< Previous© January 2019 The Meath Coaster50East Meath Unitedwww.instagram.com/eastmeathunitedwww.twitter.com/EastMeathUnitedwww.facebook.com/eastmeathunitedfcAnnual Awards & PresentationOur annual awards & presenta-tions for 2018 took place in Reddans in Bettystown on Sun 9th Dec. Our annual Sports Awards have grown to be an excellent event recognising the brilliance of our sporting teams & players, not just those who won awards, cups or Leagues but to all who made an effort to perform, get fit, participate or volunteer. We have successfully managed to ‘Raise our Game’, with the support of everyone in Minnistown and also to our sponsors. Sport, by its very nature, is about participation. It is about inclusion and plays a vital role in becoming part of club & community. Well done to all the winning recipients that won NDSL leagues & cups & while those that may be not recognised this year, let 2019 be your turn. Thanks to everybody that helped organise this event & to all the sponsors that donated the prizes for the raffle. All of the images can be located on our social media pages.Volunteers, its can be thankless !Recently at the end of one of our Academy session we spoke about the role of a “club volunteer” and they impact they can play within the club. From our Academy right through to our oldest age groups & not forgetting our recently formed EMU Belles these kind of training morn-ings or evenings cannot function without help & those that volun-teer. Effective Volunteers play an essential and pivotal role in suc-cessful clubs. Many spend an inordinate amount of time executing their duties with little by way of support, or appreciation for their efforts. As a result, it is be-© January 2019 The Meath Coaster51coming increasingly difficult to attract and retain volunteers for our clubs. Why become a volunteer at EMU ? Most peo-ple who volunteer in soccer clubs do so because they have played themselves and want to give something back to the Club or because their child is playing for the Club. Some people work in Clubs because of a sense of pride in their community and/or because they love the game. In order to recruit volunteers effectively, clubs need to emphasise the benefits that volunteer-ing provides. There are many benefits to being a volunteer in a Club: social contact with like minded people; feeling pride at a Clubs growth; an opportunity to coach fu-ture stars; being able to pass on skills and knowledge of the game. However, one of the most important benefits to being a volunteer in a Club is that you have an impact on the ethos of the Club – which in turn impacts your child’s formation or your community. Still interested ? Talk to someone anytime at EMU.cause too. This years selected charity was donated to Boyne View House.. For the match itself all managers & coaches were selected to play for Internationale & Lazio. The football on show may not be quiet at Serie A level but every single one of the guys gave it their all.. After the game it was into the Red Card Cafe for some well earned hot drinks, & a visit later to Gilna's to discuss how brilliant we all were. Inter may have ran our 3-1 win-ners, but in baltic conditions, club spirit, football & charity where the real winners. Thanks to all the help run this event, from donations to sponsorships, to the coaches and those that attended, & to Santa’s little Elf who referred the match. All of the ac-tion images can be located on our social media.Managers Xmas Charity GameOur annual coaches charity game took place before Xmas & what a display of football by all. An important event that takes place in Minnistown & a worthy End of An Era For DaveAs a member of the PROMEDIA team for our club I cannot let this one pass but to acknowledge & pass on our good wishes to our out going Director of Football in Minnistown Dave Gaffrey. Dave has de-cided time is up on the Director side after © January 2019 The Meath Coaster52our most recent AGM, but we'll still have him as a coach within the club. I've not been in the club too long, in fact July 2017, but i've got to know Dave well enough to see how much time & effort he has given to EMU as a volunteer, in every capacity you could think of. You could kind of say Dave is Mr EMU, in which I hope is fair to say. Chelsea had Michael Emenalo, whilst Roma has Monchi, we had Dave, which you can't get any better than that around the "Gold Coast”. In life things are taken for granted, not everything is ap-preciated, little things like "thanks & well done" goes a long way. Thanks Dave for all that you have done for EMU.East Meath on TourJust before Xmas a group of 29 (com-prised of coaches, players and parents/grandparents) from our u13 Tigers and u14 Titans, boarded their minibus in Laytown for the start of what would be a most memorable football trip. The first leg of their odyssey was the calm crossing of the Irish Sea to Holyhead and from their they travelled onto Anfield for a fantastic tour of the Red's home ground. From their they journeyed onto a town called Leigh and their Holiday Inn Ex-press Base for the weekend. Sas, the bus driving legend from Thurles, informed