Lough Rovers are hopeful of a bright future

Despite the many challenges over the years and even currently, Lough Rovers remains a thriving club.

Despite the city side being nestled next to some of their more illustrious neighbours, they remain a huge part of their community.

Lough Rovers are at Junior B hurling level and Junior C in football.

For Lough Rovers chairperson Timmy McCarthy, the club is a huge part of his life and so many more.

The conversation starts with a very pressing matter for the gallant Lough Rovers.

“The club has been part of my life since around 1993,” he says.

“It means everything. Growing up in the 1980s, we would have all played for Lough Rovers for people living in Greenmount, Noonan’s Road and the general Lough area. We are stuck in the same parish as St Finbarr’s.

“At the time, those areas just mentioned were a very young part of the city so it was all family orientated. The pick would have been big. We would have had six or seven underage teams at any given time. Now, we have no underage section.

“At the moment, our numbers are low enough in general, we have only two junior teams with about 40 active playing members. At this stage, it’s a constant battle in terms of bringing in new members.

“Our underage section has dried up since the early 2000s. We will find it very difficult to get an underage section going again. We also had the sale of our clubhouse in 2004, which pushed us out of our parish.

“Our pitch now is out on the straight road, our parish is now much older with a lot of student accommodation in the Lough Rovers area. The people that join us now would be friends of friends.” 

Despite the obvious challenges of keeping the show on the road, McCarthy has no doubt that the club with the famous red and white colours will continue to play a vital role.

They won the county Junior C football championship in the 2017 and 2020 seasons. It meant so much to Lough Rovers.

“On the field, we are happy enough with how we are doing, it’s all about improving the numbers,” the Lough Rovers chairperson said.

“I suppose a lot of other clubs could say the same. We had a good enough year in the hurling this year, got to the quarter-final of the county where we lost to Ballyclough who went on to win it out.

“Then in the football, we reached the county semi-final, but were beaten by Castlelyons. They also went on to win the championship. We aren’t far away. We would love to get up to Junior A in both codes, that’s the target in the years to come.

“We are satisfied with the progress that we are making. Winning the county Junior C football championship twice over the last decade or so has really brought Lough Rovers back into the public domain once again and raised the profile of the club.

“We have some really talented players at the moment and we have two intermediate level coaches at the club, Gordon Aherne for hurling and Mike Cashman for football.” 

As for the club grounds on the famous straight road between Ballincollig and Cork City, improving the facilities is also a crucial objective for Lough Rovers.

“We are well settled now in our club grounds. We have made great improvements, but we always want to do more.

“This year, we put in new goalposts, the same style as Croke Park. We put in two ball stop nets. We also improved the drainage on the pitch.

“For a club our size, we have excellent facilities. We have had floodlights since 2010. We are hopeful for the future both in terms of on the field and off the field.

“We have young people now involved in the committee who are really driving the club on.”