Ballyboro FC have been awarded the FAI Club Mark Entry Level after great work from their fantastic team of club officials and volunteers.

Ballyboro FC, founded in 2000, of the Longford and District Schoolboys/Schoolgirls League and the Combined Counties League has over 200 active playing members involved in the club every weekend and covers a huge catchment area including Rathcline and Newtowncashel.

The club has tried to put an emphasis on quality coaching and have 20 fully accredited PDP coaches within the club, who’ve all taken part in extra training such as CPR and Defib training.

Whilst the club puts a huge emphasis on the community, they’ve also enjoyed recent success at the elite level as Christian Donlon-Goncalves recently became the first player to be involved with the club to be capped at international level for the Ireland U-15 side.

Facilities have continued to improve at the club with the development of a state of the art Astro pitch which is available for the community to use in any weather whilst a new drainage system has helped improve the quality of the pitch.

“Ballyboro FC is a forward-thinking and progressive club who are constantly striving to achieve the next step, the next level for their club,” said FAI Development Officer Graham Kane.

“It is a club with a real sense of belonging in the centre of it’s community and this is shown recently with Ukrainian refugees being actively involved in the club and engage in the club’s training sessions.

“This award is a symbol of the hard work so far but the club will continue to develop and look for the next improvements to match up with their ambitions.”