FAI President on hand to present Newbridge Town FC with FAI Club Mark One Star Award

Newbridge Town FC has taken another major step forward after the club recently received the FAI Club Mark One Star Award earlier this month.

The official presentation, for which FAI President, Paul Cooke, FAI Grassroots Director, Ger McDermott and FAI Facilities Development Manager, Walter Halloran were in attendance, marked the club’s completion of the second phase of the Association’s three-tier accreditation system for grassroots football clubs.

Having previously earned the Club Mark Entry Award that focused primarily on governance and administration, Newbridge set about securing the One Star accreditation that is centred on coaching, player development, child welfare and safeguarding.

Delighted at seeing the club meet all the criteria for his honour, Newbridge Town FC chairperson, Colin Edmonds told The Kildare Nationalist “This award is huge for the club. It’s a huge undertaking, and we had a sub-committee in place to deal with all of this.

“We got the Entry Level Award a couple of years ago and this would have been a continuation of a lot of the work that we would have been done for that. So this has really been going on for the past 18 months.

“With the club receiving this award, it gives our members that bit of peace of mind to know that the club has those structures in place, and hopefully they can see that we’re trying to do things in the best possible way.

“All of this is for the players. The better the coaches, the better the sessions and the better the players are going to be.

“That’s the big thing we’re trying to drive at the moment. It’s all about player development.

“In terms of coaching, we’re looking to get all of our coaches as much coaching experience and qualifications as is necessary.

“There’s the FAI coaching badges that everybody can do and so we try to run a lot of those in-house and the FAI have been very helpful in that regard.

“We recently appointed Paul Roberts as Director of Underage Coaching to offer support and guidance to our underage coaches.

“We’ve 31 underage teams at the moment, and for us, it’s about making sure that they all get the same amount of attention and the best level of coaching that we can provide” he stressed.

With 31 underage teams, three senior men’s sides (two of which compete in the Leinster Senior League), one senior women’s team and an academy that caters for boys and girls aged 5-8 years, Newbridge Town FC caters for more than 700 members.

Among the facilities the club boasts are three grass pitches, along with a full-size astro pitch and a smaller astro surface that can accommodate 9-a-side fixtures.

Their underage teams compete in the Dublin and District Schoolboy/Girls League, something Edmonds insists affords them the highest level of competition.

“You’re playing against the top schoolboy teams in the country” Edmonds pointed out.

“You’re travelling up to them every second week, but we also have those teams travelling down to us and they’re seeing the facilities we have. It’s opening their eyes as much as anything else as to what we have.

“We tend to say that we’re lucky with the facilities that we have, and we are, when we compare ourselves to other clubs, not just soccer, but sport in general.

“But it’s not really down to luck. We’ve had brilliant people involved over the years. We’ve had huge support from individuals, businesses, local politicians around the community” he added.

Having now become an FAI One Star club, Newbridge Town FC, which is celebrating 55 years on the go this season, will soon be looking to complete the Club Mark programme and scoop the Two Star honour.

“That was kind of the parting shot when we all left the presentation night last week” remarked Edmonds.

“This is now the start of the next stage. Once we let everybody relax for a little while, we’ll have a look at the next side of it and see what it takes exactly to bring us to the next level.

“That’s the key for all clubs, trying to look ahead to the future, trying to progress and see how we can improve as a club” he said.