Making a pitch for quality

Keeping playing pitches in pristine condition at this time of year is a groundsman¹s nightmare but, in Donegal Football Pitch Services, expert help is at hand. We speak to the company¹s founder and Managing Director Sean Hegarty.

Given the competition among sporting organisations countrywide for the hearts and minds of the nation’s youth, the side of the ditch is no longer acceptable to any youngster togging out to play his chosen sport.

In this regard also, the sophisticated and discerning sporty youngster of today will not accept anything less than a safe, well-kept and level playing pitch on which to ply his/her skills - irrespective of the competition or venue.

Simply said, the modern teenager demands and expects playing pitches to be almost pristine in condition. The shower may be optional but there’s no compromise about the state of the pitch. A word spoken in anger may be the upshot of the unavailability of a post-match shower but give a gasun the ammunition of threading through puddles and furrows of hardly-mowed scutch grass and you’re liable to hand him the bones of a thesis on the mis-management of Ireland’s natural resources!

In fairness, those within the wider community who show the necessary leadership, foresight and consideration to have their beloved playing pitches in fine nick are in the majority as the new Millennium gets off its belly and crawls into the psyche of player, mentor, spectator and administrator.

In the business of providing the optimum in good facilities for young and old sportspeople in this country, the people at Donegal Football Pitch Services have a proud and successful record of achievement.

Far too often, well-meaning but naive people belonging to one sporting organisation or another make a vain attempt at making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear when it comes to ‘doing up their pitch.’ Such work is seen to be a case of false economy when the pitch’s drainage system comes apart and bare patches appear ad nauseum around the square and elsewhere. Water-logging is also a tell-tale sign of an unprofessional job. With Donegal Football Pitch Services though, their work is their guarantee.

Established some 14 years ago by Buncrana man Sean Hegarty, the company specialises in constructing all types of sports pitches using sand-based grass, all weather pitches including astroturf pitches, basalt dust pitches plus the installation of kerbing and fencing and drainage systems.

Servicing a market which currently extends from its base in Donegal and extending right throughout the province of Connacht, Donegal Football Pitch Services has built up a tremendous reputation for itself over the years and has done particularly well over last nine years of its existence.

“Like any company starting off, things didn’t go that fantastically well in the early days and for the first five years we were really finding it difficult to carve out a niche in the marketplace for ourselves.

“We found we were in between a rock and a hard place as we sought to win over the trust of customers because we hadn’t really anything on our c.v to show potential customers. It wasn’t until we had built up a portfolio of work that we were able to convince clubs that we knew what we were doing and we could show them how professionally we operated,” Sean explains.

Thankfully for the four-strong team at Donegal Football Pitch Services - Sean’s son Michael is also on board - the volume of work coming the way of the Lisfannon, Fahan-based concern has mushroomed in more recent years.

The company has tendered for and successfully completed many valuable and noteworthy projects.
The Cavan Gaels club needed a professional job done on their Terry Coyle Park. Sean and co. stepped in to do the needful. Similarily, Sligo VEC were happy to enlist the services of Donegal Football Pitch Services when they required a sand-based all-weather pitch.

Elsewhere, clubs such as Strandhill Rugby Football Club in Sligo, Dunkinealy GAA club in Co. Donegal and Capprey Rovers in nearby Ballybofey have all been beneficiaries of Donegal Football Pitch Services’ stamp of quality.

The profile and reputation of the Hegarty-led firm is such that nowadays, the company can find itself undertaking major projects valued at nearly £150,000. With such work comes a guarantee to the customer of a year’s free maintenance.

“Apart from our guarantee, we feel that our work will stand the test of time. We also can reassure our customer of a top-quality after sales service in regards to going back, if need be, to mend a problem,” Sean adds.

However given the experience and expertise built up over the years by Sean and his team, post-project problems are few and far between. Certainly, when it comes to the business of rotavating a playing area, establishing the correct levels, installing the necessary and appropriate drainage system and then adding the right volume and mix of sand etc, very few firms can equal the professionalism offered by the Lisfannon crew.

Currently engaged in the upgrading of the main pitch at St. Nathy’s College, Ballaghderreen to all-weather status - at a cost of approximately £120,000 - the people at Donegal Football Pitch Services is a company which is going from strength to strength and its managing director is optimistic that the good times can continue to roll.

“We have built up a good reputation over the years. The volume of work coming our way has increased each year too and I’m confident that the boom times will continue for at least another three years.
“The advent of lotto money in recent times has been a godsend for sporting organisations in this country and we have benefited accordingly. There’s no sign of that kind of money coming to an end.

“We’ll continue to do what we do well and hopefully that will stand us in good stead,” Sean enthuses.
Meanwhile, Sean sincerely hopes that the really good times will return for Donegal Football Inc. Something akin to that the euphoria in ‘92 would do, he suggests.

“The county’s All-Ireland win brought a great buzz to all of Donegal and it an awful lot of good for the development and promotion of Gaelic football here, especially in the north of the county where soccer has traditionally been the most popular game.”

So what’s the chances of Donegal recovering their erstwhile lustre?

“I don’t know. I’m not so sure that Mickey Moran has the same depth and quality of talent available to him that Brian McEniff had.

“Donegal football has gone back a bit since the All-Ireland was won and it might take another couple of years before the type of talent you need to win major titles is around again.”