St Marys Football Club Est 1996

ABOUT OUR CLUB

All kids need is a little help, a little hope, and someone who believes in them.

St Marys Football Club was established in 1996. The club was set up by a few parishioners from St Marys on the hill parish. Frankie Wilson was one of the men who helped to get the club up and running. Frankie today is the football clubs honorary president. A way back in 1996 the club started off with one team. Fast forward 27 years later, the club is if not the biggest, one of the biggest clubs in the Newtownabbey Borough.

The club has been serving community football for almost thirty years. The main objective is to help promote, physical, social and mental health through sport. The club combine the three areas and incorporate it into football. The club is there to serve the community. We are anchored within the community offering more than just football. In recent years things have been difficult with no home base, this has halted our growth and makes it difficult for us to have a more hands on approach off the pitch.

We have noticed that the local community has a serious lack of facilities which results in the club not being able to create more teams. We all should be able to play sports in the area in which we work, live and socialise in. The club have been working in the background to provide a community hub/pitch for the club and community.

The club have a full player pathway for both girls and boys teams. We have a first kicks programme that runs from the age of 4-8 years of age both girls and boys. This is run by Lauren Moore and Brendan Magill. The next phase leads us to the SSG (small sided games). We then move the first kicks into the SSGs phase. The players graduate from first kicks and are introduced to the SSGs phase. The small sided games phase is run by Lauren Moore (Girls) and Dominic McAtamney (Boys). The players both girls and boys teams enter the East Antrim Games Development Programme run by the Irish Football Association (IFA). All players will participate in this phase for three years and will move onto the youth development phase.

The Youth Development phase is run by Lauren Moore (Girls) and Dominic McAtamney (Boys). The players will enter the South Belfast Youth League (SBYL) and play in this until they reach 18 Years of age.

After the players turn into an adult we provide a full pathway leading us to the senior teams. We have three senior Men’s team who play in the amateur League and the Belfast District League. We also have a women’s senior team who plays in the Northern Ireland Women’s football association (NIWFA).