Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
MAXIE SWAIN Talks to
JOE Mcaree smiles at how far his club has come since the days his old beat-up minibus doubled as a radiator to get heat back into the bones of his freezing young charges at Dungannon.
In the years before the indoor arena at Lough View was built – the facility he and his dedicated army of volunteers fought tooth and nail to secure – the kids would brave the bracing wind and driving rain of dark nights training outside, wrapped up like Eskimos against the bitter, unrelenting elements of the Mid-ulster wintertime.
But all too often even layer upon layer of hats, scarves, gloves and padding couldn’t insulate the young ones against the cold, leaving the club’s founder to soberly ponder his dilemma as he sat in the driver’s seat and the youngsters thawed out behind him.
“We had about 200 children a week, but the problem was that after 20 minutes on a November night – after 10 minutes sometimes – there were seven or eight-year-olds crying their eyes out,” recalled Mcaree.
“They were foundered, hail, rain, sleet and snow hitting them in the face, and I thought to myself, ‘What the hell is this like, if there can’t be enjoyment for children what good is it?’
“So I made a promise I would get an indoor on the site. It took me a bit of time but I eventually got it and it’s been up 12 years now and it has been absolutely fantastic.
“It’s a fantastic asset for us, it’s something I wanted to get and I tried and tried and it ended up being one of the most successful projects Sport NI have funded, that was their words to me anyway.
“And it means the children, come rain, hail or snow, they are in the indoor, they can train away. They just get dropped off at the door, they run in and they’re dry and they’re happy and they’re enjoying it until the sessions are over.”
Saturday past marked another proud milestone for the three musketeers of Dungannon United Youth, Mcaree, the club chairman, son Rodney, the head coach, and academy director Dixie Robinson, as they officially cut the ribbon on their new £866,000 Community Sports Hub, a state-of-the-art complex which replaces the old wooden changing rooms.
The club had been bidding for the upgrade since 2014, and finally received the news last year that the Department of Communities had agreed to release £740k funding for the project, with the other £126k coming from Dungannon United Youth’s own coffers.
All a long way from when, in 1998, Mcaree used a bolt cutter to get past the old rusted lock on the gates of the then derelict and crumbling site, having agreed to take on the lease from the council for the princely sum of £50 a year, albeit with a pledge to invest heavily into its development.
“Now that shows how much they [the council] wanted rid of it,” said Mcaree.
“But it was scary because the lease stated that it was with promises to spend a minimum of £200k upgrading this site, and I s**t myself, but I signed it because I wanted to get it.
“And when we got the digger in to start the new pitch, the hairs were