Marian Crowley left shocked by Echo Women in Sport Hall of Fame induction
Marian Crowley, Hall of Fame winner with her husband Michael and son Daniel and friends Ken and Ann Whelan. Picture: Eddie O'Hare
'TOTAL and utter shock' was how ladies football stalwart Marian Crowley described her induction into the Echo Women in Sport Hall of Fame.
She was commended and celebrated for her role in shaping the sport on Leeside and at her club, St Val's Ladies Football Club.
Crowley accepted the award at the Echo Women in Sport Awards which were held at the Metropole Hotel at the beginning of February.
“Total shock – when they mentioned St Val’s first I thought of a colleague, a club-mate, she is going to the national volunteer awards tomorrow night and I was looking around,” was how she summed it up, “Total and utter shock. I couldn’t believe it!”
“It means an awful lot to me,” Crowley placed the award alongside everything else she has achieved in sports.
“I’m stunned. But, I just love working with it.
"It has been fantastic.”
Crowley’s life is forever intertwined with the story of Cork GAA and the success of the ladies footballers.
She is the current Cork chairperson but has held every role in recent years and been instrumental behind the scenes in club and inter-county success.
Crowley’s work has helped create an environment where all levels of ladies football thrived. This includes the Cork inter-county team that won the Munster Senior Ladies' Football Championship last year and reached the All-Ireland semi-finals. Glanmire followed that by winning the All-Ireland intermediate club title in the winter, and that brought another trophy to Leeside.
Crowley was involved in everything, with her position as an administrator helping to create the perfect conditions for teams to thrive in Cork.
When she isn’t taking countless phone calls or making sure everything is in order, she is on the sidelines of a pitch. The weather means absolutely nothing to someone who embodies the very ethos of the GAA.
While winning individual awards is nice, Crowley’s focus is always on the greater good and she is already thinking about what the next few weeks have in store for her.
That means weekly trips across the city and county as the Rebels fight for the Ladies Division 1 title alongside a host of top teams, a group that includes Dublin, Kerry, and Meath.
Cork haven’t had the easiest of starts as they lost on the road in the Kingdom and at home to Armagh, but the team managed by Shane Ronayne have preserved ahead of fixtures against Mayo and Dublin.
The reason why the Rebels are able to pick themselves up and go again is because of the culture that exists in the dressing room and around the whole group. It’s people like Crowley who make that a real thing, and her work means she is on the go almost 12 months a year.
“We’re out really – once the convention is completed in December we really start preparing for the whole year at that stage,” she said.
“So it’s committees and sorting out fixtures. From now on it’s about concentrating on the inter-county matches, the underage matches, the Munster league has started, and the National Football League with the seniors.”
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