It was at this time last year that the Leeds AFC committee spoke about the upcoming 30th anniversary of the club and what we would like to do and events we might go ahead with.
The 30th anniversary year has had many highlights. A Cork City FC XI visited the club to play against the Seniors & Juniors in February. The club committee were invited to City Hall to a reception with the Lord Mayor and the Lord Mayor’s office have been a great help to the club during the year. We had a fabulous day for the yearly Academy blitz in June, a monster race night was held during the year, several competitions were run in conjunction with some of our fantastic sponsors and we had a great day for the annual Schoolboys awards with Gary Buckley of Cork City and ex- Leeds AFC giving out the awards.
We recently had a massively successful Christmas draw which brought much needed revenue in to the club so one mention here that we do require registration fees to be paid and so will be revisiting any unpaid registration fees in January. The club continued the work with COPE and has now adopted the motto "A Place of Football for All" to highlight the inclusive nature of the club as we lead the way in cork in the Football for All Initiative.
The 30th anniversary dinner dance was such a massive success and a fantastic PR exercise for the club with all local Cork footballing bodies in attendance. Guest of Honor and speaker was John Delaney, FAI Chief Executive Officer, who we know is a firm ally of the club. John was overwhelmed by the genuine reception he got on the night and great credit must be given to all the committee for making the night such a great success.
Looking back now over the past year, I think we can safely say we have had a fantastic year in the promotion of the club. The Academy under Director James Fogarty and his very experienced coaches have given the club a great buzz on the weekends and with so many well coached players coming through, this will only benefit Leeds AFC teams in the very near future.
Every team at the club has given their all during the year and while it is nice to win, once everyone gives it their all, that is all we can ask.
We've had success this year with the U9's winning the Cork Cup and the Adult Juniors winning the League cup in an absolute thriller of a game in November.
Thank you to all managers, coaches and parents who helped out with the voluntary work that you continue to do week in week out. Let’s not forget that all of us are here on a voluntary basis for the benefit of the club and the community.
Over the years, like so many other clubs, it felt that there were clubs within the club. This is something we wanted to change and improving communication was key to making sure that everyone received the same message.
Our facebook page and website have gone from strength to strength and we now have a club text which further helps communication on club news and I thank everyone who is connected with the development of our social media platforms.
Looking forward to 2017, the club will be continuing to work on the development of the grounds. Some work was done in recent weeks on fencing, new all-weather pitch lighting and initial work on a new training pitch facility. We hope to be able to give more good news in the year ahead but rest assured we are working hard to improve facilities at the club.
A sincere thank you to all involved in the daily upkeep of the grounds and pitches as well. Hopefully no one has been excluded but if so it was not intentional.
Finally, we want to thank the players and parents for being a part of Leeds AFC. We can safely say that a lot of us know each other better now than we did this time last year and that is a major success for the year.
Watch Leeds AFC's 30th Anniversary Video HERE
Ger Meany - Vice-Chairman - Leeds AFC Cork