By Caoimhe Cahill – TY Student
On Wednesday, the 11th of October, we held a hurling and camogie blitz in Gort Community School for 5th and 6th class primary school students. Our main aim of this event was not only to allow the sporty children to enjoy playing hurling/camogie, but for all kids to have a good time and make some new friends from other schools. A huge turnout of 310 students from 15 different primary schools near Gort attended the blitz.
On the morning of the 11th, there was lashing rain but it did not stop our blitz. At around 10, when the schools started to arrive, the skies cleared and we began to organise the children into their teams of 8. The camogie was on the AstroTurf which was divided into three pitches and the hurling was on the hurling, rugby and soccer pitches divided into 2 or 3 pitches each. On each pitch there were 4 teams – 2 teams playing and 2 watching. Each team had a manager from TY or from LCA, and each pitch had a referee from TY. At around 12 o’clock, all the kids got food in the canteen – a chicken roll, an animal bar and a drink. They went back to play a few more matches after lunch and finished at 2 o’clock
The whole blitz was mostly organised by a group of TY students. We had to contact all the primary schools to organise numbers, talk to the canteen about food and organise the layout of the day. We assigned jobs to each TY and LCA student so that both students who love sport and other students had something to do on the day. Some of the jobs included referees, managers, supervisors for the dressing rooms and canteen, people to bring children to and from the toilets, people to set up pitches, photographers and the organising committee made sure the day was running smoothly.
All in all the day was a huge success and all students – TY’s, LCA’s and primary school pupils – had a really good time.