Galway Speeders giving children sporting opportunities

A year on after their official launch, Galway Speeders – a club dedicated to promoting sport for young people with a physical disability – are certainly making a massive impact on the local sporting landscape. Indeed, this contribution was recognised earlier this week when the Speeders received a significant Sports Capital Grant allocation of €19,000 from the Government.

Some may argue that this allocation is only a drop in the ocean – particularly given Galway Speeders are providing much needed services that the Government themselves should be running – but, in any event, Speeders Chairperson Liz Gantly and Secretary Delia Boyce are grateful for the grant aid as it will allow the club to purchase essential equipment.

In many respects, Galway Speeders has come about from humble beginnings. The seeds of the club were sown among a group of parents who used to meet through Enable Ireland, which was providing therapy services for their children. “They had a basketball group going on a Saturday and there were other games that the physio ran,” says Chairperson Gantly.

“The problem with that, though, was that the physio was being taken away from frontline services. So, when that fell by the wayside, Titans, then, were starting up an adult basketball team and they approached us and asked if we were interested in a children’s one. We were and that proved to be very successful.”

However, time moved on and the needs of the children with physical disabilities could not be fulfilled by basketball alone. It wasn’t for everyone. “Around the same time, the IWA Sport appointed a regional sports development officer in Rena McCarron-Rooney,” continues Gantly, “and after meeting her we set up the Speeders. It was originally set up as a multi-sport group but it actually was not that successful.”

Although the younger children enjoyed the days, the older children became bored by what was on offer. “So, we had another rethink,” says Gantly. “Rena and her husband Ronan were setting up an adult table tennis group and, because Rena was involved with us, they invited a couple of the older kids along. Then the younger kids asked why can’t we come? So, it kind of progressed then into a table tennis group and it all evolved from that really.”

Over the last year, Galway Speeders have introduced the children to a myriad of sport, with a parent taking charge of each discipline. They are Marion Curran (athletics), Loic Bocquet (basketball), Ger Colbert (swimming), Gerry McLoughlin (karate), Liz Gantley (table tennis), Margaret Keane (sailing) and Aisling Halliday (kayaking).

The structure of the club, which caters for children from five years of age up to young adult, has certainly paid dividend. In April, Jack Colbert was crowned the national table tennis junior boys wheelchair champion – he would also win the Ulster Open later in the year – while Jessica Burke reached the girls national final.

A month later, the multi-talented Shane Curran was a silver medallist at the Irish Open Shotokan (karate) championships in Cork while Dylan McLoughlin picked up a bronze.

In August, Mark Henderson – the Chairperson’s 14-year-old son – won the Star Sailor Trophy Award at the Lough Derg regatta and he would receive the Galway Bay Sailing Club annual award later in the year in recognition of the progress he has made this year.

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.