Appeal to allow youngsters play in community games

An under-10 gaelic football team formed especially to enter the Community Games have been left devastated after a minor error made in the application process ruled them out of the competition. Volunteers with the Ardee based team are making a last desperate appeal to the organisation to find some way around the issue so that the group of eight and nine-year-old children can participate and not face the bitter disappointment of being left out.

Michael Lundon who manages the team explained that they are the first Louth team to enter any event in 16 years and has appealed to the community games to talk to them so they can find some way around so that the 16 children who have been training and looking forward to the games can still play. 'It is so frustrating. They are not engaging with us at all. They won't answer our calls or emails.'

Mr Lundon explained that the local secretary entered the team in April well in advance of the closing date. However, even though the team was the only one from Louth and entered on the system as Louth nominees, they should have been 'pulled' over on the system to the 'winners column' and this did not happen at county level. Mr Lundon said it was basically that they had not been moved from column 'b' to 'c'. The mistake was discovered the day after the closing date but despite many phone calls and emails over the past two weeks, they have had no joy in resolving it so that the youngsters can play.

'Initially, they led us to believe we could organise a meeting to get us back in but a week later they confirmed that the meeting couldn't take place.

'We feel badly let down. They won't engage at all. If they would even approach us and say hard luck, there's nothing we can do.'

Louth were due to be in a group with Longford and Meath, who went ahead and played their game. Louth had understood that they got a 'bye' and would play the winners of Longford and Meath but the tournament changed to a 'round-robin' without them being notified as they hadn't been pulled across on the system.

Mr Lundon hopes there may be some way around before the semi-finals which take place in Carlow on 1st July.

He came up with the idea of entering a team in the community games and approached six local clubs to nominate players. They held a number of training sessions and even designed and purchased a set of jerseys with the children's names on them.

'The children were so excited. We were training away and had three challenge matches. We designed a kit and got sponsorship from the clubs and everything was good. Then the day after the competition closed, we got a letter from Leinster to say we didn't do it correctly. In early April they changed the structure of the competition and the rules. We were the only Louth nominees but our name should have been moved from column b to column c and wasn't.'

The Louth team had  expected to play the winners of Longford and Meath between the 4th and 19th June and didn't know the structure of the competition had been changed.

'We are upset for the kids. We don't want to let them down. myself and Willie Martin spent a lot of time over the past two weeks making calls and sending emails but they are not getting back to us.'

Local secretary Trudi McGuinness said: 'This could have been rectified early on. There is still time to rectify it so the kids aren't disappointed. The ethos of the community games is participation for all children. There are 16 children all geared up to play a game with their new kit bought with donations from the different clubs and they won't get to wear their kit.'

To give the youngsters a chance to travel to an away match and wear their kit, a challenge match has been organised against the Meath team from Ashbourne next Friday night.

The National Community Games organisation was contacted by the Meath Chronicle but has not yet responded.