CK Utd confirm application for third tier

Late ast year, the League of Ireland announced the introduction of a third tier of the League of Ireland, and speaking ahead of the new season a couple of weeks ago, CK United chairman, Peter Harvey confirmed the club had applied for the Third Tier and is hoping to hear back soon.

“We’ve applied for Tier Three so we’ll find out soon what they need from us but we don’t envision too many issues. We’re already in the system, we’re already producing everything that they need in terms of underage League of Ireland so I don’t see it being a big issue us getting into Tier 3. Tier 3 isn’t going to have all the same demands that you need for getting into the top two divisions. They’ll have different criteria. We meet all the same criteria at underage level so we’re assuming the venues we use now should be good enough to get us into Tier 3. Obviously if you get promotion, everything changes. Once you get into Tier 3 and you have a good enough squad, you’re obviously going to make sure everything is in place though, you’d be mad not to," said Harvey.

He’s hoping that they can secure women’s first team football too, but knows their chances will be bettered with a second women’s division. 

“We’re hoping that a few of the other clubs come together and we can get a First Division formed in the women’s. When we went for the Premier Division licence last year, when Waterford got it over us, they had a stadium so that went in their favour. There was four clubs that went for that, Cobh, Drogheda, ourselves and Waterford. So you already have three clubs there, so all we’d really need is another three to get to that stage. 

There’s loads of other teams playing underage League of Ireland up to U19’s, so it’s the next natural step for them. You look at the likes of St. Pat’s in Dublin, they have an U17’s team and an U19’s team so they should really be stepping up to the mark you know. Hopefully the likes of Finn Harps will step up too. There’s quite a few teams who have underage teams but no first team so we’d be hoping to get those extra few teams so we can get the First Division up and running. If we get a stadium, then maybe the opportunity will come up for us to go into the Premier, but the FAI Pathway clearly states that they are trying to form a First Division, so if that comes to fruition we’d be prime candidates to get into that position and that’s where we need to be, we need to be playing first team football at both genders, because that’s what keeps the club going. Everything else is coming together in other areas, we just need to get that area sorted as well.” 

For the first phase of the season their games will be played out of Killeshin, Burrin Celtic and Thomastown. 

“The two women’s teams will be playing in Killeshin either on a Saturday or a Sunday. The 14’s and 17’s which are Sunday games will be in Thomastown. The 15’s and the 20’s are in Ballon on a Saturday. That’s for the first phase of the season. That’s not to say we won’t move things around later in the summer. You never know what will happen between now and the second phase. Hopefully we’ll have our own pitch by then but you never know.” 

Late last year, CK United were granted land at the old Castlemore pitch in Tullow. Expectation was that it would be ready by this summer. However, Harvey says they are behind schedule. 

“We had a ten year lease on the grounds but the council have now given us a 30 year lease which is amazing and will make so much difference because it means that now we can apply for all the grants. With the ten year lease we were having to finance everything ourselves, whereas now we can apply for all the grants to get the work done. The sustainability of the club financially is going to be a huge thing. We’re just waiting on the paperwork to sign off on now and once we get that, planning permission will be able to go ahead and we’ll see where we go from there. We don’t envision any problems with planning permission since the council have given us the land. We’ve got the plans all done up so we’ll see what happens. We can’t do anything until we get the lease signed. There’s a lot of cleaning up going on out front but that’s by the pigeon club. We’ll be ready when we get the planning permission. We probably are behind schedule with Tullow because they changed the lease but when we got offered the 30 year lease we weren’t going to turn that down. We knew then it was going to push it out a bit. You’re talking hundreds of thousands of a difference to the club though getting that lease and hopefully getting the grants. So why wouldn’t you stall it an extra few months to get it over the line properly.” 

This year marks eight years of CK United and Harvey says the growth has been phenomenal. 

“When we first started this, nobody thought we’d last a year. We’re a lot stronger than that now. We’re a lot bigger now too. Our U14 team last year got to the Quarter-Final of the cup which is massive. They only got beaten by the odd goal. It’s about progressing every year and that’s what we’re managing to do. We’ve a full U20 squad which we’ve never had, we’ve got 21 players signed, we’ve always been drawing from the 17’s. The whole idea of the club is bringing the players to the next level. We’re holding on to players every year. The thought was always x is my team and I’m just playing here, but now there’s the mentality, this is my team. They’re staying and enjoying it. They’re the ones that bring us forward. We’re happy enough with the way things are going and we’ll keep on pushing.”