The club reached a HUGE milestone last week when the latest membership figures were announced by Athletics Ireland. Having been in the top 3 largest junior clubs in the country for a number of years now and briefly the 3rd largest overall membership back in 2011, the latest membership figures published by AAI show that Craughwell AC have now the largest junior membership of any club in the country and in fact have more members than 11 counties and are twice the size of all bar 11 other clubs in the country! When you take overall membership numbers into account, the club is the 4th largest in the country and also has the 26th largest adult section.

This is an incredible achievement for the club when you consider it is operating from a rural base with a relatively small population compared to large urban areas. It’s a reflection of the ethos of the club on participation and on helping its athletes succeed to their potential. And it is an achievement that our coaches should be very proud of – we have more than 50 coaches who are down at the astro-turf routinely 1 or 2 or 3 days a week patiently coaching scores of children. Undoubtedly these coaches and their enthusiasm are the club’s most important asset, as well of course as our dedicated athletes and parents who bring them to training and competitions right through the year.

Following provides some more information on the makeup of our junior membership. It shows another statistic that we are particularly proud of – there are 167 teenagers in the club. This is a fantastic statistic in this day and age and particularly impressive if you look back to 2002 when we had 10 teenagers in the club.