Excitement Builds for Jackman Park 50th Anniversary Celebrations

On Friday night, the Limerick soccer fraternity will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the iconic Jackman Park venue on Carey’s Road. A Limerick District League selection will take on senior soccer club Treaty United on at 7.15 with many players from the lower divisions getting their chance to play against the city’s senior soccer representative.

The District League side will be managed by the trio of Declan Considine, Daithi O’Donoghue and Keith Kerley who have all plenty of memories at Jackman Park.

Football has changed dramatically in the 50 years since Jackman Park has been the home of Limerick junior soccer and in more recent times, plenty of improvements have been made. The dressing room area was in need of refurbishment and now, both home and away teams and referees enjoy ample space to prepare for matches which was not always the case up until 12 years ago.

Furthermore, there is now a second entrance at the train station side of the stadium and the stand hosts 200 seats. Improvements to the playing surface and floodlights as well as the addition of a new scoreboard have added quality to the venue.

Jackman Park has hosted all divisional cup finals for many years with the aim of every player in the city to end the season with a ‘day out’ at Jackman Park which is the equivalent of how English professional football players speak about FA Cup Final day in Wembley.

Also, the venue has hosted some iconic Munster Junior Cup Finals with the most recent being a dramatic game between Pike Rovers and St. Michaels in 2019 which the Tipperary side won. One year previously, Pike were victorious in another final against local rivals Janesboro. The aim of the LDMC is to continue hosting these big events but also push to host FAI games and more.

Although Jackman Park has always been associated with junior football, it has hosted senior football in the city on numerous occasions over the last 20 years, Unfortunately, that statistic says more about the lack of stability of any senior soccer entity in the city who had no home of their own.

The famous Eircom League Cup Final 1st leg of 2002 between Limerick FC and Derry City took place on Carey’s Road with Noel O’Connor’s unfancied Limerick side winning 2-1. Furthermore, Limerick FC earned promotion to the Premier Division for the first time in 19 years in 2012 and were presented with the trophy at Jackman Park. The moments mentioned only scratch the surface of the history in Jackman Park and everyone you speak to has their own favourite moment in some cases as both a player and spectator.

The LDMC decided to approach each club in the Premier Division to put forward a player to play while also including 5 clubs from the Premier A division. After that, a club from each division from 1A down to 3B was drawn at random and a player from the selected club was put forward by their management team to face Treaty.

Below is the squad representing the Limerick District League on Friday night and congratulations to all players selected.

Limerick District League Squad: Gary Neville (Pike Rovers), Aidan Mair (Charleville), Adam Lipper (Pike Rovers), Stephen Bradley (Fairview Rangers), Bradley McNamara (Janesboro), Gavin Dillon (Aisling Annacotty), Kieran O’Connell (Regional United), Kieran Barr (Nenagh AFC), Gary Ward (Charleville), Pa Boyle (Carew Park), Andrew Leydon (Coonagh United), Aled Harkin (Mungret Regional), Conor Madden (Geraldines), Peter O’Sullivan (Newport), Alex Kiely (Hyde Rangers), Stephen Hannon (Moyross), Danny Taylor (Athlunkard Villa), Craig McNamara (Castle Rovers), Dave Corbett (Caherconlish), Jason Keane (Lisnagry), Adam Kelly (Abbey Rovers), Rhys Dunne (Caherdavin), Lucas Silva (Brazuca)