WHITEGATE SOCCER COMPLEX DISCUSS FOOTBALL & ASYLUM SEEKING
REPORTER DAVID MEDCALF CALLED TO THE WHITEGATES SOCCER COMPLEX BEFORE THE CORONAVIRUS PUT AN END TO ALL SPORTING ACTIVITY. THERE HE TALKED FOOTBALL AND ASYLUM SEEKING WITH WICKLOW ROVERS’ TRIO OF ZIMBABWEANS.
WICKLOW Rovers have been kicking footballs since the 1970s, the club established at a time when soccer was routinely overshadowed by other sports. The social and sporting landscape has changed considerably since, however, and Rovers now have a major presence in the town. They have high-profile grounds at Whitegates, familiar to anyone coming or going from the town’s railway station, next door to their Wicklow Town arch-rivals.
When first used for the 11-a-side game, the pitch was little better than a bog but the venue has since been transformed into a modern complex with fine dressing rooms. Such has been the rate of expansion, with hundreds of players and supporters now involved, that they have added training facilities on the Rocky Road.
Some of the old guard maintain a reassuring presence in the organisation. Honorary president Anthony
Earls, for example, has been around from the start and current chairman Johnny Dunne featured on the pitch in the early days too.
The men’s first team hold their own in Division 1D of the Leinster Senior League. Meanwhile, the second string conducts its own business with a squad more than 20 strong, campaigning on Sundays in the Wicklow District Football League – coronavirus permitting, of course. Most of this second team came up through the ranks from the under eights managed by Boodhan Rampersaud and Eoghan O’Neill more than a decade ago. The pair of mentors, who run the show along with John Finlay, have moved up through the grades with their youthful charges.
They have added a few older heads, notably captain Brian Harrington who is not far shy of 40, to bring experience to the mix. And they have also reached out a few hundred metres from Whitegates to the Grand Hotel to augment their ranks with a trio of footballers who learned their skills in a different hemisphere, on a different continent, against a very different background to provincial Ireland. Meet Fundi, Trust and Hillary, all three from Zimbabwe and all three resident in the hotel while waiting for asylum applications to be processed.
Boodhan had the idea of recruiting from the ‘direct provision’ centre after he happened to fall into conversation with one of the Grand’s residents. Talk turned naturally to football as a universal language and the team manager was inspired to leave a note at the hotel reception inviting anyone interested to a training session. As a result, since January of last year, there has been a strong African presence on the field of play.
‘There is no better way of getting integrated than playing in a local football team,’ says Boodhan’s colleague Eoghan O’Neill. He smiles as he confirms that integration often means playing at grounds which are much less well appointed than Rovers’ comparatively palatial complex. ‘It is not glamorous by any means – but it is a good standard of football.’ The three lads are probably not too fazed, as they come from a country wracked by poverty and violence. Midfielder Hillary Mduduzi Khumalo
– the youngest of the imports – has appeared in fixtures which have