County Board looking for clubs to host Cúl Camps

THE County Board is currently attempting to find out which clubs are willing to host a Cúl Camp this year, according to Coaching Officer Terence Houlihan.

“The Cúl Camps are going ahead we’re just in the process at the moment of finding out which clubs are willing to host Cúl Camps,” he told The Kerryman.

“Obviously the County Board run the Cúl Camps on the weeks they’re held, but we just want to make sure that the clubs are happy that their facilities are used for the week with the protocol around it which we will oversee.

“We just want to be happy that they’re comfortable. That’s where we are at the moment. Hopefully by the end of next week we’ll have an idea of what clubs are willing to host the camps. It’ll be held over a five week period.

“The big concern is to have the facilities right. There is no indoor gathering permitted at the moment so the weather would be the concern we would have, that clubs would just have the facilities if it was raining to use stands and stuff just to alleviate the hour or two or disruption due to weather. Those are the concerns we would have, but in the main it’s great.”

Mr Houlihan was confident that, despite a more limited time-frame in which the County Board will have to run the camps and the likelihood of fewer camps taking place, numbers will hold up.

“It’s hard to say,” he said. “I think we will probably put a limit on our camps just to make sure that we are well catered for staff and what we can deal with. I do think though that in Kerry, number-wise, we’re a holiday destination and if families aren’t going abroad we are probably one of the counties that would see a lot of tourists. With that in mind our camps would be fairly at capacity I would think.”

Having people from outside the county on holiday attending camps in the Kingdom has bee “the norm” according to Houlihan and as of now there are no plans for that to change.

“It’s a question that’s being asked,” he noted.

“It’s a question of do you or don’t you. Everything is being done online this year so it’s difficult now to try and keep it to your own county people or your own club people who can go to it, but at the moment it’s proceeding that the camps will be open to who wants to go. That may change or not, but at the moment that’s the way we’re thinking it’s going.”