Alan Foley
Like most Waterford inter-county footballers, Niall Considine never got the opportunity to play at Croke Park.
On Bank Holiday Saturday, however, the 37-year-old will take a delegation of 40 Scottish 10 and 11-year-olds and 25 adults from his adopted club, Dunedin Connollys of Edinburgh, to the All-Ireland quarter-finals.
The group will stay at DCU and take on Na Fianna’s underage teams before sampling the unmistakeable Croke Park experience as part of the Considine’s initiative to spread the gospel of Gaelic football in the Scottish capital.
Considine won county championships as both a senior and a minor with Dungarvan in 1993 and 1994 and represented the county’s footballers between 1995 and 1998.
Having completed a Sports Science degree at University of Limerick, three years ago he undertook a Masters in Strength and Conditioning at Edinburgh University. Considine joined the local GAA club that was founded in 1988 and named after the famous patriot and politician James Connolly, who was born in the city.
Considine’s plan was to play but a coaching vacancy arose and was accepted, as the side that play at Portobello Rugby Club in Duddingston won successive Scottish championships.
He is also the club’s underage development officer and two years ago met with then treasurer Alan Ward, a Roscommon native, and chairman Peter Dillon, who has links with Kildare, to structure the club’s future.
“Although the club won all but one of the last eight Scottish championships and lifted the British Junior Championship in 2009, we can’t be reliant on who gets off the plane to study or work in Edinburgh,” Considine says.
“For years we’ve been helped by Irish students studying at Edinburgh and Napier universities, before that it was Heriot Watt, but we wanted to take control and build a playing base of our own.”
With the GAA allocating £100 a week for coaches in UK schools, Connollys opted to broaden the job description of Considine’s coaching of seven to 11-year-olds. They now supplement his income via local council grants and club fundraisers.
It means he’s effectively a full-time coach, aiming to integrate the schools’ system into the club, one of only five in Scotland alongside Glasgow’s Tír Conaill Harps and Glasgow Gaels, Sands McSwiney of Coatbridge and Dundee Dalriada.
“I started off coaching in four schools, but that rose to 10 last year and hopefully 12 come September on a bi-weekly basis,” Considine adds. “So I’m working with up to 1,600 children a fortnight having first applied through the Active Schools’ Programme, a body that organises sports to come into schools like rugby, tennis, soccer or whatever.
“This means Gaelic football is a compulsory part of children’s physical education in these schools and having built up the contacts and relationships through Active Schools, I’m now running the programme myself. Gaelic football is the only full-time sport right now being coached in Edinburgh’s schools.”
The initial intended beneficiaries are Connollys’ underage teams, who train out of Leith Academy and the Jack Kane Centre on the Niddrie Mains Road. In mid-June, Considine oversaw 75 children at the club’s Cúl Camp, which doubled last year’s numbers and next year’s hope is to top the 100-mark. Huge numbers attend blitzes.
If the club can retain even 10 per cent of the 1,600 schoolchildren he now coaches, it would greatly increase the production belt for a senior team that currently has only one Scot in its ranks.
“There are very few,” Considine says of the children of Irish descent he now coaches. “There’s a few with one Irish grandparent but they’ve embraced the sport. The youngest children are P3, who are seven, and I had to coach them from scratch, before they ever saw a set of goalposts or knew who a team lined out.”
“We are planning on introducing school leagues next year. These will provide the children with firsthand experience of competitive games, which is something they’re not used to, over a matter of weeks.
“The ultimate goal is to have enough talent to feed into the club’s underage system through to the adult team. We understand this might even lead to the establishment of a second club in the city. We’ve no problem with that as we want to develop the game in Edinburgh as much as our own club.
“We now have younger brothers and sisters from existing players coming on board and their parents too, taking roles in the club, which can help snowball things. We’re taking them to Dublin so they can see for real the importance, professionalism and the infrastructure the GAA has. We’ll play games with Na Fianna, going to Croke Park for a game or two and hopefully get to meet some of the county players on show.
“We’re trying to establish an Edinburgh sporting club with a community around that, more so than an Irish club just based in Edinburgh. From underage to adult level, want to create a vibrant and competitive GAA club. There’s massive potential in this city and we want to develop things the right way and to a high standard.”
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/d4DqjPzid3E/post.aspx
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