GlenFest – bringing the community together, again….
On Friday, 23 July 1971, the then Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, officially opened Glen Rovers’ new pitches and clubhouse on Spring Lane.
The gates have remained opened to the community since then and this Sunday’s Glenfest -- the second running of the event after last summer’s hugely successful first staging -- underlines the important position of the Glen Field in the local area.
The ceremonial opening of the new site at the heart of the club’s Blackpool heartland by club legend Jack Lynch was the culmination of a massive fundraising and organisational push by members to develop ‘the Nurseries’ as the site had been known.
The club had been allowed to use the fields by the Goulding family from 1962 and they were later gifted the real estate, six years later. It was then that the community and club really aligned to raise over £13,000 through various shows, concerts, draws and collections.
Now, as the club continues its efforts to develop its capabilities on and off the pitch, Glenfest is an opportunity for everyone to pull together, according to chairman Derek Goggin, and for the club to tap into the wider community even more.
“The original thinking about Glenfest was a dawning realisation a few years ago that as a club we needed to do more within the community that we rely on for support,” says Goggin of a day that promises music, family activities, entertainment and more.
“The club has been in Blackpool or Ballyvolane for over 100 years and really it’s a conscious effort to open ourselves up into even more of a welcoming to supporters in our area and community members.
“Last year was a raging success, really. When you do these things, there's a little bit of a fear factor but the reaction to it was enormous. I don't know how many people we got in the gate but it was a hive of activity from early in the morning to late in the evening. “And moreover actually for our club members [it was a success]. We have essentially four clubs under the Glen Rovers banner: the Glen, obviously; we have St Nick’s; St Nick's Ladies Football which is growing enormously and we have the camogie club, which is Cork’s oldest camogie clubs.
“All of those clubs do huge work by running their own show, getting them all together to put on an event like this was really rewarding. And, yeah, challenging in its own way but it was really rewarding to get everyone working towards one goal.”
The funds from last year were used to benefit each of those four entities with enhanced security and safety systems, the clubhouses painted and other improvements made across the buildings and pitches, like new nets.
“Whatever money is raised will be carved out and put into our development plan,” Goggin explains. “We're in the middle of producing a development plan, which will need multiples of whatever we raise on multiple Glenfests to do what we need to do in the long term, and all the money that we will raise all from the festival will be ploughed back into keeping the facilities up to scratch.”
If Glenfest succeeds then funds will be raised to help with the upkeep of the club’s assets but more importantly it’ll forge an even closer bond with the community, tap into talent in the Glen Rovers gene pool and give existing, hardworking members a chance to align for one target once again. In the longer term, all of that could be harnessed to execute on more ambitious plans, just like those in Blackpool did in the late 1960s and early ‘70s to make sure the gates opened for the first time.
“The big gap we feel we have in the club is a lack of an all-weather facility. So that's really where we feel the next major investment needs to be made.
“The biggest opportunity that we have is that we have people who are so passionate about Glen Rovers as a club. Everybody has their own image of what it means to be involved with Glen Rovers. But it's not codified anywhere. Yes, we have our constitution but the tradition isn't codified anywhere. People come and are passionate about their Glen Rovers or their St Nick’s. That's the opportunity.
“The challenge is getting everybody on the same page. And because people feel so passionate about it, oftentimes it's passionate people talking to passionate people. So an opportunity like Glenfest really gets everybody focused on a day and an event, that really speaks to what we're all about.”
A piece by Adrian Russell
On Friday, 23 July 1971, the then Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, officially opened Glen Rovers’ new pitches and clubhouse on Spring Lane.
The gates have remained opened to the community since then and this Sunday’s Glenfest -- the second running of the event after last summer’s hugely successful first staging -- underlines the important position of the Glen Field in the local area.
The ceremonial opening of the new site at the heart of the club’s Blackpool heartland by club legend Jack Lynch was the culmination of a massive fundraising and organisational push by members to develop ‘the Nurseries’ as the site had been known.
The club had been allowed to use the fields by the Goulding family from 1962 and they were later gifted the real estate, six years later. It was then that the community and club really aligned to raise over £13,000 through various shows, concerts, draws and collections.
Now, as the club continues its efforts to develop its capabilities on and off the pitch, Glenfest is an opportunity for everyone to pull together, according to chairman Derek Goggin, and for the club to tap into the wider community even more.
“The original thinking about Glenfest was a dawning realisation a few years ago that as a club we needed to do more within the community that we rely on for support,” says Goggin of a day that promises music, family activities, entertainment and more.
“The club has been in Blackpool or Ballyvolane for over 100 years and really it’s a conscious effort to open ourselves up into even more of a welcoming to supporters in our area and community members.
“Last year was a raging success, really. When you do these things, there's a little bit of a fear factor but the reaction to it was enormous. I don't know how many people we got in the gate but it was a hive of activity from early in the morning to late in the evening. “And moreover actually for our club members [it was a success]. We have essentially four clubs under the Glen Rovers banner: the Glen, obviously; we have St Nick’s; St Nick's Ladies Football which is growing enormously and we have the camogie club, which is Cork’s oldest camogie clubs.
“All of those clubs do huge work by running their own show, getting them all together to put on an event like this was really rewarding. And, yeah, challenging in its own way but it was really rewarding to get everyone working towards one goal.”
The funds from last year were used to benefit each of those four entities with enhanced security and safety systems, the clubhouses painted and other improvements made across the buildings and pitches, like new nets.
“Whatever money is raised will be carved out and put into our development plan,” Goggin explains. “We're in the middle of producing a development plan, which will need multiples of whatever we raise on multiple Glenfests to do what we need to do in the long term, and all the money that we will raise all from the festival will be ploughed back into keeping the facilities up to scratch.”
If Glenfest succeeds then funds will be raised to help with the upkeep of the club’s assets but more importantly it’ll forge an even closer bond with the community, tap into talent in the Glen Rovers gene pool and give existing, hardworking members a chance to align for one target once again. In the longer term, all of that could be harnessed to execute on more ambitious plans, just like those in Blackpool did in the late 1960s and early ‘70s to make sure the gates opened for the first time.
“The big gap we feel we have in the club is a lack of an all-weather facility. So that's really where we feel the next major investment needs to be made.
“The biggest opportunity that we have is that we have people who are so passionate about Glen Rovers as a club. Everybody has their own image of what it means to be involved with Glen Rovers. But it's not codified anywhere. Yes, we have our constitution but the tradition isn't codified anywhere. People come and are passionate about their Glen Rovers or their St Nick’s. That's the opportunity.
“The challenge is getting everybody on the same page. And because people feel so passionate about it, oftentimes it's passionate people talking to passionate people. So an opportunity like Glenfest really gets everybody focused on a day and an event, that really speaks to what we're all about.”
A piece by Adrian Russell
