VALLEY ROVERS

Valley Rovers Praised

• Jul 14,2011

Well done to Valley Rovers players and Parents for their part in the recent Feile Peil. Congratulatiosns to St Enda's and thank you for the acknowlegement in the Gaelic life  Article below.

 

The All-Ireland u-14 division two champions St Enda’s took to the field at half time during the Antrim Carlow qualifier match to receive the adulation of the crowd.
All-Ireland titles are a novelty in the Saffron county, and this victory should be a massive fillip not only for the St Enda’s club, but Antrim as well. St Enda’s manager Gerard McNulty certainly thinks so.
“I would say that it is the biggest achievement. I was speaking to Enda McAtamney, he played county football including an u-21 Ulster final, he was one of the coaches of our team. He said it is the club’s greatest achievement.
“When we went down my expectation was that if we were to get past the group stages I would be surprised. It wasn’t what we expected.”
St Enda’s beat their hosts, Valley Rovers in their first game, then the saw off the highly fancied St Vincent’s of Offaly in the second game.
“The people at Valley Rovers told us if we beat St Vincent’s then we would have no problem beating the two other Cork teams in the group.”
That’s what they did, and then they thought they had a few hours to spare until the 6.30pm semi-final against New York who had played one game that day compared to St Enda’s three. But things got out of hand.
“We finished our game at 2.30 we thought we had a bit of time. We rang them, just in case, and found out that it had been moved forward and was now on at 5. The parents came down, picked up the kids, got them some pasta and chicken and had them back in time for the semi-final against New York. The people were unbelievable. We played brilliant football but we would not have won were it not for the help of Valley Rovers.”
The New York team had beaten Cross at the group stages level, so McNulty knew that this was going to be a physical game. However, he had some insider information.
“I was in Philadelphia with St Malachy’s last year and I knew the way the Americans played, it was all hand-passing.”
St Enda’s won that game 0-7 to 0-1 to set up the final against Newcastlewest.
Two senior players had made the trip down to see the semi-final, and McNulty only noticed them after the match. They had found out about the semi-final appearance and raced down to Cork. But even more followed them when news filtered back about the final
“There were lots of people from the club who came down, who closed up their shops and their businesses and travelled down.”
A local newspaper even made links with a Cork media outlet and had a running commentary on the internet via a phone link.
When St Enda’s won, the organisation for the party that Saturday night began almost immediately.
“But the biggest challenge for us now is how we are going to build upon this. This experience has made the players realise what they could achieve. It has also made others realise what the GAA means and how it works.
“The whole experience was unreal. A lot of people told us to make sure that our kids got the experience of a Féile. It was something else. During the four days we were just blown away, by the facilities, by the parade, by everything.

Source: http://www.gaeliclife.com/2011/07/14/st-endas-all-ireland-champs/