This Christmas Eve it is appropriate to reflect on what has been happening at leixlip United over the past 12 months. After a complete shutdown of all football early in the year, it was great to see a return to training in July. Competitive action returned shortly after and we even managed to get our Mini Leagues played over two consecutive weekends in the summer. It has been a challenge to keep everyone safe over recent months but with the efforts of all our managers, coaches, players and parents we have managed to keep the show on the road.

Next year will hopefully see the Installation of a second astro pitch on our premises (so fingers crossed we get some good news when the Sports Grant's are announced in January.). This additional astro is much needed. We currently put nearly 750 men and women, boys and girls on the pitch every weekend and our numbers are continuing to grow so this new astro will be a massive game changer for the club.

We thank all those who supported our Christmas draw this year. We were unable to knock on doors like previous years due to the pandemic but it was still one of our most successful draws ever and all funds raised will go towards the development of our new Astro. We congratulate Maurice Moriarty (Father of our U12 Boys and U14s Girls Coach Colm Moriarty), winner of our first prize of €1000 and Gabriel McManus of Oaklawn, who won the signed Irish jersey from Andrew Omobamidele. A full list of the prizewinners is below.

We thank all our sponsors for supporting the draw and for their help over the year. We sincerely thank all the mams and dads, grannies and grandads who bring their children training and to matches every week. We could not survive without your help.

It has been an extremely difficult time for all the local sporting organisations over the last couple of years, not just Leixlip Utd. Leixlip GAA, Confey GAA, Le Chéile AC, Barnhall MU and Leixlip Tennis Club have all worked very hard to provide an outlet for the people of Leixlip, with many of our coaches also helping out in the other clubs in our community

Finally on behalf of myself and all at Leixlip Utd I want to wish you all a very happy and healthy Christmas and please God 2022 brings better days for us all.

Yours in sport

Paul Martin