From Mayo to Berlin: A look at the county's newest sport

There are many sports that you can try your hand at in Mayo if you’re looking for something to dip your toes into. Football, soccer, rugby, hurling, basketball, boxing, the list goes on.

However, if you’re looking for something different, then Mayo’s newest sports club, Mayo Softball, might just be something worth looking into.

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The club was established in 2024 and remains the first and only club in the county.

For those of you unaware of the rules of softball, we’ll bring you up to speed.

Softball is not dissimilar to the rules of baseball or, in an Irish slant, rounders. Two teams, each consisting of ten players, aim to score runs by hitting the ball as far as they can while the other team aims to fetch it.

The goal is to complete a circuit around four bases, which scores a run (a point), much the same as baseball. However, in this sport, only underhand pitching is allowed.

For the club’s founder, Michelle Grover, when the opportunity came to launch the sport in Mayo, having been involved with a side in Galway, it was one which she firmly grasped.

“I was traveling to Galway every week and I left at four o'clock for a six o'clock training,” she said in conversation with The Mayo News. “Fast forward, and we moved further away from Castlebar, I had a baby, and so things were a lot more difficult.”

 “There were a couple of folks from Galway Softball that started working with Connacht/Munster Softball and spreading softball to other places in the West besides Galway. Dublin has loads of teams, and so they really wanted to expand it in the West, and they were like, ‘Michelle, you're up in Mayo. Do you want to help out a bit?’

“She dropped off an equipment bag. We had an open day last year in the summer, and we've been going strong since then.”

It was difficult to get numbers at first, and while attendances were steady in terms of fixtures, it was a different story when it came to training.

“I remember one training last year where it was literally me and one other person, but we threw the ball around,” she reminisced. “We hit the ball a bit, and it wasn’t a bad training because I was able to give him one-on-one focus and improve on the basic skills.”

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Since then, attendance has steadily improved, and there have been plenty of Irish people coming through the gates to bolster the ranks.

The first competition of the season was the Brian Walsh Cup, which included a number of sides from the Connacht/Munster Softball league, as well as sides from the country’s top league in Dublin.

“There are some very good Dublin teams out there. And we finished in the middle, which I was very happy with.”

The hard work of the pioneers of the club paid off on Saturday, June 7, when the club brought home the Galway Blitz trophy, the first cup in their history.

While there have been important games before this point for Mayo Softball, the date of Saturday, June 28, is one which has been circled in the calendar for some time.

That day, in Swinford Amenity Park, the first game of the Wild Atlantic League will kick-start a journey that Michelle will be hoping will end in Berlin.

“The winner of the Wild Atlantic League will go to Belfast and play the winner of the Belfast League and the Dublin League,” she explained. “Whoever wins that in the autumn of this year will be going to the European Super Cup in Berlin in 2027.

“Right now, we're at 23 members, and I see that growing because of word of mouth,” she surmised. “With that, friends come, husbands and wives come. People are just running around the track in the Swinford Amenity Park, and they take a look at us.

“They're talking to us, wondering what it is, and they become interested, and then they come.”

When asked why people should get out and join Mayo Softball, the answer was simple.

“We take anybody, from beginners to advanced, ‘never heard of it before’.

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“Another draw is that,  if you didn't play rounders growing up, or even if you play it now, we play with a glove, which provides a different aspect to it. It is a sort of novelty using the glove.

“And we have all the equipment.”

One thing is for sure. If even half of the people who give their time to the club bring the same passion that Michelle brings, it won’t be too long before they’re strutting their stuff at the European Super Cup on the highest of continental stages.

Mayo Softball train every Saturday at 1 pm in Swinford Amenity Park. For more information, you can contact Michelle at 087 270 0093.