Clonee United’s Under 14 Premier boys’ side traveled to Benfica on Thursday morning for a 4 day training camp. In 2015, the Lisbon based team won the award for the world’s best academy and it’s no wonder when you get to see the setup and level of professionalism involved.

The lads were picked up by the incredibly luxurious Benfica team bus from the airport and were transported around in it for the four days.

In total the boys had four training sessions, training sessions of the highest standards and were afforded the luxury of having a club liaison, three coaches and our own physio throughout the trip. They ate in the Benfica player restaurant, got their kit washed between training sessions by the club and have also completed a stadium tour and museum tour at the impressive home ground.

On Saturday morning, the boys played and beat a local Portuguese side 6-0 with some incredible football being played and hit the bar twice as well as the post. Dare scored a hat-trick, Ross scored 2 with Ceilim getting the sixth. The ball rarely left the playing surface for the 70 minutes. The locals were impressed with the standard!

To top it all off the 16 Clonee United players attended the Benfica senior match in the Estadio da Luz stadium on Saturday evening and were back on the training ground again in the morning. It’s been an unbelievable experience where the lads literally lived like professional players for the week. We were hugely impressed with the Benfica staff and how they treated us. The pictures say it all……

Hi,

My name is Paul Dowling and I recently returned from a week-long trip volunteering with the Charity WYCE in The Gambia along with five friends, collectively, the JOAL team. We put out an appeal a few months ago for unwanted football tops/jerseys to bring with us as these are a huge commodity in The Gambia. We were truly amazed by the generosity of individuals and clubs across Ireland & the UK alike. One such club who donated a full kit was Clonee United FC, and I would be very grateful if it was possible to post a short message showing our appreciation and perhaps highlighting our ambition to raise €6,000 to build a new classroom for the local school in Madina Salame over the next two years.

 To give you some context I have included an account of my experience below along with some pictures of the kids in the football tops and some of the volunteering we have done. If you need any more information please feel free to contact me on paul.dowling.92@gmail.com

 Kind Regards,

Paul

 We returned last Wednesday, 30th January from a week in Madina Salam, The Gambia on a six and a half hour flight from Banjul Airport, Gambia’s capital. The Gambia last year was ranked the 12th poorest country in the world with a life expectancy from birth of 61 years. Furthermore, it is one of the few countries in the last 10 years that has actually gotten poorer, surviving on only a very small tourist trade and peanut production.

This was the second visit to The Gambia for most of our group who previously visited in 2017. Given it was my first visit to the country, I was busy absorbing everything going on around me during the hour-long journey from the airport to the village. Everything from the mud-brick huts on the side of the road, to the state of disrepair of virtually every vehicle we passed, to the roads themselves – dirt tracks as we would call them. It was totally new to me, yet this is daily life for everyone there. 

Two years ago, the group shipped a packed container of over 450 bikes, cycle mechanic tools and other supplies. This was a crucial element in the overall plan of training up local villagers to the level of apprentice cycle mechanics in order to provide a service in their villages and income for their families.

Armed with the knowledge from the previous visit this year we chose to bring football tops/jerseys with us. Not only are they an item of clothing when most of their clothing is in rags, but also a jersey is seen as a highly desirable item of clothing in The Gambia. This year thanks to the generosity of Clonee United FC, and many other clubs across the country, along with countless individuals, we collected over 400 tops. A massive 140kgs worth – a good thing we travelled light as we had no room for our own things. The tops were very well received and three football matches were arranged over the days including one for the girls. It was fantastic to see the pleasure they got from them. We would really like to thank everyone who donated tops to the cause.

We stayed in the compound of WYCE, a charity supporting the school and clinic. By our standards, it was “rough”. Cold showers, no lights, a few spiders and even a toad for company one night. By their standards, it was 5 star. 

The school is one of the best around, it’s reputation is probably it’s downfall. In 2017 there were 700 students. Two years on, it is now catering for almost 1000 children, split into two shifts so as everyone can be accommodated, be it at about 50 students per class. We spend a day painting the school and another fixing tables, hanging blackboards, and other odd jobs.

Having observed the capacity challenges faced in accommodating all the school children, we decided while out there to fund the building of a new classroom, a cost of about €6,000. Potentially 500 students could use that every week. The people of Madia Salam are starting to know where Ireland is, they really will when we build their classroom. Anyone wanting to help contribute to a really good cause please feel free:

https://www.gofundme.com/build-a-school-classroom-in-the-gambia-with-joal

Clonee Utd Saturday academy will resume at 10am on 2nd Feb in Ongar community Centre all weather pitches.
Boys and girls born 2012/13/14 Are welcome
Cost €85 for the term which will run until June. Registration is ONLY available online.

https://cloneeunited.com/academy-reg-link/

The Forecast5 fundraising App is now ready for download, just in time to make your World Cup predictions! 

