KDL honoured for Victory Shield success

THE excellent manner in which the KDL organised the International Victory Shield last November received the recognition it deserved on Friday night when they were the recipients of the Special Achievement Award at the Kerry Sport Star and Special Awards Ceremony which was held at INEC in Killarney.

The prestigious tournament was almost a sell out at Mounthawk Park and all the countries who competed were high in their praise of the way it was organised. It took a huge effort to put all the arrangements in place and everything worked like clockwork over the weekend.

It gave the youth of the county an opportunity to attend international games and they grabbed it with both hands turning out in large numbers to attend the games.

The chairman of the KDL Seán O’Keeffe said he was delighted and it was an honour to receive this award on behalf of the association and paid tribute to everyone who helped in achieving it.

“It was the first time the tournament was staged in Ireland and it was fantastic to be chosen to host it,” he said.

“We had a lot of criteria to meet to host the event and it was great that neighbouring clubs, St Brendan’s Park and Tralee Dynamos allowed us the use of their fine facilities for some of the games.”

“It was a very big event for us to organise but everyone pulled their weight and we were delighted it went off so smoothly. We had to put the second all weather pitch in place to accommodate the tournament and it has taken over half a million Euro to convert the two pitches at Mounthawk Park to astroturf surfaces.

“It was very gratifying afterwards to be getting letters and e-mails from the countries who competed complimenting us on the fine facilities we have and the great hospitality they received in Tralee.

“We are hoping that the success of this tournament might have a knock on effect and it would be great if we could host a youth or perhaps an under 21 International tournament somewhere down the line.”

Switching to the Kerry under 17 and 19 teams the chairman says everything is going very well in the preparations for the commencement of the leagues.

The under 17s kick off with an away tie against Cobh Ramblers on the weekend of March 3rd while the under 19 side are away to Bray Wanderers on March 10.

Billy Dennehy is the manager of the Under 17 team while Darren Aherne moves from the under 17 up to the under 19 team.

“It is an exciting time for Kerry soccer with under 13, under 15, under 17 and under 19 Kerry teams competing at League of Ireland level in the upcoming season. It is our hope that some of these players can go on and play with League of Ireland clubs or get cross channel call ups.

“It will also give youngsters an opportunity to play the game at every level up along the line from under 13 to under 19 and will do a lot to promote the game around the county.

“Some time into the future we may be in a position to enter a Kerry team in the League of Ireland at senior level and that is an exciting prospect.

“In the meantime we must focus our attention in promoting the game to the best of our ability and get as many youngsters as possible playing the game at competitive level.”