CLUB OF THE MONTH
Ballinamallard United, which was founded in 1975, is a Northern Ireland football club which plays in the Irish First Division. The club plays its home matches at Ferney Park, Ballinamallard in County Fermanagh. It is a totally cross community club and accepts players from schools across the county.
Ballinamallard are probably best known for their highly talented youth teams, the first one being launched by team manager Whitey Anderson in 1995. The club fields several teams in the Brendan Keogh Youth League and have had some outstanding successes.
The U-14 league has been won by the ‘Mallards’ on numerous occasions and the true quality of the youth at Ballinamallard has been shown by their success in the Harry Cavan Irish Youth Cup. Further evidence of the talent within the club is that many players represent Femanagh in the prestigious Milk Cup competition which has become a major annual event in the Northern Ireland youth football calendar.
I was approached last year by Ray Sanderson who is a coach at Ballinamallard. He was delighted that the U-13 team had been selected to participate in the Gothia Cup Tournament which has been held in Sweden for many years.
The Gothia Cup has a very impressive track record with some amazing statistics.
Ten people work full time on the Gothia Cup and sixteen hundred officials complete two days of training before the tournament. The website is visited by around three million people annually.
Throughout the years seven hundred and thirty thousand youths from one hundred and twenty four countries have participated with approximately one thousand five hundred teams taking part annually. Germany has the most participants with approximately forty four thousand.
From 1987 when the event moved to the Ullevi Stadium,Gothenburg more than seven hundred and twenty thousand spectators have seen the opening ceremony.
The favourite meal among the players is meatballs with mashed potatoes and they happily munch their way through over two hundred thousand meatballs at the event.
In an average year about five thousand games are played with approximately twenty two thousand goals scored.
As you can see from the very impressive statistics, the U-13 team from Ballinamallard was ecstatic about their participation at the tournament and the George Best Foundation was delighted to have been of assistance to the boys. Before the event, a number of them travelled to Belfast from Fermanagh with Ray to meet me and to take possession of a brand new football strip for the event. The strip was very kindly donated by Mr Pat Lyons who hails from Wales. Pat, who is a huge fan of George, has been a huge support to the charity. It was great to meet the young lads, who were looking forward so much to their trip and after some refreshments and snacks, I handed over the strips. I was very proud of the fact that the George Best Foundation name would be displayed at such a prestigious event with forty eight thousand spectators at the opening ceremony.
It was a week that the players of Ballinamallard will never forget as it provided them with the opportunity to experience styles of play from different countries. During the week in Gothenburg the boys played five games in four days against teams from Sweden, Denmark and Germany and watch many others including ones from Africa and America.
Their coach Ray said “Five games in four days is tough going, but our boys seemed to relish the challenge. We were caught cold in the first game, having travelled the same day, but from day two we really put on some good shows. It was a real experience for the boys; something which I hope will live with them for a long time. They played against quality opposition and showed that when they put their mind to it they van be much better players. It was a wonderful week of football for everyone. The opening ceremony in front of forty eight thousand people was a real spectacular and Ballinamallard United is indebted to the George Best Foundation for its support”
To conclude, I would like to say what an honour it was for the George Best Foundation to be a part of this event albeit in a very small way and I would like to wish all of the players and coaches from Ballinamallard United Youth FC continued success for the future.
