My neighbour Damien Hancock told me to go up to the club at 10AM on a Sunday morning to get my son playing football. I was told to look for a guy called Andy Doyle who was in charge. I spoke to Andy and he said to put James in one of the lines of 10-15 kids. It was the first time I met Andy, Mark, Steven and Paul who give up their time on a Sunday to help out with the kids. Andy asked the parents if they would like to give a hand and the rest is history.
I took more or less the same 10-12 kids each week. I did the Kick Start One Coaching course to give me a few tips along the way. I started to get to know the parents and that is where I met Ger Carty who is now Assistant Manager.
After our time in the Academy is was on to the league. Our first game was away against Ballybrack, as I was going into the unknown I was a bit nervous. I went out during the week to find out where the pitch was to make sure we were in the right place. That was a good thing because when we all met in the Spawell car park early on the Sunday morning, there was nine cars and everyone needed directions. Before we set off one last check, balls, football gear, Jaffa cakes, water and sat nav . The team put the jerseys on, photo taken, lets go, 2 teams, 14 kids all running to kick 1 ball. I thought what have I let myself in for!
We won 4-0, I was smiling from ear to ear, the next match we won 4-1, the next 5-1 and so on , we played 9 matches up to Christmas and we won all 9 scoring 45 goals.We were promoted up to the C1.
We started back on the 20th February, we played 10 matches up to the 22nd may, we won 6 drew 3 and lost 1 scoring 56 goals, we got promoted.
We started in the C League on 4th September and our last game was away to Mount View boys on the 20th November. We played 10 games won 7 drew 3 and lost 0 scoring 31 goals. We will hopefully be promoted again up to the B league.
That’s a total of 39 games and only 1 defeat. The team are great to work with and I would like to thank the parents, Ger (Asst Manger) Ruth (who looks after the subs) Paula and everyone that is with our team, also to Alan Kinsella on his coaching nights in the astro.
The further we go the harder it gets, we are not expecting to win everything next year but after winning our league undefeated it was a great achievement. We will take things slowly and see how we get on, have fun at training and to enjoy ourselves. One of our highlights this season was playing a game at half time on the Shamrock Rovers pitch in front of a packed house. I would like to thank Shamrock Rovers as this was a great occasion for the team, so here’s looking forward to next year.