the group over dinner that Man Utd u23s were playing Newcastle across the road from the hotel so the group happily added this bonus visit to the packed itinerary and watched some premiership rising stars before departing for their own game of football on the local astro pitch (all pre arranged and paid in advance by our has-sle free tour operators, Marathon Sports Travel). Saturday was another fun filled day which included a visit to the national football museum in Manchester followed by a quick pit stop at Old Trafford (for the Utd fans) before heading back to Liverpool to take in a premiership clash between Ever-ton and Brighton. Post match food and entertainment came in the form of a visit to the expansive Trafford centre where the group enjoyed bowling and dinner. Sunday morning came all too soon and it was time to head back to Holyhead for the return sailing but not before a stop in Liverpool on the way so the boys could attend a dedicated coaching session put on for them by the Hugh McCauley acad-emy (Hugh was former Liverpool youth coach and saw Steven Gerard amongst others come through the ranks). The boys were put through their paces and really enjoyed the 1.5hr session. The group were returned to Laytown for 6:30pm accom-panied by memories that last for many years to come. A brilliant trip that was en-joyed as much by the adults as it was by the boys. §© January 2019 The Meath Coaster53Laytown & Bettystown Lawn Tennis ClubOn December 1st Laytown & Bettystown Lawn Tennis Club was transformed into a winter wonderland all in aid of its annual Christmas Fun-draiser . This year we were delighted to hold it in aid of Drogheda Cares For The Homeless. This is a voluntary outreach group that supports people and families in the Drogheda area who are homeless, in emergency accommodation or on the breadline. They supply support 7 days a week be it by providing a hot meal twice a week, clean clothing, take-away essen-tials or simply a friendly face and listen-ing ear . So despite the rain , members came out in force to support this wonderful evening. Some brave souls ventured out to play so-cial tennis whilst others enjoyed the ambi-ance in the clubhouse. Everyone was then treated to a lovely meal and Christmas drinks before we retired to the golf club bar to hold our monster raffle . We were delighted to be joined by Ronnie & Maria two members of Drogheda Cares For The Homeless and Ronnie gave an insight into the great work that they do. Every year we are overwhelmed by peo-ple’s generosity and this year was no ex-ception - our prize table was overflowing with fabulous raffle prizes and we can’t thank enough all the local businesses and people who donated such wonderful priz-es. Many thanks also to Andy Wilkinson who provided great musical entertainment on the night .Huge thanks to everyone who made this night a great success and we were de-lighted to present DCFTH with a cheque for €2400 - this is going to make a huge difference to so many particularly at this time of year . §© January 2019 The Meath Coaster54Stamullen Football ClubClub news We had a fantastic end of year awards night for the boys teams in Whyte’s function room to commemorate the end of their seasons. It was a terrific night with players from under 7 all the way up to un-der 13 attending. The boys teams are tak-ing a break for December but lots of teams are playing in the futsal leagues in January to get some practice in before we kick off the new season in March. The girl’s teams are still battling away in the winter condi-tions and are seeing great results.fidence in them to play with the ball and participate as much as possible. This has been their first experience of playing matches and they have really enjoyed playing with their friends against teams such as our local rivals; East Meath Unit-ed, Laytown, and Balscadden.Stuart and Harry's under 8’sWe had a good season with its fair share of ups and downs, a steep learning curve for all (players and coaches). But through it all win lose or draw the lads had good fun and always had smiles on their faces at end of each game. Keep up the good work and we'll see you all for the new sea-son ahead.Stephen and John’s under 8’sThis was our Under 8s first season togeth-er and they have done fantastically well. After starting the year in the B league, they were moved into the A league which didn't faze them at all. They have come up against some fantastic sides but have performed extremely well. We work hard Team round ups.As the boy’s season comes to a close, we are doing a round up of the younger boys teams this edition and will give a round up of the older boys teams next edition.Matt and Martins under 7’sStamullen FC U7's - This was the first time that the NDSL invited clubs to enter a team in the under 7 age category. The coaches have focused on developing the kids basic skills and tried to sinstil con-© January 2019 The Meath Coaster56at playing a passing game and all the kids have taken this on board. We have all en-joyed our first season together and have a bright future ahead with a lot of talented players that have shone throughout