Rosses AC: Athletics, if done properly, is much more that just ‘running’

Rosses AC are a well-established and rapidly growing athletic club founded in 1980 who welcome runners and athletes of all abilities from 7 years to 70+ years. Based in West Donegal, and with our distinctive orange vests, the club endeavors to encourage a spirit of fair play and sportmanship at all times where we believe that Athletics, if done properly, is much more that just ‘running’…… ​​

Over the years the club has always been supported by numerous hard working committee, coaches and volunteers who have ensured the clubs existence but in recent years it became obvious that in order to be relevant and attract people we needed to make large changes to bring the club forward. Progress has been steady, but the momentum is continuing to build with over 330+ members in 2020 and our athletes regularly contesting local, provincial and national competitions annually and we have also had Ireland representation at Underage and Masters levels in recent years.

As the club has grown in recent years, the aim is to provide a full athletics programme all year around in Indoor, Track & Field, Cross Country, Road & Marathon running and Sportshall at all ages. At present the club is very fortunate to have an ambitious and forward-thinking committee with big expectations to help continue to build the club to compete with the bigger clubs in Donegal, Ulster and Ireland. In 2016 an ambitious 5 year club plan was developed focused on a number of areas around coach and athlete development pathways towards a one club structure which we knew meant enhancing facilities and partnerships within the community to provide a platform for competitive and noncompetitive members of all ages and abilities. Off the field the club is extremely proud of what has been achieved, with the redevelopment of the track surface at Carrickfinn, and more recently lights erected which has been a huge addition over the winter to enable the clubs to train during the long winter evenings. The next phase which has already started is another 5 year plan for 2021 – 2026.

A differentiator between clubs is often the number and quality of coaches and a recent recruitment drive has seen a large number of new coaches and a recent coaching meeting saw approx. 20 coaches discuss and brainstorm the pathway to bring coaching in the club to the next level. This follows on from a strong recruitment drive which has yielded energetic, enthusiastic and committed coaches who want to develop their coaching pathways as well as bring athletes on a pathway to experiment at a younger age in the many disciplines that athletics can offer across track and field, sportshall, cross country, relays, etc before specializing in a number of events as they develop into teenagers and seniors.

The progress and recent plans have seen the club start to secure much more success at all levels, not only through the participation programs like Fit For Life, and at Masters level where there has been many recent national medals and national team representations but particularly at a juvenile level where there has been a huge increase in numbers especially at the age levels up to u12 and these groups are showing strongly how they can compete at provincial and national level and this was further emphasized towards the end of last year and start of 2021 culminating with a number of athletes securing national medals at the Track and Field Championships and then in February the u12 Boys securing a National Team Gold in the All Ireland B Championships.

Circumstances changed for everybody very suddenly this year where club activities were brought to a halt due to Covid19 in mid March and so began the virtual training experience – with little or no races. This did not deter our determined club members with our men taking on and winning the Virtual Great Ireland Run 10K Team and when competition in Donegal did open up on the Track in late July, with County Championships, and later in September saw masters athletes securing national medals and titles. In late August the Children’s Games did take place, great credit to our County Board for this, where the club had great numbers of young new athletes over three evenings securing many medals. Later in October we had a number of athletes complete the virtual Dublin City Marathon. For a year that started so brightly it was to finish again with lockdown and no competitions for our athletes - it has been a very strange, unique and different experience. The club and coaches have looked to maintain some level of training for all club members remotely, which has been challenging, with everybody looking forward to starting to get back to some level of normality and competition hopefully by mind 2021 – and we plan to be ready !!!

The club has ambitious plans and will continue to drive forward in progressing on a number of key fronts and we welcome and embrace all ideas, support, input and help. Our club looks forward to being on the field of competition again and with our proud past and tradition, our current progressive and forward-thinking committee, we are excited and look forward to what the future holds and where we can bring our club. Check us out at https://www.facebook.com/RossesAC.