St Benedict's of Yorkshire
September 02, 2010There are very few that can nestle into a new GAA club as comfortably as Pat Moriarity can, but perhaps it's his Kerry charm that helps him in that department.
After moving from his home club Glenbeigh/Glencar in the Kingdom to pursue a new life across the Channel in London, it wasn't long before Pat was back on the football field playing in the number three jersey with Kerry Gaels.
He was right at home in the English capital with his new gaels and would stay for eight whole years before moving north to take up the site manager's position with prestigious civil engineering and a multi-disciplined contractor group, Cidon Constriction in Barnsley, South Yorkshire.
"I moved to Leeds in 1999 and I was in London eight years before that. I played for Kerry Gaels in London, either corner-back or full-back, during all that time" explained Pat.
"Cidon Construction is based in Hoyland in Barnsley and we're established since 1991. We employ in and around 50 people plus sub contractors.
It wasn't long before arriving in Leeds that Pat fell in with the local GAA club. Once he made the move his involvement with St Benedict's was almost inevitable, and while his playing days were coming to an end, he gave the Harps two years loyal service on the football field before delving deeper into their roots.
Pat is now the current chairman of the St Benedict's club and is heading into the third year of his term next year with all going according to plan.
"This is my second year as chairman and I'm very proud of what the club has done in the past ten years," he said.
"Things have been pretty good. This year we've already won the All-Britain Under 16 B Championship and the following week we won the All-Britain Under 12s, so hopefully we can keep it going for the rest of the year."
Fielding teams from Under 10s to senior in all competitions within Yorkshire GAA, St Benedict's Under 21s also went and captured the Yorkshire title this year - a feat which primarily comes down to the club's hard work at juvenile level over the past decade.
Pat's devotion throughout his time involved has made him able to talk about the club's history and success as though it was second nature to him.
"The club was founded by Charlie Burn, a Leitrim man, back in 1983," he explained. "It was re-founded again in 1991 and the following year the club won its first Yorkshire championship.
"In 1993, we fielded five underage teams for the first time and took our Under 12 team to Parnells in Dublin, with Parnells returning over here the same year. Three years later we took two teams to Derry.
"In 1999, we took over Under 10 and Under 12 teams to Derry again and we won the Under 12 competition. In 2003, our Under 12s won the club's first ever All-Britain title in form of the Shield. The following year we won the over-all competition."
2002 also included an unforgettable trip to New York for the club's Under 16 footballers, where they won all four games they took part in and, for many of them, got to thoroughly enjoy the experience of 'The Big Apple' for the first time.
Pat credits everyone involved during those years for their work and hopes that those players coming through the ranks at present can mirror their success at juvenile level.
He stated: "Many of those young fellas are now our Under 21s and senior players today. We've managed to keep them playing and great credit has to go to them and their mentors for their commitment down the years."
In July, nine St Benedict's players flew over with the Yorkshire county team to compete in the 2010 All-Ireland Feile competition in Derry. Pat also attended, along with many fellow club members and parents to dedicate their support to the team.
"Myself and Gerard Rogers have been looking after the (St Benedict's) senior, junior and Under 21s," said Pat. "Joe McPartland and Rory Scullion two of our senior lads took charge of the Yorkshire team that took part in Derry.
"All the trips are done by our own fundraising, race nights and raffling. We also have a 'Club 100', which sees every member putting five pound a month towards the club and there are around 92 members at present, so it's not a bad return at all."
The team played their first game on the Friday (July 2nd) at Drumsurn and couldn't have asked for a better start. The Yorkshire boys turned heads when they saw off the hosts' challenge by double scores with a comfortable 2-8 to 1-4 victory.
The win set them up nicely for their second round meeting on Saturday with Muff from Donegal, whom they scored a 3-6 to 0-6 triumph over. It left Yorkshire needing a win over their All-Britain rivals Warwickshire in order to secure their passage through to the Division Five semi-finals.
However, the game would prove a total mis-match, with Warwickshire going into the last four having won all three of their games in the group in a comfortable manner.
Despite the disappointment with the defeat, Pat knows that the experience will stand to the players that he hopes will be fueling strong St Benedict's and Yorkshire senior teams in the next seven or eight years.
As for strong teams, it's almost Pat's duty to talk about Kerry's chances of claiming the All-Ireland SFC every year.
Having come through some stiff tests early on this past summer, the Kingdom were denied a semi-final place for the first time in over a decade when James McCartan's Down out fought them at Croke Park on the August Bank Holiday weekend.
"They had three tough games against Cork twice and then Limerick in the Munster final. They've been missing Paul Galvin and Tomas O Se now for a while and know will need to improve next year if they are going to get back to the final," he said.
As for the eight-week suspension handed down to controversial figure Galvin for his altercation with Cork's Eoin Cadogan in June's Munster SFC semi-final replay, Pat did concede that it was an unacceptable act by the '2009 Footballer of the Year'.
"It's hard to call," he said. "A lot more things went on that day than just the incident between Cadogan and Paul Galvin, but what he did was certainly wrong and he was deservedly punished for it."
Either way, come this time next year Pat will be keeping two fingers crossed that Jack O'Connor's men will be back in the All-Ireland decider. Before that though, he will be hoping around that one St Benedict's main fundraising events will come off without a hitch as it did last year.
"We had our golf classic for the very first time last year and it went really well for us," he stated. "We're doing it again this year on the Saturday the 11th of September."
The message is crystal: put the house on Kerry in 2011 and get in contact with the St Benedict's GAA club in Leeds if you're a nearby golf fanatic or you want to get involved in their ambitious club.
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