the year. The team has progressed brilliantly in all areas and we all look forward to an-other great season in 2019.Nic and Kieron’s under 9’sWe have now completed our second full season, this time in the U9 Summer league, during which we once again fin-ished with a very high percentage of posi-tive results. The non-competitive, twin-game league format allowed our players to have almost full playing time, which helped everyone to develop and improve constantly. Thanks to that, we were also able to have much more focused and en-joyable training sessions. Towards the lat-ter part of the season we achieved a very constructive and constant level which the boys should be proud of. During the long summer break, we took the opportunity to prepare the team for next seasons 7-a-side format by partaking in a local friendly league, played at a very good standard and with like-minded teams. We cannot wait for next season to start!Big congratulations to every player: Ralph, Cooper, Caelan, Tommy, Tom, Bobby, Cian C, Cian D, Liam MC, Liam R, Kevin, Callum, Christian and Harry, not to forget Alice who started the season with us, and a huge thank you to all par-ents for the fantastic support.Ger and Johns under 9’sThis is our last season as U9’s. We had another wonderful season at top flight. We trained very hard for the whole sea-son to prepare ourselves for 7v7 next year by playing many friendly matches against our local rivals. We also narrowly missed out on penalties in the semi final of the Laytown Seaside Cup.Players wanted!!!!We are looking for new players born 2009 please contact the club on the details be-low for more information. Seniors newsAfter an inconsistent start, our seniors are in a steady position at the top half of the table in 4th at the Christmas break as they aim for the summit by the end of the season with 2 thirds of their league fixtures still to play. They are aiming to make the last 32 of the Leinster Junior Shield when they host Wexford side Rosbercon in January after a tough tussle from their fellow league opponents Dingle United, beating them 2-0 in their own back yard in the previous round. 2019 also brings the “Frank Roe” cup quarter-final away to Dingle and with another league cup competition in the form of the “Unidare” cup to take part in, our seniors have a lot of opportunities to bring home silverware at the end of the season. §© January 2019 The Meath Coaster58Laytown United SFCwww.laytownunitedsfc.com / www.facebook.com/LaytownUnitedSFCAs we embark on the New Year, the year of our 10th Anniversary, we are all well rested from Christmas and we have had a chance to reflect on 2018, and what a massive year it was for us. We had so many memorable moments last year and as a club we are extremely proud of the progress we have made both on and off the pitch. We have now more teams than ever in-cluding our first ever girls team, our u14’s and u13’s Premier teams were promoted to the new Elite leagues in their age groups, Darren Rowley was the first ever Laytown Utd FC player to compete in the Kennedy Cup, we recognised Darren’s achieve-ments at our end of year presentation. We hosted our second annual Seaside Cup Tournament and our u11’s won the cup in their category. We have restructured our Academy under the direction of Andy Cawley and the numbers are greater than ever before. We had two teams our u13’s and u14’s Premier teams play their SFAI Cup games at Drogheda United.We also proved our-selves as a dedicated community club, the two most prominent events being the Memo-rial Match in memory of Max Mason, which raised in excess of €10,000 for the youth mental health char-ity Jigsaw and the Charity Raffle at our Christmas Party which raised €800+ all proceeds from this went directly to Slav and his family. © January 2019 The Meath Coaster59There was great excitement as we were the first club in the country to launch our very own Match Attax style sticker album our players and coaches will have these pre-cious keepsakes for many years to come. After 6 months the extreme hard work by our fundraising team came to a climax on 26th October in the City North Hotel when we hosted the The Kube, the feedback we have received since then has been amazing and we were blown away by the support we received, thank you so much to everyone who played a part, especially to our Main event sponsor Alan Mullen and Sons Builders LTD, we are looking forward to building on this for next year. We ran a little competition amongst the teams throughout this fundraising venture and Our u8s were the team who generated the most cash through ticket sales and sponsorship so a special thank you to their coach Simon Graham and to their representatives Lee Conroy, Owen Graham and Stephen Ormsby and all who supported them, the team were rewarded with a set of half zip training tops. Thank you to Spraoi Bettystown for very kindly sponsoring our full u14 squad with new training jacketsWe are looking to add Players to a number of our teams, for more in-formation on this please check our Fa-cebook page We would like to wish all our mem-bers a very Happy and prosperous 2019. §Next >