A new dawn for Crookstown Millview AC
Holly Wright signs autographs for fans after winning bronze in the discus at the National Senior Championships.
Crookstown Millview Athletics Club are one of the rising powers in all of Kildare sport, a cornerstone of their local community, and a launching pad for some of the county’s premier athletes.
The highlight of the club’s recent success came in front of a record crowd in Dublin’s Morton Stadium at the National Senior Championships, where Holly Wright captured bronze in the discus. Wright has been competing in the National Seniors for the past three years and secured a place on the podium with a brilliant throw of 42.64m.
“Holly's been a fantastic athlete for us; she's picked up numerous medals both in discus and shot put. She's just been focusing mainly on discus in the last number of years and she's there and there abouts, knocking on the door all the time,” Chairperson of Crookstown Millview AC, Deirdre McDonald, told The Kildare Nationalist.
Ms McDonald was also quick to highlight the incredible success the club has enjoyed at juvenile level, with an astonishing number of National medals delivered in the past month alone, including seven individual medals and three team medals.
Tullamore was the venue for the All-Ireland Track and Field Championships, the All-Ireland ‘B’ Track and Fields, and the All-Ireland Relay Championships, with Crookstown Millview taking home a total of four golds, four silvers and two bronze, the highlights being the national ‘A’ titles for Rachel Beattie and Blessed Nlyeva.
Beattie came into her own with her final jump, leaping 5.64m to set a new personal best (PB) to become the U18 Long Jump Champion with just 9cm to spare. Nlyeva also set a new PB when he crossed the line in 11.07 to claim the U16 100m Gold, half a second ahead of second place.
There were further podium finishes for Florence Harte, who jumped 10.73m to claim silver in the U16 Triple Jump Silver, while Finian Sexton set a new PB with a jump of 12.15m to take bronze in the U17 Triple Jump.
There were two victories in the ‘B’ Championships as well, where Charlie O’Neill jumped 5.57m to set a new PB and win gold in the U16B Long Jump, while Fia Handy also set new PB on her way to U15B Shot Putt gold, jumping 4.56m to finish 15cm ahead of second place. John Brannigan rounded out the event with a new PB of his own in the U15B Shot Putt, with a throw of 10.19m earning him a silver medal.
The success continued at the All-Ireland Relays where the Boys U17 team (Dáire Molloy, Finian Sexton, Matthew Osadolor, Blessed Nleya, Charlie Murphy, Dominic Binns) took silver, finishing in 44.64, less than half a second behind off victory.
There was also silver for the Girls U14 team (Amy Dunne, Georgia Coughlan, Caoimhe Conroy, Ella Murphy, Roisín Allen, Amy Havens) in a race that required a photo finish to decide the ultimate winners.
A bronze medal for the Boys U16 team (Charlie Murphy, Dominic Binns, Charlie O'Neill, Blessed Nleya, Oisin McGrath, Oliver Guing) brought the curtain down for Crookstown Millview and marked a significant improvement for group.
“We've really been punching way above what would be expected of us,” Ms McDonald said. “We go to All-Irelands now and expect to be medaling, or at least to be getting top-six's or top-eight's right across the board.”
The name ‘Crookstown Millview’ is in homage to the old Millview club that existed in the 1940s and 50s; and the club, in its present guise, have come a long way since their establishment almost half a century ago.
“We were at different farmer's fields for the first few years,” Ms McDonald explained. “Then it moved to Crookstown in the early ‘80s; there was a committee, and locally they gathered some money and the club bought this piece of land in trust. So, it's held in trust for the community.
“You had the likes of Paddy Doyle; Paddy was an absolute phenomenon with Crookstown Millview. He's passed away now, but he was into his 90s when he passed and even up to that time, Paddy was trying to come down to the club. He was a huge part of Crookstown Millview.
