King of the 'Castle 2013

Garrycastle GAA Club has launched a "King of the Castle" competition, to raise money for the funding of the development of underage playing pitches which will commence in April.

The three candidates who will battle it out for the Crown are Gary Dolan, Michael McMenamin and Martin Rhattigan. The lads will raise funds from a series of events over the next six months and the person with most funds raised will be crowned King of Garrycastle.

The size, scope and variety of events will be governed only by their imagination and energy and that of their back up teams.

Gary Dolan will be calling on all Senior and underage players in the club, while Martin Rhattigan already has the backing of the Garrycastle Ladies Club.

Mike McMenamin will call on the Elves, the Chicks and a small but deadly Special ops team comprised of his Army buddies.

At the recent press night, Club Treasurer Michael Mannion, thanked the candidates for allowing their names to go forward and expressed the wish that all involved in the Club would get behind this venture to raise badly needed funds.

"We do not have the luxury of easy bank loans or large overdrafts to facilitate this development and while we are grateful for the €90,000 allocated in funding by the Government, our application and projected costings to finish this development were in the region of €300,000.

We will proceed with stage one which involves development of the playing surfaces and will necessitate raising a further €90,000.

The Annual budget for day to day running of the Club is in the region of €90,000, so we need to raise close to €180,000 this year alone."

Development Committee Chairman, John Henson, said the development was a brave move in the present economic climate, but the Club is determined to continue developing its resources for the benefit of its members.

"We spent 8 years trying to finalise the purchase of the extra land in question and while it was frustrating to have to wait so long, perhaps it was a blessing that we did not get it in the boom years and be tempted to take out huge loans for extensive development.

We will have a constant battle on our hands to raise the necessary funds and to sustain the various fundraising initiatives over the next few years but with the help of all Club members we know we can do it."

The Club Executive will be calling a Special General Meeting in the near future to outline the Clubs five year plan and what is required in order to sustain it. All associated with the Club, past and present, are asked to make a special effort to attend this very important meeting.