‘A proud day for the club’
SATURDAY, August 19, marked a historical day in the history of Ashford GAA club as the club unveiled its new state of the art club house.
The dream to build the club house started four years ago when the club bought the grounds from the Wicklow County Board and since then huge dedication from endless volunteers and brilliant community spirit have seen the completion of the complex and its unveiling on Saturday.
The new clubhouse comprises of four dressing rooms, a referee’s room, a kitchen and an upstairs hall and balcony overlooking the pitches.
Club chairman Ronnie Phelan said that the completion of the clubhouse is a testament to the entire community and everyone who was involved in the project.
“It’s a proud day for the club as a huge amount of work went into the complex from a huge amount of people across the community. We bought the grounds four or five years ago and began building the clubhouse 18 months ago and since day one the planning and support from everyone has been fantastic.
The unveiling of the clubhouse was ran as part of the annual Ashford Fun Day as well as the Revamp of the Local Centra Shop in Ashford, ran by Liz and Ian Cuddihy, so it was a day for celebrating more than one success in the community.
“The club would like to send a huge thanks to Ian and Liz Cuddihy of Centra, Ashford who were a huge help to us throughout the building and helped organise bringing both the Liam MacCar- thy and Sam Maguire trophy on the day”.
Both prestigious trophies were on show for people to admire and get pictures with and there was also an appearance from former Dublin GAA star Dotsy O’Callaghan who was there to meet and greet visitors on the day.
There was a huge amount of games and entertainment on the day with face painting, penalty competitions, football and hurling simulators and much more which was enjoyed by both young and old alike.
The unveiling of the clubhouse was performed by three of the clubs honorary presidents Seán Lally, Mick Behan and Tom McCugh as well as Frank Downey, who is a son of the fourth honorary president Eamonn Downey who unfortunately couldn’t be present on the day due to illness.
The club send on their best wishes to Eamonn on his recovery from illness.
Ronnie Phelan thanked everyone once more for their involvement and said it was a testament of what a community can achieve when it comes together to achieve a common goal.
“It has been a brilliant effort from everyone in the community. I think overall we had about 280 personal donors and so many have offered their support or help in some way along the way from painting to doing little jobs or helping out today on the opening day.
“We did a strictly come dancing competition to raise money and the response to that and attendance and participation on the night was unbelievable so it shows so much good has come out of this.
“The player numbers in the club have also risen rapidly in recent times. For example we now have girls teams from under 8 up to under 14s whereas a few years back there was no girls teams at all in the cub.
“The future of the club looks healthy and I’d just like to once more thank all the committee mebers who put such tireless work into this and to absolutely everyone else who helped out in any way.”