“Since then, we've tried, but it just hasn't developed as quickly as we would like. We've been pushing now to go after grants and go after money and try and develop it. We have everything down there - we've outdoor long jump, we've outdoor shot put, we have hammer throwing circle, we have all of that.
"But we need to upgrade everything. We don't even have proper toilets - we've had a portable building there for years with toilets.”
Those sought-after changers are beginning to come through, as a new day is dawning on the Crookstown Millview. The club are in the process of finalising their new indoor training facility at their Pike’s Bridge grounds in Narraghmore.
Having been awarded planning permission, the club successfully applied for a Sports Capital Grant, receiving €157,800 before putting the project out to tender.
“This is just the first phase,” Ms McDonald explained. “We couldn't do everything we wanted in this phase - we just didn't have enough funds.
“It's a long, drawn-out process, and thankfully we have a lady, Bernie Dillon, who has been looking after it for us - she's been brilliant.” The new building is approximately 33 metres in length by 12 metres in width with facilities for an indoor long jump pit, a high jump and long jump mats, indoor shott putt and more.
“Now we can train all winter long,” Ms McDonald beamed. “The plan is to be able to do our warm-up drills there, our hurdle drills and our strength and conditioning. We won't have all of this immediately, but this facility will allow us to do all of that.” The Chairperson says this new development will be “massively transformative” for the club, particularly in the increasingly turbulent Irish winters.
“It'll allow us to really focus for the kids, especially on the technical events, long jump, high jump, even hurdles, drills. The area where we are there in Narraghmore, that was a reclaimed bog, and when the weather is so bad, like last year, we just couldn't use the track.”
Phase 2 of the project will see the installation of toilets, which itself requires the installation of a water treatment system, with consideration being given to upgrading the track and floodlights. But all these projects cost money.
The club are trying to raise €100,000 in additional funds, with Ms McDonald telling us, “To be honest, we still need anything up to (€100,000) to finish off the whole thing, because we have borrowed some money now and we have outstanding debts. I'd say we're going to need another 50 or 60,000 even just to clear Phase 2.
“We're hoping to maybe sell little plaques with people’s name inside the building; we have been doing a GoFundMe; we're also selling advertisements at the track as well. Every penny that we can get from anywhere is needed really.
“But I think sometimes, until people actually go and start to see the build, see it with their own eyes, then they’ll think ‘oh yeah, I'll give something now.’ We'll have an open day whenever we get everything that in place and when we do officially open it that will drive more interest as well, and hopefully people might come on board to help us.”
Ms McDonald also confirmed that the club are on the lookout for sponsorship, saying, “We're crying out for a company to come on board and really give us a good injection. You couldn't get a better sport; the kids that are involved in it, the parents, there's just a great atmosphere. People that are not involved in athletics don't realise what fun the kids have."
“We have anything up to 200 members at the minute and we're growing all the time,” Ms McDonald said.
“We take in (athletes) from all the way around South Kildare and into West Wicklow as we are just on the border there. There’s a huge catchment area there for us, because there’s no athletics clubs in that area at all - there's none in Kilcullen, there's none in Athy, there's none in Castledermot.”
Crookstown Millview rely on a care group of ten coaches, led by Neil Taylor. “Neil’s a fantastic sprint coach,” Ms McDonald said.
“He does the coaching for the long jumps, triple jumps as well. He's been a huge help, and we've had tremendous success right across the field events, sprints, relays - we've had huge success there for the last number of years.
“We have little athletes from the age of five up to eight, that trains every Tuesday evening, and that group has been growing and growing. We probably have up to 60 kids in that group. All the other athletes train on Monday and Wednesday nights.
“We mainly focus on juveniles now - we will have athletes who compete senior, but we haven't been working on that - but that will be in our plan now to accommodate people that maybe might want to join, even just older athletes that might want to come and fit for life and that kind of stuff.
“The new facilities will probably help with that, but it's really more a coaching thing and a time thing; but in our plan as we grow as a club, will be to bring that piece back into the club.”
