Gort’s long established basketball club is considering closing its courts to youngsters.
St Coleman’s Basketball Club boasts some 100 juvenile players, but it cannot attract enough adults to help run the club.
Chairwoman Maureen O’Connor says the club is at a “crossroads”.
“The organisers are asking themselves if the club has any future in Gort. Our problem is not players - we can have have up to 100 juvenile players in a year. Our underlying problem is that we need a club committee, adult coaches, and supervision.”
Since the club was founded in 1963, it has grown from strength to strength. In last year’s county championships, the girls’ u-14 and u-16 teams won their finals, while six of the boys in the Gort Community School team that won a first-years’ national title had first started playing in St Coleman’s at u-10 and u-12 level.
Despite its success at underage level, and its importance as a feeder club for the schools, O’Connor says Gort really needs to decide whether it wants a basketball club in the future
Every juvenile team requires three adults: a coach, a team co-ordinator, and a parents’ representative or child safety monitor, she says, and it is the lack of adults that is causing the concern.
“These people are usually parents, but in a world of ever-increasing demands on people’s time we are finding that many parents who want their kids to play just cannot make the matching commitment themselves. We need to hear from people now. It will be a very sad day for the children if they lose their basketball club.”
In the meantime the club is launching new initiatives to try to increase adult participation. There will be a regular adults’ hour this year for the first time, on Friday from 6pm to 7pm, while the club is offering induction lessons in level 1 coaching by certificated instructors from Basketball Ireland.
“We would encourage everyone to come along, young and old, male and female. It doesn’t matter if they have never played before. Everyone is guaranteed to find their own level and have some fun.”
The club was founded by Canon Walsh at a time when basketball really was a minority sport in Galway.
One of those founding members, Pat Bourke, recalls playing in the old Mart.
“ It was the only available indoor space that was big enough. We were allowed to paint the regulation basketball lines on the concrete floor of the Mart, but we had to carry the nets with us on our shoulders every time we went to play there.”
Despite this challenging start, St Colman’s started to make an impression at regional and national levels, and enjoyed a series of national league triumphs in the 1970s.
Bourke and several other players from the club were selected for Connacht over several seasons, while Bourke, who is still involved with the club today, was selected for Ireland in 1973 but was cheated of the opportunity when all international games were cancelled because of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.
For further details contct Maureen O’Connor 087- 6776801 or e-mail [email protected].
