Galway club Corrib RFC hail ‘incredible’ support as they raise more than €70,000 after fire damages grounds
The damaged storage facility at Corrib RFC
A Galway rugby club has raised more than €70,000 towards new facilities after their newly built storage facility was wiped out by a fire.
Headford-based Corrib RFC was left “on its knees” earlier this month when the building, which contained jerseys, training and matchday equipment was destroyed, but club secretary Chris Kiely says the response of the local and wider rugby community has been “incredible”.
The fire is the subject of an ongoing investigation by Gardai, but the club hierarchy are focusing their efforts on being able to field teams at the start of the season and believe they can now do so because of the level of support they’ve received.
Not only have they drummed up a huge figure through their online funding drive, they have also received pledges of support from members of the business community and other clubs which will help them get back on their feet.
“It’s incredible,” Kiely said.
“In less than a week, we had business groups on board making non-monetary contributions, offers of temporary cabins and assistance from the local sports community and other clubs in the area.
“It’s all with a view to being able to kick off our season, while longer term we want to rebuild the facility.”
Corrib RFC is 42 years old and the club had worked hard to fund the new unit, which was 95pc complete. The club estimate that the total losses incurred come to more than €120,000.
“We’re a thriving club, with 450-500 members and 15 teams playing across all ages up to our senior men’s and recently reformed senior women’s teams.
“Absolutely, we should be ready for the new season and we’re working with out jersey suppliers who have been very helpful.
“We’ve had phonecalls from all over the country offering help, local community have been great.
“We’re lucky that, while we’re based in Headford on the Galway/Mayo border, we’ve a large catchment area and we’ve members from across the community – many of our players play against each other in Gaelic football and with each other for Corrib.
Today's Sports News in 90 Seconds - 29th June
“The GoFundMe page is very new for us, we’ve always used more traditional methods and a draw held last year went along way to funding the new building. We’ve availed of various grants, but we’ve built the club ourselves through great committees and presidents over the years.
“We had a member’s meeting a week ago and we all agreed that we can’t dwell on what happened, we need to get going again; to pull together and get things moving in the right direction.”
