Busy post-season for Carrick Ladies

“We’re generally busy for a short period immediately following the end of the playing season,” said Senior Club Co-Ordinator Mary Taylor, “but this year has been especially hectic and looks likely to continue right up to the commencement of our pre-season training.

“We had two excellent end-of-season prize nights in April and May for both senior and junior club at which we celebrated an extremely successful season for the entire club and we also held our annual Junior Club tournament which, as always, was a complete sell-out. We then attended the annual Antrim Sixes tournament where Carrick Ladies entered teams in every category. Also on the playing side, we were delighted that our championship winning 2nd XI captain, Julie Wilson, was selected to play for the Ireland Over-45 select squad where she participated in the inaugural Irish Ladies Masters Challenge tournament at Lisnagarvey. Julie has proved herself over the years to be a highly resilient and determined player, and her Irish selection was no more than she deserved especially after such a successful league season with Carrick Ladies.

“Then, in recognition of our 2nd XI’s championship winning performance in last season’s UHU Junior League, the second team players and club office bearers were kindly invited by the Mayor and Council of Carrickfergus to a celebratory dinner in the Town Hall which was greatly appreciated by everyone at Carrick Ladies. It’s particularly pleasing to receive this type of recognition from our home town council. More recently we held a fund raising bag-pack in Tesco over the Jubilee weekend and, on Jubilee Sunday, we were invited as official stewards to help with the London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay event when it came to Carrickfergus. That was an especially thrilling honour for our members, meeting up with and supporting Lisa Hickson who carried the Olympic flame out of the Castle grounds.

“Right now we’re heavily involved in organising our annual Fun Day event to be held at Carrick Amphitheatre on Saturday (June 16). We already have 10 teams arranged for the day and, if our previous events are anything to go by, it’s going to be a fun-filled day for everyone.

“There’s also a lot happening in the background too,” added Mary, “as we prepare for next season. We’re planning to fully re-equip the entire senior club with a brand new playing strip and to hopefully extend this into our under-15 squads. And our coaching staff are already hard at work planning our pre-season training programme plus, within the next few weeks, we’ll need to be speaking to other clubs to put together a schedule of pre-season friendlies to prepare us for our opening matches in September.

“Not so long ago we usually managed to free up a month or so between the end of the old season and the commencement of the new. But as the club has grown steadily over recent years and we’ve become ever more organised in our approach, we’re finding there’s effectively no spare time between seasons. So it’s a busy time for everyone involved with Carrick Ladies but we’ve another very competitive season ahead of us and if we want to consolidate and build on last season’s promotion winning performances, as we most certainly do, this is what it takes to keep everyone on their toes and the club moving forward to ever greater success.”