From our Chairman to you. His fantastic energy and drive continues to bring the Club forward every day: Chairman Aidan O'Looney looks back on a special year for the Club.
Thank you and well done to everyone who played their part this season!
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The Raheny United 2021/2022 season was a very successful one:
The U13.2 team won their league gaining promotion to the U14 Intermediate league.
The U14.8 side also gained promotion by winning their league.
The U18s completed the league and cup double.
The U21s won their league and were narrowly beaten in their cup final.
5 teams reached cup finals with the U16s and U18s winning their respective cups. The two U11 teams were very unlucky in their finals.
The U17s were promoted to U18 Premier.
The U8s were promoted to the top league mid-season, now giving us a team in the top division at U8s, U9s and U10s for the 2022/2023 season.
The Academy continues to prosper under the leadership of Paul McAtee, feeding players through to the younger age groups. We ensured all managers enhanced their coaching ability through attendance at the FAI PDP courses: we ran 2 x PDP1, a PDP2 and a PDP3 course. In addition, Paul ran a series of Coach-to-Coach sessions with the support of Paul McGovern. The Committee thanks all managers and assistants who generously give their time ensuring the foundations are in place for players to fulfill their potential.
Kevin Kiely has driven the strength and conditioning programme for U15s teams upwards, adding a new dimension to how we train the older teams. The result is a significant improvement in performances. We are introducing video analysis next season to further assist the development of players and teams.
The new Senior Women's team, supported by Cadbury, has got off to a great start to the season. The girl's section is growing from strength to strength with 8 teams competing this year. I would like to welcome Andrew Byrne who has recently joined the committee as Senior Women's Director. We plan to grow each age group over the coming years. Furthermore, congratulations to all of our Club members who took part in Sky Ireland's first advertisement for women's football in the country.
Our Senior Men's section has a great season with our Leinster Senior League Sunday team finishing second and winning promotion and our Athletic Union League Saturday team winning their league.
On individual achievements, I would like to congratulate David Combey on his call up to the Togo U20 squad for the African Cup of Nations qualifiers. Aibhilin Leahy, Sarah Coughlan and Ciara Murray were called up to the Metropolitan Girls League representative squad.
The 2022 Mini Leagues is the largest one we have run with 570 kids participating. A massive thank you to our four sponsors: Glenbrier Construction, Castlerock, O'Leary Maher Law Firm and Adam's Pharmacy and our kit suppliers Balon Sports who provided all players with new jerseys. So many, too numerous to mention, have put in so much time and effort to make Raheny United a fantastic club, none of which could be achieved without the great support of all of our sponsors.
A special thank you to the Executive Committee who have worked tirelessly to keep the Club progressing. Peter McCarthy and Gareth Fitzpatrick, fixture secretaries, have done a wonderful job. Eoin Leeson, social media manager, has increased the club profile through all social media platforms and the introduction of the monthly newsletter. The Raheny Sport Alliance committee have maintained and organised the Astro impeccably. Chuck O'Dwyer and Balon have supplied the highest standard of match and training gear throughout the year which we are very grateful for.
I would like to thank Billy Ward and Paul Nolan, who have stepped down from the committee, for all their hard work. They guided the club through a very difficult period, the Covid pandemic, leaving the club in a robust financial position.
Finally, the Club was delighted to make a number of charitable donations this year. In aid of the crisis in Ukraine, 40 sets of football boots, shin guards and gear were donated to St. Joseph's School Fairview and €400 was contributed to the Raheny Business Charity Golf Event. In addition, through our Last Man Standing competitions organised by James Coates, we donated €210 to St. Michael's House Raheny, €325 to Grafton Street Kitchen, €325 to Focus Ireland and €500 to Jigsaw.
I hope everyone enjoys their summer and we all look forward to a very exciting 2022/2023 season.
Yours in sport,
Aidan O'Looney | Chairman
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