Old friends have a ball to raise funds for Pieta House

By Maurice Garvey

FRIENDSHIPS were rekindled on a scorching hot day during a football match that took place for Pieta House.

Former members of Greenfort United and Neilstown Rangers Football Club combined to take on Alpine Express at the Coldcut Club in Clondalkin.

Referee Andy Kavanagh made the right decision to split up the game into three 30 minute parts, to spare the players from further agony.

“The ref was brilliant, really mindful that a lot of us aren’t playing fulltime anymore,” said Aidan McEneff, a former Greenfort player who started this annual event two years ago, to raise €5k in funds for Pieta House.

Neilstown man Aidan (34) felt compelled to kickstart the initiative three years ago, to support his former football manager John Quinn, who lost his own son Sean Quinn to suicide.

Aidan told The Echo: “It was a great turnout and went very well. A lot of the lads handed their sponsorship cards to John Quinn. We are hopeful of meeting the €2,500 target we reached last year.”

The match finished 1-1 with Alpine winning on penalties, and the players cooling off with a few pints afterwards in Quinlans.
“The real winner was Pieta House,” said Aidan.

“We couldn’t have asked for better weather. Last year we had to postpone the match for a week due to torrential rain.

“We’d like to thank referee Andy Kavanagh, who gave up his time free of charge for a thankless job with people moaning at him!

“Thanks also to Jimmy Strickland, catering manager at the Coldcut Club, for providing all the players with food after the match, the Coldcut Club for letting us use the facilities, showers, match ball free of charge, and Coldcut manager Kenneth Rowe for organising it all. They really looked after us and made it all happen.”