By John Harrington

The Golden Goose of Gaelic games is a vibrant club-school link.

Place a magnifying glass over most traditionally successful clubs, and you’ll quickly see their local schools put an emphasis on coaching the games hand in hand with the club.

There are countless examples of primary school principals and teachers all over the country who have done great work developing a conveyor belt of talent that their local club then profits hugely from.

Take the most successful club of all, Ballyhale Shamrocks, who have won nine All-Ireland senior hurling titles.

Locals will tell you that no-one did more to foster a love of the game over decades that local primary school principal Joe Dunphy.

Many clubs have made a big effort to develop a strong relationship with their local schools, and you should look no further than Westmeath’s Coralstown/Kinnegad for a great example of how best to do that.

Their ‘Football for All’ club-school programme that began in 2019 and has gone from strength to strength ever since has produced hugely positive results for the club, local primary schools St. Etchen’s NS and Coralstown Primary school, and the wider community as a whole.

The programme runs over six weeks and involves 40 club coaches and 20 school staff members who coach over 200 children with the help of Westmeath Games Promotion Officer, Bernie Corroon.

Every Wednesday children from both primary schools travel to the club’s grounds for an hour with the junior infants, senior infants, first and second class students taking part in station-based fundamental skills and GAA games, and the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth class students playing in a school league.

The children who take part are then encouraged to also join in with club coaching sessions on Saturday mornings where they’ll once again work with the coaches who encouraged them enthusiastically on the Wednesday.

Coralstown/Kinnegad footballer, Nigel Boardman, is a teacher in St. Etchens and one of the founders of the ‘Football for All' programme.

For him the goal isn’t to just introduce as many young children to Gaelic games as possible and then keep them involved by introducing them to the club.

It’s also to foster a great wider community spirit by making the children involved feel like part of something bigger.

“We’ve taken another step forward with it this year by starting a loyalty card scheme much like something you’d see in a coffee shop,” Boardman told GAA.ie

“You get one stamp at training with the school on Wednesday and another training with the club on Saturday and when you get eight stamps you get a free jersey.

“So, it's not just about getting them involved, you're getting them and keeping them and it's about feeling like you’re really part of a community.

“We have the jersies then just to highlight the fact that they're part of something bigger, they can relate to other children or people who have club t-shirts or jersies.

“The jersies themselves are sponsored by our local Apache Pizza and Eurospar stores within the community, and the cards are always available there so it’s constant advertisement.

“If you go down to the Spar wearing the jersey someone will notice you and probably compliment you.

“A school Principal said to me years ago when I was training a team that the main thing is to make somebody out of everybody. If we can make everybody somebody within a club, then they're part of it no matter what their ability.”

The organisers of the ‘Football for All’ club-school link have also developed a relationship with local secondary school St. Joseph’s Rochfortbridge to good effect.

They’ve involved first year secondary school students in sessions alongside sixth-class primary school students in so they can get to know one another and when the sixth class boys go on to secondary school they’ll have that bit of extra support there.

Older secondary school students then also help out with the six-week ‘Football for All’ programme for their summer holidays, which not only helps in terms of having more coaches, but once again building bonds.

“You're breaking down barriers,” says Boardman. “We had a boy last year, for example, who was in sixth class and he was telling me he'd never been past the halfway point in the town. He'd never gone past the school, which is amazing when you think about it.

“When you bring them up there to the pitch it's a different story. They now know this place and they're relating it to the comfort and familiarity of their friends, teachers, and coaches in school, whilst also experiencing the new faces and the new place of the pitch and the caoches that they could be working with on a Saturday.

“The numbers have risen since we started doing it. But it's not an aggressive way of getting members, it's about making people aware of this great resource that we have in the community that's provided for them and that they can get involved with.”

The club benefits from the link with their local schools, but so too do the schools. Healthier kids are happier kids and happier kids are better students.

“Definitely. I'm obviously an avid member of the club, but it's so worthwhile for the school as well.

“The kids are getting an hour of intense physical activity every Wednesday and it's probably the most exercise they'll do in the week. They're also making friends.

“We go down with the other school to the Wednesday training sessions so part of the idea is that they're getting to know other people in the parish.

“At the weekend then they'll want to go and see these new friends they've made and they'll want to see the coaches that complimented them.

“You're developing the wellbeing of children outside of the boundaries of the school and you're developing a sense of community.

“It’s what the GAA is all about, ‘Everybody Belongs.’