Mountmellick United got back to competitive soccer at the weekend, after a long hiatus, and the growth of the club was in evidence as they fielded an unprecedented four adult sides in their respective CCFL divisions.
The work of the committee is clearly starting to pay dividends as the number of registered players has soared to levels never seen before – and few clubs across the country could boast so many senior teams.
On the field it was a bit of a mixed bag, with the Senior A and Senior B sides collecting three points in their clashes while the Senior C team along with the Ladies Seniors losing out.
The first team had a deserved but hard fought win over Abbeyleix Athletic while the second team had a more comfortable win, coming out 5-1 winners over Midlands Celtic.
Four second half goals meant the C Team went down 5-0 to a young and talented Portlaoise Rovers outfit and finally the Senior Ladies battled superbly against a very good Willow Park team but eventually lost 3-2 in a thrilling game.
No matter what way the results went, it was still a landmark day for Mountmellick who have been working tirelessly to raise the profile of the club and continually develop their top class facilities at Conor Davis Park.
Their juvenile set up is witnessing similarly impressive growth with boys and girls teams from the Academy group (6+ year olds) right the way up to U-16.
If that wasn’t enough, the club will add two more senior teams to that impressive number once the Youths U-17 Season and Over-35 seasons commences in a couple of weeks time, while the growing interest in the Senior Ladies panel looks like creating the need for a second Ladies side once the 2021-22 season starts in September.
When asked about the impressive growth in numbers, Senior Secretary Tom Moss pointed to a policy of inclusion for players of all abilities, ages and abilities.
He said: “We’ve worked so hard to try to raise the profile of our club locally and it’s no coincidence that our numbers have been rising all the time.
“We welcome any new player to the club and we have new players constantly contacting us from all over the county enquiring about signing for us.
“It’s great to see and our coaches are always thrilled to see new faces arriving for training. We have over 80 registered men and almost 40 women so it’s been unreal lately.
“Any night of the week there’s kids teams on every corner of our three pitches all evening long, eager to learn from out coaches and just to be out enjoying the fresh air and making friends, that’s what it’s all about.”
The local community have had a huge hand in things too, something chairman Tom Christle was keen to acknowledge.
He said: ‘Without the support of local businesses for continuing to support us with renewing signage around our pitches and for ongoing sponsorship, none of the work we’ve put in to improving our clubhouse and pitches would have been remotely possibly.”
Registration of new juvenile and adult players, boys and girls, men and women, remains open.
“You can contact the club on their facebook page or by calling Tom on 089 7004707 for Senior enquiries or Gary on 085 8212072 for Juvenille enquiries at any time.
The post ‘Unprecedented growth’ leads to Laois soccer club fielding four adult teams appeared first on Laois Today.
source https://www.laoistoday.ie/2021/06/21/unprecedented-growth-leads-to-laois-soccer-club-fielding-four-adult-teams/
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