three slots per week for five nights every week that are generating much-needed revenue and in doing that the facility is turning into and fulfilling one of the goals of the club which is to have ongoing revenue generation from a number of sources.
"We could also say it is spreading the Killeevan gospel if you like in that it is attracting groups and teams from surrounding clubs and even surrounding towns and villages which is all to the good. However to defray the costs of all this development work we needed to come up with a very substantial fundraising venture and eventually we settled on what we called "Club 100", a group of 100 people who would commit to donating €1,000 each to the Killeevan Club over the next three years.
"The loyalty to the club and the dedication of the people of the area and former members and players who are now living elsewhere has actually seen this scheme over subscribed and I have to say there was a truly magnificent response. We actually held a social night for everyone who had joined where people just got together and we were able to say thank you and distribute some club merchandise and treat them to a buffet reception in the Acorn Centre and the turnout to that was fantastic as well. In fact the people of Killeevan still see the club as being the provider of a social outlet and our annual dinner dance on Easter Sunday night last year was again a great success with the highlight of the night being the induction of the McCabe brothers into the Hall of Fame.
"Now of course that we have a ladies team we will have to maybe have a Lady's Hall of Fame in years to come but that's a little bit away although the signs are very encouraging because we have between 35 and 40 girls from 12 to 14 year olds involved and while I think they only won one match they too are enjoying the training and the coaching and wearing the Killeevan jersey.
"A big thank you there has to go to Enda and Patricia Kilpatrick, Pat O'Leary was is chairman of the Ladies Committee and Orla Lynch for their input but it is only by having such a wide range of people involved that we are unable to look to the future with confidence and that the name of Killeevan will figure among the honours at all levels in the years ahead.
The GAA and all is not all about just playing the games and coaching and developing young players because there is a very big social side to the association is well particularly through involvement in the various competitions.
"The club might not have been all that involved in Scor in years gone by but recently there has been a great upsurge in interest thanks in large part to the input of people like Margaret O'Leary, Breda McCooey and Mary Graham and the club has enjoyed success in both Spraoi Scor and Scor na nOg. The club also played host to one of the county semi finals of Scor an nOg in the Acorn Centre this year and there was great celebration when our Novelty Act won the county title.
"They went on from there to take Ulster honours but sad to say they were narrowly defeated in the All Ireland final and in disappointing circumstances. However they are to be congratulated for all of the work that was put in with special thanks to Margaret O'Leary, Breda McCooey and Mary Graham.
"There were a lot of other people involved too, people like Jim Graham who made the set, James and Betty and so many other people who helped with transport and of course all those who supported the children right through from the Monaghan semi final to the All Ireland final. The Novelty Act was made up of: Gerard Graham, Siobhan Corr, Caoimhe O'Leary, Sinead McGurk, John McGurk and Michelle Hurson.
"Just recently too we had success in the 2011 Spraoi Scor and a nice spin-off from that was the fact that some of the children involved in Scor provided part of the entertainment at a recent presentation function in the Acorn Centre to Mrs Anne Rafter who was retiring from the staff of our local school. Anne was the person involved with the school teams and everyone was delighted to be associated with the presentation and the club made a small presentation to her for her contribution at schools level because the school is a nursery for the games as well as educating our children.
"There are two other people that deserve special mention as we look back on 2010, and that is the two lads who act as referees, Dermot Lynch and Ciaran Rudden. Both have been very active this year again after picking up awards for their work last year, Dermot for his handling of the Junior championship final and Ciaran for his input at under age level and I want to thank them for their efforts. Refereeing is not an easy job and they deserve every credit."
The Killeevan team that won the U16 League Division 3 was: Adam Langan, Mark Quigley, Chris McGuirk, Iain McConnon, (Capt), John McGuirk, Finnian Smith, Ciaran Corr, Macartan Kierans, Gerard Graham, Adrian Reavey, Rory Moore. Subs: Daniel Reilly, Conor McDonnell, Ryan Tierney, Gary McKenna, Travis McCann, Martin McPhillips, Michael Smith, Killian Mooney.
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