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KInvara Hockey Club's PUSHFORAPITCH

Kinvara Hockey Club desperately needs to find a home. Our vision is for a full-size Astro pitch with a multisport surface, suitable for hockey as well as other sports to play on – a community multisport pitch. We saw the future of our club hang in the balance last year and we now know for certain that we must secure a base to safeguard the future of this Olympic sport in South Galway and North Clare.

There are many steps along the way but the first is to acquire land. Without a site, we cannot begin to develop the phases of the project or access any grants. €50,000 is our starting target to secure funding for land acquisition for this project. We know we will have many fundraising efforts ahead to reach this target but the overall goal remains the same. See our current fundraiser below – Footsteps to Tokyo on our #PushForAPitch fundraising page and we look forward to updating you on events and progress.

Footsteps to Tokyo Challenge

Our first fundraising event is our Footsteps to Tokyo challenge. Our members and friends are walking/running the distance from Kinvara to Tokyo in preparation for the excitement ahead when our wonderful national women's team will compete at the Tokyo Olympic Games. A big challenge for a big project, we will cover the 13,905km normally travelled over land, sea, and air by running and walking this distance at home within our 5km area. Please support us by making a donation and promoting our fundraiser through social media. To join in the challenge, walk/run the distance of your choice and tag Kinvara Hockey, DM us or email us with your distance and we will add your kilometres to our weekly tally.

Our story of survival:

From humble beginnings on the sloped grass pitch at Seamount College Kinvara, our club was established 40 years ago. Over that time, the game of hockey has changed entirely, with astro pitches becoming the mainstay of the sport. The development of a small astro pitch at nearby St. Joseph's National School in 2010 was a major changing point and reignited hockey in our area. While not a hockey-playing surface, it was a major step forward in allowing our players to move off sloped grass for the first time, as well as enabling the club to open to youth players. Exponential demand for hockey followed and in a short space of time, our needs began to outgrow this facility, with more space required to accommodate larger squad sizes along with a need to access a proper playing surface as skill levels advanced. With only one oversubscribed full-size hockey pitch in the Galway region, located 35km from Kinvara, the community pitch at Oranmore provided us with a base for our older groups until its redevelopment (with a change in playing surface) in 2020 made it permanently closed to hockey. A devastating blow for our rapidly-growing club. Left suddenly with nowhere to train for many of our squads, KHC faced closure until we found a temporary solution at Athenry (some 30km away). To access a full-size pitch, we must travel to Athlone (90km away). Without question, the time has arrived for us to find a permanent home of our own - not only to continue to cater for our Women in Sport and the growing numbers of girls from south Galway and north Clare wanting to play this Olympic sport but also to allow us to offer hockey training for boys and Hockey4All. In 40 years, Kinvara has never hosted a hockey match! Likewise, our local school teams must travel for all their matches meaning every game is an away game. Let's give hockey the grassroots support it needs in our community – a community with a strong and successful tradition of hockey for over 40 years, despite the odds. Please donate and help us #PushForAPitch!