CK United claim first trophy in club’s history
Presentation time for CK Utd U17s. Photo: Cathal Delaney
CK United won their first piece of silverware in the club’s history on the October Bank Holiday Monday as they beat Bray Wanderers to win the WU17’s Plate on home soil in Killeshin.
Back in 2018, CK United was formed with one goal, to develop young talent and give them a pathway into the League of Ireland. Seven years later, they’ve finally won their first trophy. The women’s section of the club has been going from strength to strength in the last few weeks with the announcement that the club will be able to field a senior team for the first time in the new Women’s Development League, and Sofia Blackmore becoming the first player from the club to get an international call up and an international cap.
CK were dominant for large periods of the game in both attack and defence. CK caused their opponents trouble early on and took the lead after four minutes as Nora Purcell got onto the end of Kayleigh O’Callaghan’s free from the left.
They made it 2-0 in the 15th minute, Jasmine Doyle firing in a cross from the right for Quinn at the back post to tap home.
In the 35th minute, Bray pulled a goal back through Ava Clarke.
Quinn could have had a second for CK when she jumped on a loose ball but hit it wide on the left instead.
With five minutes to go, a Johnson corner from the left was cleared, and a long ball came in from the right but it went across the box with nobody able to get on the end of it. In stoppage time, a Bray effort from the right was hit into the ‘keeper.
CK continued their dominance into the second half but that was the end of the goals as they deservedly picked up their first trophy.
It was a momentous occasion, and it meant so much to many in the club who have worked so hard to keep the club going despite the numerous challenges, despite the many setbacks, and to get the club to where it is today. None more so than to Fran Egan. Fran has been one of the stalwarts of the club, and together with Club Chairman, Peter Harvey is the last remaining of the founders of the club. He was instrumental in the setting up of the girls academies in the club and was over the girls academies for several years, and managed them for a long time too. He knows the journey the club has gone through to get to this point, he knows moreso than most the struggles that the girls teams in particular have gone through, from losing several players to Wexford and Waterford over the last number of years and having to rebuild the team year on year and not be able to keep any consistency. He was naturally emotional when he spoke to The Nationalist afterwards.
“It just means so much. It’s all the hard work, all the years we started out and went to games with just a few players and trying to make up teams and it was really hard but this, this is absolutely the top, the pinnacle of the club. It means so much. We’re in an area with Wexford and Warford, and we are a young club, and we are building. We’ve got our senior team now this year. So, look, it’s only the start. We’re getting there. I think this is the start of where we’re going to be from now on and we’ll be one of the powers of the South East. We are on the up, we are a club that’s building. It means so much to the parents, to the kids to finally, after all these years, to get some silverware into the club.”
Abby Keppel, Abby Egan, Aoife Blanchfield, Amelia Braszka Szot, Nora Purcell, Kayleigh O’Callaghan, Kara Canavan, Jasmine Doyle, Orla Sutton, Leah Harper, Molly Quinn.
Ruth Redmond, Jolie Rankin, Sarah O’Leary, Aoibheann Clarke, Amy Walsh, Isabella Norris, Hannah Brauders, Lucy Morris, Emily Doyle.
Eva Gaube, Katie Cowley Lane, Ava Clarke, Naomi Wall, Lily Johnson, Isabella MacLeod, Elsha Murphy, Rebecca Keating, Siofra O’Farrell, Grace Leonard, Millie Coulson.
Rebecca Howard, Ava Browne, Anna Morrissey, Kitty O’Beirne, Fidelma Lopez Hanlon, Lauren McFetridge, Isabel O’Reilly, Alannah Brown.
