CLUB OF THE MONTH AWARDS ANNOUNCED FOR JANUARY AND FEBRUARY
The Football Association of Ireland has announced the Club of the Month Award Winners for January and February in association with the Irish Daily Star and Citywest Hotel.
The inaugural Award for January went to Abbey United FC, Sligo who play in the Sligo/ Leitrim League. The club was formed with the objective of not only providing an outlet for young people in the Cranmore Estate/Abbeyquarter area of Sligo city to play football, but also to help and assist these young people in their own personal development.
The Club’s Youth and Junior teams have been successful down through the years and the quality of their coaching has meant that a number of their players have progressed to underage and Junior International teams as well as to eircom League and cross channel football.
Mark Rossiter played 38 times at underage level before having a spell with Sunderland; Ian Rossiter is now with Athlone Town while Steve Feeney is with Sligo Rovers and Keith Carty is a Junior International.
Abbey United just won the Sligo/Leitrim Super League for the fourth time in a row.
The February Award went to Murroe AFC from the Limerick District League. The club comes from the small village of Murroe in east Limerick, about 12 miles from Limerick City. It has a membership of 200 and provides football from Under 10 to Junior and caters for women’s football as well.
Although only formed in 1968, Murroe has managed to raise €330,000 to provide its own facilities which includes a Clubhouse with dressing rooms, two full sized playing pitches and a 54 space car park. Last month the club completed the final piece in the jigsaw with the opening of their new all weather, floodlit training pitch.
The Awards were presented by David Blood, President of the FAI, Paul Cooke, Managing Director, The Irish Daily Star and Phil Jones, General Manager, Citywest Hotel at a function which was attended by FAI officials, Club representatives and representatives of the Provincial Associations.
FAI President David Blood told the clubs that the Club of the Month Awards as well as the Service to Football Awards which will be announced in the summer were given in recognition of the significant and valued contributions given by the family of football to the Association.
"We recognise the achievements of these clubs in a football sense and we celebrate their valuable role in the community”, the President said.
The nomination process for the March Award has commenced with the closing date for nominations scheduled for 21st April.
Each of the Club of the Month Award winner will be eligible for consideration for the Club of the Year Award which will be presented on 21st July.
Full details of the Awards are on www.fai.ie or Target in the Irish Daily Star each Tuesday.
02/04/2006, 10:46 AM
MervilleUnited
congrats to all on your award, much merited!
But Abbey have Youth Teams?:confused:
They had once upon a time....., very sucsessful.:D
But now? And never more needed than now. Come on lads, pump back some the tremendous sucsess of recent years back in to your community!:eek:
03/04/2006, 4:13 PM
Hero1
I know someone involved in Abbey and i belive they are in the process of starting a under age set up for under 8 / 10's, which is appropriate giving the regeneration process just that is about to take place in cranmore estate. City United have shared the underage teams with Abbey in the last few years and it would appear that it is difficult to get the number of players required from the area particularly in the under 16 / 18's.
