Rian Farrell was likely caught unawares this week when carving his name into the long annals of Irish athletics history.
In registering with North Sligo AC, Farrell helped grow the Athletics Ireland club membership to 75,000 and it’s already tipped beyond that.
November registration – when annual membership is counted – has now peaked at 75,078.
It may have been a small gesture to name Farrell as their 75,000th member, but this is a big deal for Athletics Ireland, the governing body of the sport which has existed under various guises going back to the Irish Champions Athletic Club (ICAC) founded in 1873.
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It marks a 7 per cent increase on last November’s registration figure of 70,320 (the first to surpass the 70,000-mark), which in turn was a 9 per cent increase on the peak 2023 registration. All indications are the only way is up.
Athletics, like many sports, also suffered a significant drop off in club membership during Covid-19. Registration more than halved in the first 12-month period during the pandemic, from 45,306 at the end of February 2020 to 19,702 at the end of February 2021.
Growing that number above 75,000 is certainly impressive, and can be attributed to a variety of factors – not least in seeing Irish athletes enjoy their most successful ever year on the international stage.
From the World Championships down to the European Youth Olympics, 21 medals were won, seven more than the previous best of 14 in 2019. In 2016, the international medal tally was three.
Role models and inspirations like this will help boost any sport and membership numbers are soaring across all ages and competitive levels. There is also a return of the running boom, the global phenomenon witnessed again last Sunday when there were 59,266 finishers in the New York City Marathon – breaking the previous record of 56,640 which finished the London Marathon last April.
Athletics Ireland also pointed to the increased engagement at schools and community level and the rise in the number of athletics coaches trained through its education programmes.
Until recent decades, Athletics Ireland and its many predecessors – including the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and Bord Lúthchleas na hÉireann (BLE) - were only concerned with the competitive end of the sport. As, in turn, were most of the athletics clubs. Not anymore. It’s not the winning that matters, it’s the taking part, and that goes for the roughly 360 clubs throughout all 32 counties.
[ Ireland’s Fionnuala McCormack finishes 10th in New York City MarathonOpens in new window ]
Yet, behind these numbers, many clubs are struggling to meet the demand for new membership. Particularly at juvenile level, with significant waiting lists now being the norm, especially among the biggest clubs in the country.
That’s not good news, not if any young aspiring athletes are ultimately lost to other sports.
Dundrum South-Dublin AC, better known as DSD, is a case in point. It’s far from the oldest club in Dublin – and positively modern compared to the likes of Clonliffe Harriers, founded in 1886, and Donore Harriers, founded in 1893. With 1,200 members, DSD is now the biggest athletics club in Ireland, but not alone in turning away younger members because there simply isn’t enough room.
The club was founded 40 years ago, with the merging of Dundrum AC and South Dublin AC, and for lifelong DSD member Gerry McGrath, the first decade or two was about maintaining club membership at around 150. Enough to keep everyone happy, even if there was a struggle sometimes to find that critical fourth man on the club cross-country team.
The 1,200 members are now perfectly split between a 50:50 gender balance, all the way up from under-8s to over-70s, and an even half of which, around 600, are juveniles (under-18). There is also that waiting list, which averages about 200.
“It’s a pity we can’t take everyone,” says McGrath, “but that primary school age is quite intensive, in that you need one coach for every 10 kids. A kid at that age could also be on the waiting list for a few different athletics clubs. Because most of the Dublin clubs do have a waiting list at those ages.
“We did have a strategic plan, a few years ago, to grow the club to 2,500 members. But we’re not actively recruiting in any area at the moment, we stalled all that last year, until we could get more of a grip on it. That might change, but we still have physical limitations. Even though we’re one of the best served clubs in terms of our own track and our own running trails.”
It’s just three years since DSD opened its own home track and trails off Tibradden Road, just up the hill from its former natural training ground at Marlay Park. That project continues to expand with the addition of new indoor running straight and club hall, set to open next year.
As well as the surge in demand for juvenile membership, McGrath also points to the growth in DSD’s training group – now rebranded as the Meet, Train & Race.
“That started 15 years ago, with maybe three or four guys, maybe in their late 40s, who wanted to run a marathon for the first time.
“Now our Meet & Train is well over 200 members, attracting a few new members every week. We had 80 members in the Dublin Marathon last month. The sport is surging at all levels like that.
“The problem isn’t getting volunteer coaches. We have 130 volunteers, some who would do seven days a week, all voluntary, to maybe a mother or father, who helps out for an hour. But it still takes tremendous coordination.”
Blackrock AC is another southside Dublin club that is booming, with a celebratory dinner in January to mark its 1,000 members for the first time. On the northside, Raheny Shamrock is developing its first home facility at St Assam’s Church, again to help meet the growing demand for membership.
It all makes for healthy reading for Athletics Ireland, as long as waiting lists for juveniles don’t come at the cost of kids being lost to the sport.
