Floodlights for Aughrim?

Process now underway

WICKLOW GAA development officer Billy Byrne said that moves are underway to try and bring floodlighting to Joule Park, Aughrim, in the very near future.

Addressing the County Convention on Monday night, Billy Byrne said that the County Board had “started the ball rolling with that already” but that it was going to be a “big undertaking”.

“I would hope to proceed in trying to see if we can get floodlighting at our grounds here in Joule Park. It’s going to be a big undertaking but we have started the ball rolling.

“As you all know, my goal as development officer is to try and complete works in Ballinakill. There isn’t that much left to complete in relation to car parking and things like that but it is my goal to get that finished.

Finally, I would like to thank management here for all their support.

“As I say in my report, we didn’t always see eye to eye but we got on with it and we did our best.

“I suppose, one of the most disappointing things from this year for me was the meeting we had with the National Infrastructure Committee and the National Finance Committee to try and proceed with an astro playing surface at our centre of excellence.

“The backing I received from the top table here was excellent but they (the two national committees) felt that it wasn’t a runner and I was really disappointed with that because, I think, looking at the conditions we had to bear over the last number of years, an astro surface would help the situation up there and probably move us to another level.

“It’s something that, and I’ve a year left, that I’ not going to drop, I’m going to try and see if we can work something else and maybe it might not happen but I’m certainly going to try anyway,” he said.

Byrne began his address to Convention by expressing his disappointment at losing Dave Tutty, operations manager, earlier in the year and he also mentioned the fact that floodlighting was being erected on two more pitches in Ballinakill this week.

“The report speaks very clear for itself. I was disappointed to lose out operations manager during the year but he is gone to greener pastures and we have to move on without him,” said the Avondale club man.

“As you know, Ballinakill is an everyday concern for us all, not just us up here at the top table but as club members as well, in relation to the upkeep of it. It’s becoming more and more expensive as the years go by.

“The projects we undertook last year to get floodlights on pitches one and two have now finally commenced and the lights will be up within the next week. We’ll be able to use additional pitches over the course of the winter so, hopefully, that will help.

“The club scene didn’t change an awful lot. I was disappointed in relation to the club plan. We had 18 clubs who finished their plan and, unfortunately, we didn’t get back around to you clubs to see how your plan was going so that is going to be a project for 2018, to revisit the clubs.

“There are 12 clubs outstanding with their plans and as you can see from my report, Croke Park have rolled out a new club planning initiative in October which Niall O’Loughlin and Peter Case attended and their description changed from facilitators to club planners and basically the programme from Croke Park is that they are trying to get clubs to roll out their plan over a three-year period with closer monitoring of the plan and they will provide whatever help is needed so that is probably a good thing,” he added.

Billy Byrne said that Wicklow would probably stick with February for their club officer training course as it suits the county.

The Avondale man said that the committee that discussed the strategic plan didn’t publish the findings because they felt that it would have an effect on the new Leinster Council review so the committee gave a copy of the plan to the Leinster Council committee (chaired by Pat Gilroy) and that that committee had asked the Wicklow group to hold off on the implementation of it until the new review plan was up and running.

Byrne also paid tribute to club delegates for their work on Leinster Council grants and he informed the meeting that the county had topped the total from 2016 of €79,000 by bringing in €88,200 in from the provincial governing body.

“My beat on the street is that that will be divvied out to the clubs in the New Year,” said Billy Byrne.