Dec 24th – Watergrasshill United Year in Review

Watergrasshill United goes from strength to strength in 2012

2012 has been a successful year for Watergrasshill United, from the 14th of January when we returned to training up until the first week of December when our U16’s wrote club history by winning the National Area Cup final and progressing into the last 32 of the National Cup.

It was a year in which we saw our membership grow to over 300 members and were we were able to invest heavily in our Skehanagh Park premises with upgraded floodlights, dugouts, signage and ground works. All to facilitate our boys and girls academy players, our CSL and junior teams. Our upgraded Skehanagh facilities were made available to the wider Watergrasshill community to host the inter school tournaments and the very successful over 35 parish league won by Glenville.

Our U7 (2 teams), U8, U9 and U10 participated in the CSL Small Sided Games (SSG) leagues from the start of April to the end of May. This non competitive league is a great experience for our academy players and we saw great progress of our academy players during this 8 week period. All teams performed to a high standard and are a credit to their coaches and parents.

Our U11's secured 1st place in the non-competitive CSL league and our Watergrasshill United U15 team completed a remarkable season by clinching the U15 CSL division 3 Title with a hard fought 2-2 draw away to reigning 3 times CSL champions Macroom. A well deserved league triumph for a team that have been together for the last 6 years and proved a triumph of perseverance, hard work, skill and determination. The team finished with a true league record of 11 wins, two draws and a goal difference of 92 scored and 17 against.

In May we organized the Fashion show together with the Watergrashill National School Parents Association and we would like to thank everyone who supported, sponsored and participated in one of our most successful community fundraising events. Another successful event was our annual presentation night during the start of June in the new Watergrasshill Arts center. Here we presented all academy players with their medals and player awards to our team players of the year.

Our summer camp, traditionally during the first week of July, was a great success again with over 140 boys and girls participating. 5 days of non competitive games, training, team sports and fun organized for community by the community.

Our Girl Academy continues to excel and this year, for the first time, our older girls are participating in the Cork Women & Schoolgirls Soccer League (C.W.S.S.L) and Futsal league. They wrote history for the club when they played their first competitive league since the formation of Watergrasshill United, back in 2004. As coaches, it's imperative we keep this great group of girls together and playing for Watergrasshill United and to date this has been down to the great weekly work of Jackie & Ber over the past few years.

Since October our academy teams are competing in the Futsal competition organized by the CSL in the Sports Village on Model Farm Road. This indoor competition will take place during the winter months and each team will play 1 game every 4 weeks. These non-competitive indoor matches are all about team work and passing, great skills that our players will need once they return to the outdoor CSL Small Sided Games (SSG) leagues in the next year.

Another highlight for the year was the selection of our Watergrasshill United U12 Player Sean Desmond for the Cork Development Squad. A great honor for both Sean and for the club and it is well deserved opportunity for him to further develop his footballing abilities. Sean is a tremendously skillful player and has been our man of the match on many many occasions and his passion for the game and likeable personality is a fantastic example to his team mates.

Just recently on Dec 1st Watergrasshill United U16’s created club history with a tremendous win in the National Area Cup final win over Leeside. Both teams finished 2-2 after the allotted 80 minutes.
Extra time went on with very little between two evenly matched sides. Finally in the very last minute with the dreaded penalty shoot out looking very likely Watergrasshill were awarded a free kick a good 35 yards out. Up stepped Dylan O’Donovan and with a great shot that deceived the keeper scored to win the game in the most dramatic of fashions. Hard luck to Leeside but Watergrasshill United are proudly into the last 32 of the National Cup and can now play any one of 31 other teams from Cork to Donegal home or away early in the new year. As Cork have only 5 National Cup representatives per age group and over 70 teams are eligible to compete for these places it can be seen it is a brilliant achievement for our U16s to get this far. It is a tribute to the players themselves, their coaches and the wider Watergrasshill United coaches and support staff all of whom give their time year in, year out on a purely voluntary basis.

From all of us at Watergrasshill United, we would like to thank all members, parents and all other united supporters for their continued support during the year and we would like to wish everyone a merry Christmas and a very happy and healthy new year!