'Win a Home in Spain’ draw faces crisis situation
Ticket sales for Westmeath GAA's 'Win a Home in Spain' draw are struggling to take off and the organising committee are facing a considerable challenge to avoid a crisis situation.
Tickets for the big draw, priced at €100 each, have been on sale since last November. However, Westmeath GAA chairman Frank Mescall has revealed that just over 2,000 tickets have been sold, well short of the 15,000 needed to fund the purchase of the land for Westmeath’s new proposed centre of excellence at Robinstown, Mullingar.
The committee will hold a crunch meeting this week to gauge progress.
Westmeath GAA needs to raise €1.5m for the first phase of the development and to sell 15,000 tickets by May 30 (the planned date of the draw) to make that a reality.
Appealing directly to the 47 GAA clubs, Mr Mescall said it’s crucial this first fundraiser is a success. Westmeath is facing several years of fundraising for the project, which will be built on a phased basis, and the need for new facilities for county teams has never been greater.
The chairman urged clubs to make a renewed drive to sell tickets to fund the purchase of approximately 50 acres for the development.
On Wednesday evening last, the Westmeath U20 footballers won the Leinster championship opener in Kilcormac at the Faithful Fields, Offaly GAA’s centre of excellence.
Former All-Ireland minor winner Kenny McKinley, who is managing the team, made a fresh appeal to all clubs in Westmeath to support efforts to build the new facility in Mullingar.
McKinley said that the team has had no place to train since the start of the season and rely on a handful of clubs to lend their pitches for training.
“I think the whole county knows that we need this facility so I would urge all clubs to get behind it. We have to change, because it’s too hard on the county teams – and every county manager will tell you the same – we’re just begging clubs for a place to train,” he said.
“We urgently need this new centre, every county team needs it, not just the U20s.”
The U20 coordinator, Annette Bennett, has the unenviable task of sourcing venues for training evenings. “I’d hate to see her phone bill because she’s just ringing every club in the county,” said McKinley.
“After Christmas, we were lucky, we got into St Loman’s; they gave us the 3G pitch. They looked after us there two times a week. Loughnavalley were good to us; Maryland were very good to us; Multyfarnham, Tubberclair.
“We need to spread it around because you just can’t go back knocking on the same door. You know you have that crappy weather in February and everyone’s trying to protect their pitches, which is completely understandable for all clubs.”
Although Westmeath are pushing to build their own centre, it will take at least three years to have new pitches in place and, until then, county teams still rely on the goodwill of clubs.
McKinley said: “I would be giving a shout-out to clubs, we still need the help, we need other clubs to chip in to help us because we can’t keep going back on the same pitch.”