Carryduff Under 14's

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IN these times of doom and gloom, when conversation is dominated by contraction and cut-backs, it’s great to hear of any organisation planning for a bright future.

 Co Down club, Carryduff GAC, is approaching 40 years in existence with renewed vigour and optimism.

Irish President, Mary McAleese visited the club last year, and later this year the club will open their new pitch and for the first time, it will be graced by senior hurlers as Carryduff becomes a fully-fledged dual club.

“The club will field 24 teams at various age groups this year,” said vice-chairman Paddy Love.

“We are a growing club and have actually outgrown our facilities. We are looking to purchase some land from the parish and are in the process of putting together a plan to drive a new development at the club.

“We have been playing hurling at the club for five years and I think it’s great to have a senior hurling team at this stage.

“I suppose we are ready for it now that we have built it up from the underage ranks.

“It’s going to mean a lot of hard work ahead to integrate the various different elements of the club but we have a good committee and communication is very good between the chairpersons of the different codes.”

The club was formed in 1971 by a group of parents who were concerned at the lack of playing facilities in the fast growing southern suburb of Belfast and came together to form a schoolboys Gaelic Football team.

The prime movers in the club were Harry McEvoy, Paddy McEvoy and Martin McAteer, and within a couple of years a full GAA club had come into being with a team entered in the East Down League.

Progress was spectacular in this decade, with the club rising to become one of the strongest Junior teams in the county.

Their success was helped by the blossoming of a genuine footballing star in Greg Blaney. A mainstay of the Down teams that had such success in the 80’s and 90’s, Blaney made his senior debut at 15 years of age.

He was later joined by others including Neil Collins, Mark McCartan and John Kelly as the club continued to thrive in line with the population growth in the area.

From these humble beginnings the club has grown to encompass all aspects of the association; ladies football, handball, hurling and scor.

There is, according to Paddy, a great sense of cohesion at the club which he puts down to the superb work of the chairman John Higgins who, ‘has done a wonderful job in bringing everybody together’.

“In the past, Carryduff used to be the type of club that had players from all over the country togging out on a regular basis. Guys at university or people who had moved into the area,” added Paddy, a Killyclogher (Co Tyrone) native who has been living in the area for 20 plus years.

“We’ve moved away from that over the last number of years and most of the players are home bread now, players who have come up through the ranks.

“As a result, we are a very young team and have a lot of players in and around their early 20’s.

“The senior team is managed by PJ O’Hare. He’s very much into the club as community and family. We have worked hard on discipline and fitness and developing a club ethos which has proved successful.

“We won promotion to Division Two last year and getting into Division One is part of our five year plan.

“To be honest our ambition is that every team in the club plays at the highest level possible, and ideally that would be the all-county competitions, even if we are getting beaten.

“Our minors won the ‘B’ Championship this year which was the first all-county success for a long time.”

Some of that young talent is now pushing for recognition on various county panels.

Cian Slevin has been included in the U-21 panel while Declan Alder is on the edge of the senior squad and there are high hopes that Neil McGowan and Colin Early will break into the minor panel soon.

It’s the same with the Ladies section of the club who continue to go from strength to strength. The Ladies will step into senior competition this year, courtesy of last year’s Intermediate victory over Kilcoo.

At representative level, Erin Robinson, Aoife O’Reilly, Hannah Magorrian, Lee Ann Murray, Niamh Molloy and Ciara Rooney played for the Down u16 Ladies.
Meanwhile, Eimear and Kate McKay and Claire McCourt represented the Down Minor Ladies.

The club is continuing to reach out to the wider community and have instituted an U-6 programme that is designed to get as many parents as possible to bring their children along, especially those who have no real tradition of gaelic games.

Paddy also revealed that the club had done a taster session with some of the members of the Saintfield Road Methodist Church last year that proved highly successful.

“There is a perception, like our nearest club Bredagh, that we are a ‘rich’ team because of our location but we have the same problems as most other clubs,” added Paddy.

“Although the credit crunch has stopped a number of new developments in the area are numbers are still continuing to expand and in the future we want to be in a position to welcome and accommodate as many people as possible.”