The IOS version is available in the app store by searching for Forecast5 and is available on Android by going to www.forecast5.ie and clicking on the Android link on the home page- it will download to your phone from there!

Clonee United are guaranteeing a prize of €200 for the launch of the Apps i.e. whoever gets the most correct predictions is guaranteed €200 and a main prize of €1,500 for getting all the correct scores.

Week 1’s matches are:

France v Australia

Argentina v Iceland

Peru v Denmark

Croatia v Nigeria

Brazil v Switzerland

Simply go to www.forecast.ie and login/register. Download the iOS/Android app (download links available at www.forecast5.ie)    

For the Android app, click on Google Play icon at www.forecast5.ie and follow the instructions.

We encourage all parents & club members to get your families, friends and work colleagues to enter and make this more fun and a great way of raising much needed funds for Clonee United

Best regards,

Clonee United.

www.cloneeunited.com

Unsubscribe – Please send email to info@cloneeunited.com titled ‘Remove From Email List’

Clonee United continue to fly the flag for Girls football in Dublin 15.

Clonee United closed out their 2017/18 Metropolitan Girls League (MGL) campaign on an otherwise successful season with two relatively low-key Cup-Final defeats for both their U11 and U12 Premier sides.

Despite these defeats Clonee United continue to enjoy success both on and off the pitch, the U13’s side captured the MGL U13A League loosing just one game, the U11 Premier side who suffered the Cup-final pain of a penalty shoot-out loss to Kilnamanagh AFC in the Irish Rail Cup Final, dusted themselves off just a few days later, to consolidate R/up spot in the MGL U11 Premier league ahead of Shelbourne, the U12 Premier (North) finished R/up in the DB Sport Cup and pushed all the way to finish in the top-three in the U12 Premier North league, the U12 Premier (South) reached the U12 MGL Cup Semi-final, and the U15’s completed a 30-game campaign to finish R/up in the MGL U15A leagues.

Off the pitch the Club embarked on their first overseas trip for the Girls, 32 players along with 18 Parents and Coaches form the two U15 Teams enjoyed a three-day trip to Stoke City over the May bank-holiday weekend, during the three days the Girls had the opportunity to train with Stoke City coaches and be “Flag Bearers” at a Premier League game at the Bet365 Stadium between Stoke City V’s Crystal Palace, before visiting Alton Towers on their final day.

Having completed their 6th season in the Metropolitan Girls League (MGL), Clonee United continue to grow, develop and encourage female participation in sport providing all Girl football from U10’s through to U18’s, female participation is also encouraged for younger Girls too in their Saturday morning Academy for Boys and Girls aged between 5 and 8 years. Female involvement is evident on the Coaching side too, coaches of both U12 Premier sides are female, while members of their U15’s and U18’s provide coaching to the Boys and Girls at the Saturday morning Academy.

Providing the opportunity, encouragement and facilities, often cited as some of the main reasons for the lack of female involvement in sport, has proven the catalyst for the growth of Girls football in Clonee United, form its early beginnings in 2012 the Club now provides, training and match day facilities (dressing rooms and toilets etc) at their home pitch’s in Damastown, for over 100 Girls from U10’s to U18 years.

Girls from Clonee Utd enjoy a trip to the Bet365 Stadium to see Stock City V’s Crystal Palace

It was a long awaited game and the SFAI North Leinster Final, with our very own U14P Boys team, couldn’t have gone any better. A huge congratulations to the team and the managers who put in a lot of hard work and we can see that it paid off.

This is a great win for Clonee United and it shows the calibre of players that we have. Keep up the good work and hopefully we can bring the cup home again next year.

Thank you to everyone who made it down to support our team, we know it was hard with the normal weekly matches taking place at the same time. It’s always good to have supporters when we travel away and that is one thing that Clonee United are good at – supporting each other.

After a long wait since the semi Final, Clonee United’s U14P Boys team will contest the SFAI North Leinster Final on 13.05.18 against Kells Blackwater FC in the MDL Grounds, Navan, Co Meath, @10am, This is going to be a cracking game not to be missed, so please make sure you get yourselves down to Navan to watch Stephen and the boys. You support would be very much appreciated.