Monk’s future hangs in balance

Merry Monk’s future hangs in the balance

Daniel Carey

BIG-TIME basketball could be on the verge of extinction in Ballina. Having held two inconclusive meetings in the past week, Team Merry Monk have called an EGM for tomorrow night (Wednesday) where a final decision on the club’s future is due to be taken.
Money is at the heart of the problem. Merry Monk are currently wrestling with a debt of €12,000, and running expenses of €70,000 for the year.
There is a strong chance that the Ballina outfit will be unable to fulfill their remaining fixtures in what has been a season to forget. Club secretary Conor  Moore has told The Mayo News that if their season was to end prematurely, Merry Monk would stand no chance of re-admittance to the league next year.
“No way would you ever get back in again,” he told The Mayo News last night (Monday). “If the season is finished [prematurely], no way would they [Basketball Ireland] let you play again. With this new licensing system, it’s all about continuity. There’d be no way back.”
Moore said that the governing body’s decision to move Merry Monk from the Northern Conference to the Southern Conference has played a ‘huge’ part in the club’s financial difficulties.
“Instead of a trip to Dublin and back in a night, we’re going to places like Cork, Tralee and Killarney, and it’s killed us,” he said. “They’re supposed to be our local matches! We haven’t been to Dublin yet, but I’ve been in Kerry more times this season! The cost of hotels is a killer, but money has been so tight recently that we’ve driven up and down in the one day.”
This has involved arriving in a Munster venue for an 8pm tip-off, heading back on the road after the game, and returning to north Mayo at around 3.30am.
“I know John O’Mahony and Mayo wouldn’t do it anyway,” Moore muses. “We fought the decision as hard as we could but it didn’t work out. So rather than let everything go, we said we’d give it a lash, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to work out. It’d be a heartbreaker. It’d be the worst thing in sport ever to happen this town.”
There have been rumours of disharmony within the club, and the decision to enter a second team in Division One of the National League also appears to have backfired. Players like Deora Marsh and Liam McHale have opted to play for the Division One team, leaving the Superleague side short of bench players. “This town is too small to have two teams,” said Moore. However, some club members have suggested disbanding the Superleague team and concentrating on bringing through young players in a Division One outfit.
Terry Kennedy has been forced to withdraw from his coaching duties due to health reasons, having previously announced that this season would be his last. The club won two national cups under the Kennedy’s stewardship, and continues to attract big audiences to the local Sports and Leisure Centre.
“It’d be an awful loss to the town,” said Moore. “The people of the town love their basketball, and the place is packed most Saturday nights. We looked at Killester on Sunday winning the cup, and they only beat us in overtime when we hadn’t got Ronan [McGarrity] one night. Obviously, this year things haven’t gone well, but the talent is here in this town.”
Tomorrow night’s meeting is scheduled for 8pm in the Merry Monk, Ballina.