Navan Town Cosmos in for the long haul

The home of Navan Town Cosmos FC can be found on the Trim road just outside Navan.

Apart from the muffled sound of traffic on the nearby road it's a quiet, rural area - but recently the pastoral tranquility has been interrupted by another sound, that of heavy machinery.

The club is putting firmer foundations down for the future by carrying out extensive infrastructural work.

When it was confirmed the club would receive the required funding for development the green light could be switched on - and so the work began.

There are other issues the club is also seeking to address.

As a consequence of Covid there are real worries surrounding the mental health of young people in Irish society and Navan Town Cosmos is playing its part to ensure that while they continue to improve their facilities they don't lose sight of their most important commodity - the health and well-being of their players.

While all that is vital it's clearly also important, if at a different level, to have good facilities in place for the large contingent of youngsters registered with the club - hence the latest phase of development.

On a hot day in July 2016 the pitch and dressingroom facilities at the venue was officially opened by the then FAI chief executive John Delaney.

Delaney's arrival that day was part of a little festival of football put on by Navan Town (the merger with Navan Cosmos wasn't announced until early 2019) that included games at various age groups.

That opening of a new pitch then was part of the original overall development plan. Now it's time for further work to take place.

Navan Town Cosmos has 10 acres of land and five of that includes an area for two pitches where work is currently going on.

Some years ago the first phase of improvement was carried out on the ground including the installation of the main drainage.

"This phase of the development involves taking two inches off the surface and installing slit draining and putting in 600 tonnes of sand," explained Damien Clarke who is the joint-chairman of Navan Town Cosmos FC with Bob Hogan.

"The area will be re-seeded and hopefully completed around August or September, ready for when the new season starts.

"We will have then two pitches with the scope to develop more in the future.

"We were allocated a Sports Capital Grant of €46,800 which has allowed us to proceed with the work.

"It has allowed us to do work on the two pitches and bring them up to a very high standard, they will be among the top pitches around the local soccer scene,” added Clarke.

Navan Town had previously spent in the region of €135,000 in purchasing of site and early development work.

Hogan too regards the latest phase of improvements as a massive step forward for the club. "It's the start of a new era," he adds.

The development work is the latest chapter in the history of a club that only came into existence when long established outfits - Navan Town and Navan Cosmos - took the bold step to join forces.

"It has been brilliant in terms of helping to develop the new club and it made sense because Navan Town had the land and Navan Cosmos were very successful on the pitch and they also had a large underage set-up,” said Clarke.

"We haven't looked back since the merger and we're three years down the road now.

"We have a really strong committee and executive. You need that to grow and develop. We now have a nursery as well as about 20 under-age teams."

So far Navan Town Cosmos has one senior side that plays out of Div 2 in the North East Football League but they hope to have second team up and running for the start of the next season. At least that too is part of the long-term plan.

On Monday night (26th April) under-age players returned to training in pods although at the time of writing there was no indication as to when those on the senior team could resume.

Clarke is optimistic that not only will those young players who were previously with club return, but they will be joined by others.

"If there's one lesson we've learned in the past year or so it is the importance of sport in our society,” he said.

"I think soccer will be more popular then ever after all this.

"I haven't heard of any clubs folding in the area. If anything I think there will be more teams playing in the North East Football League, second teams and so on. There's a huge interest in getting back, I can't see any clubs folding."

COACHING

Yet concerns over the mental health of young players in society generally are a persistent and genuine worry for parents and those who look after teams. Clarke and Hogan are fully aware of those concerns.

"It's an underlying worry for all of us on our committee," adds Hogan.

"We're a decent-sized club with 20 under-age teams, young boys and girls of up to 18 while our senior team is mostly made up of players in the mid-20s.

"They are ages you would be hoping the young people have the right balance in everything.

"You'd always worry they would have someone to talk to and that it's okay NOT to be okay. That's the message we keep giving out.

"We've done some work indirectly with charities to raise money for them over the last couple of years and like any club that is looking after kids of all ages it's vital we take their general welfare very seriously.

"A couple of our coaches work in the community with groups that are preoccupied with childrens' welfare, that's their day job and they have taken the lead in a lot of this which is great and they have done a lot of really great work on it.

"We are very conscious of child welfare, we would take it very seriously as we always would and should. An important cornerstone of any plans for the future will be making sure we have, or are able to address, that issue and have an outlet for our young people in the club."

Like his fellow joint-chairman Hogan is optimistic that youngsters will return to football in big numbers.

"Little anecdotal stories I've heard from parents is that their youngsters are asking 'When can we get back to training?' 'When is there going to be games?' The parents are watching TV like the rest of us for more information but at least the youngsters can now go back to training now,” said Hogan.

"I believe all people were looking for was a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel at any stage over the last year or so and with a little bit of luck that light will get brighter and brighter with the vaccine roll-out."

Hogan also adds there is a big desire among the coaches to get back to working with the youngsters and help them along the way.

"We put it to each of the coaches before the return to underage training: 'Do you want to come back?'

"After all it's not compulsory they all give up their own precious time to look after their respective teams.

"Every single one of them said we want to train when the training restarts and so we have as many slots as we could get at the MDL.

"We take pride in the fact that each of our coaches have the UEFA one badge, the first level of coaching.

"We will pay for that course, it's only a relatively small fee but we feel that if a coach is prepared to put in the time and effort to come up and manage teams the least the club can do is help upskill them.

"They can then give more back and the players can learn more from it. They will feel they are learning as they go along."

Navan Town Cosmos FC is one of the new clubs around the local soccer scene but the ambition of those involved is obvious. They are clearly in for the long haul.