Going from strength to strength!
THERE are many highlights that come along with athletics and other sporting clubs. Being able to produce top-class athletes that go on to represent and win medals for their country, such as Fionnuala McCormack and Ronnie Delany, is one such example. On top of this, there is the satisfaction that comes with seeing young members go on to use the lessons that they learn while playing sport as influence for the way they live later in life.
‘There is a great buzz that comes out of watching them through,’ said Theresa Kinane, one of the founding members of Greystones Athletics Club. ‘It is great to see kids achieve their dreams. It is great to see them get something out of it, whether it is winning medals or just enjoying it.’
Theresa was one of several people who were involved in the establishment of Greystones AC. Alongside her were the likes of Chris Allen, Peter Groome, Johnny O’Brien, Martin Colbert, and Caroline Bradley. In 1997, that group came together to found the club that, initially, received 232 applications for members.
Over time, that would dwindle down to a still impressive 150, while the current membership currently stands at almost 250 people, according to Kinane.
‘We were doing a bit for the community games and stuff like that, and we chatted about getting an athletics club going and a few of us got together in 1997 to put the feeders out. We had a huge number of applicants. In fact, I am looking at a document here I wrote for some magazine a while back, and we had 232 kids when we started. We were inundated. It was way more than we anticipated.’
In the early days, the club would utilise St. Laurence’s National School, in Greystones, for training for almost 11 years. During the summer, they would then be afforded time to use the local GAA and rugby clubs’ facilities. In 2006, however, additional facilities were made available for the club, allowing them to evolve into encompassing sports such as highjump, long-jump, javelin-throwing, and many others.
The organisation’s first year of competitive racing was largely committed to local competitions. A year later, they ventured into the provincials which haven’t been without a Greystones contingent since then. It was in 1999, just two years after its foundation, when the club progressed to the national cross-country championships, at which they won a medal thanks to a team, including Kinane’s daughter, Lesley.
Their first solo medal was won by Fionn Buttner, in 2002, in the under-11 boy’s 60-metre track and field event. The club’s success only bloomed from there, with members coming out on top in a variety of competitions, including but not limited to the county track and field cup, the Bray Invitational Cup, the Medley Relay Shield, as well as national track and field championships. for several years now.
Over the 23 years of the club’s existence, they have produced some talented athletes who have gone on to represent Ireland. Examples of some of Greystones AC’s distinguished alumni are Ellie Hartnett, Niamh Kearney, Sean Ryder, Conor Dempsey, Ara Freeman, Alana Ryan, Michael Browne, and Ellen McNally. Last year, Brian Geraghty made history by becoming the club’s first-ever adult international selection in the cross-country discipline.
This is made all the more impressive when it comes in spite of the club having to rely on Éire Óg GAA Club, Greystones RFC, and St. Lawrence’s for facilities. Fortunately, since 2006, now that they have been able to lay claim to a permanent home with top of the range facilities, they have been able to continue competing on a regional, provincial, and national level.
‘We are extremely grateful to all of them. The long-awaited opening of the track at Shoreline Sports Park in Sept. ’06, spelled new beginnings for the club, Theresa Kinane said in an article written for Fit Magazine in 2013. ‘Now we have a permanent home and, as well as a beautiful track to run on, we have access to proper hurdles, long jump and high jump equipment and purpose-built throwing areas. All of this has made an enormous difference to the athletes’ training and shows in our competitions and our results.’
It is not from those medals and trophies that Theresa Kinane takes the most pleasure when it comes to her involvement with Greystones AC. Over the past 23 years, she has seen talent come and go from the club and has seen them blossom into being capable, well adjusted people. Being in a position to witness this growth firsthand is something that Theresa said she appreciates more than anything else the club is able to accomplish on the track.
‘Often, the biggest buzz you get out of it is seeing a kid that comes in who is struggling, not being a born athlete, and then they often turn out to be the ones who are super athletes. They take time and if you nurture them, they can turn out to be the kids who really achieve down the line, or they can turn out to be great coaches down the line.
‘We had a lad who - ah, he was a great character when we had him but he was wild, should we say. He was a very talented athlete. We worked with him and kept him going for a few years. He came back to me a couple of years ago, to ask me where he would go to - we had put him on one coaching course, we take our transition years every year and we get them to act as junior coaches so they come in through the year and work with the younger kids. He came in and asked me where he would go to develop his coaching. He had gotten involved with a disable group. I never got more enjoyment out of anything, than that.
‘He was a wild young fella and he would agree to that. He had gotten kicked out of several different clubs. We stuck with him and he stayed with us for a good few years. He is married and has kids, and he wanted to get involved with a disable athletics club. Those are the kind of things that give you a great reward.’
Of course, for every uplifting positive that has come from the establishment of Greystones and District Athletics Club, there are struggles that go hand-in-hand along the way. For Greystones, it is the retention of members as they go from being youngsters, to teenagers, to adults. Since the beginning, the club has been focused on growing its juvenile ranks, as Kinane explained.
‘I suppose we started it through a kind of spin off from community games, which was for children anyway. We grew with the kids and as the kids are coming up the ranks, you are trying to progress on. You obviously need a lot of coaches with big numbers like that, and it is difficult to get the volunteers to stretch across all the categories. We do try. I think that adult running wasn’t as big a thing in the nineties as it has become in recent years. A track coming in brought in a lot of groups. There are a lot more adults running than there were.’
Retaining those younger members as they go through life is once of Greystones’ primary concerns going forward. As is natural, as young people grow up, they may find themselves prioritising other sports such as rugby, GAA, and soccer, or they may become side-tracked by the day-to-day trivialities of every day life, such as school university, work, or family. These are obstacles that the club will look to address moving forward.
‘Some come through, some