Cookstown will turn the sod on June 15 on their brand new water-based hockey pitch in Coolnafranky, bringing to fruition four years of work behind the scenes.
The £900k project will be the first FIH accredited water-based pitch west of the River Bann in Ulster and will be installed in addition to the club’s current sand-filled pitch.
The project received support from the Sport Northern Ireland Building Sport Programme (£660k) and from Cookstown District Council (£90k). The project will commence next week and it is expected to be complete by October 2009.
The club hopes the grounds will subsequently be considered to host Senior Internationals, along with local cup finals/semi-finals within Ulster Hockey.
Project-manager Stephen Cuddy, said of the project: “This is a very exciting project for the club, we have simply outgrown our current facilities and we made the decision four years ago that if we were going to develop a second pitch it would have to be a water-based.
“At the moment our first eleven have to travel to Belfast every week to gain exposure on the specialist surface. I am excited about having a state of the art facility that the club can be very proud of.”
* Pictured at the launch are (front row) Irish internationals Colin Donaldson, David Ames and Keith Black with (back row) the club's Gareth Cuddy, Alan Ferguson, Stephen Cuddy and Michael Haycock.
3 comments:
More games in the IHL on Waterbased, that should be good for the game!
An international at Cookstown would be class, they would attract a proper crowd for that!
Great news. Hope it's like the Pembroke pitch, I don't know why anyone would put down a different one. By far my favourite.
Well done to cookstown.
Seems like a lot of cash (£900k).
How much does a water-based pitch cost to put down these days??
Do they have to buy new or additional land??
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