Clonard Waterpolo Club

Clonard Waterpolo Club was founded in 1921 in the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It originated from the falls baths located in the west of the city.

Having enjoyed much success over 89 years of competitiveness, it has fallen on hard times recently. But the club has invested heavily in its junior development by travelling abroad for training matches and competitions most noatably Los Angeles, USA in 2006 and Malta in 2007. Another trip has been organised to travel to Split, Croatia[1]. This has produced a handful of junior Irish internationals[2] and one senior international and helped to gain the club elite status once again in the division one of Irish waterpolo.[3]

Los Angeles tour

In the summer of 2006 a team of 22 junior players ranging in age from 10 to 19 travelled to Thousand Oaks, a suburb of Los Angeles, for two weeks intenisve training and competitive matches against the surrounding teams of Thousand Oaks including Thousand Oaks High School, Newbury Park High School, Oaks Christian High School and Malibu High School. The tour was supervised by former USA national player Mark Garrett. The team competed under two age categories: Under 19 and Under 16. All the training and matches proved successful as the Under 16 team reached the final of the Under 16 Irish cup in January 2007 and were beaten by a strong St. Vincents side from dublin.

Croatia Tour

Following successful tours to both Los Angeles and Malta, the club decided to bring another youth team to Split, Croata. Known for its high standard of quality, the junior teams found the competition hard against the host team of Jadran. However, they enjoyed success over other teams around the surrounding area such as Makarska Makarska. Also present in Split at the same time were the Arroyo Grande team from California, America. The Americans provided a much more manageable task for Clonard than Jadran. On return to Belfast, a number of the junior members hosted members of the Arroyo Grande team whilst they played a tournament with Clonard and other local teams such as Cathal Brugha, Setanta, Donegall and Grads. This has proved very successful in recent years and was the third time Clonard has hosted a Team from across the atlantic, the others being Westlake Waterpolo (2005) and Surf City Waterpolo (2007). After their brief stay in Belfast the Arroyo Grande team played a similar style tournament in Dublin before returning home.