ORGANISERS of a local charity football tournament that started in 2014 with just 18 participants are celebrating a huge success after this year’s event attracted 160 players, and raised thousands of euro for St Francis Hospice.
The Jimmy Malone Invitational, now known as the JM Invitational, is held at the National Sports Campus in memory of Northsider Jimmy Malone, who lost a battle with cancer in 2009.
Jimmy’s brother Alan and pal Fred Burton, both Finglas men, decided to set up the football tournament to bring people from the Finglas/Glasnevin community (and beyond) together once a year to celebrate Jimmy’s life.
The first tournament in 2014 attracted just 18 players, each donating €20 for charity. However, the following year word had spread and requests to play began flooding in.
The lads were forced to make the JM Invitational a fully-fledged league and knockout tournament, making it a logistical headache, but one the lads were happy to have.
The tournament has an interesting twist. Nobody is allowed enrol their own team. Everyone is placed on a team based on their skill level, and familiarity with other participants is taken into consideration.
This allows the tournament to be a much fairer and enjoyable event and it also allows people to reconnect, as someone they haven’t seen in 10 years could be placed on the same team.
“I like to think that our tournament has an edge on the regular five-a-side or seven-a-side tournaments,” said Alan.
“Nobody is the favourite and everybody is the favourite, and that’s what makes it a more personal tournament to everyone, especially me.
“It takes a lot of time to organise with emails, texts and phone calls to be made to get the right balance with teams, but it really is worth doing.
“I like to keep it as fun and as interesting as possible.”
This year’s tournament had 160 players, who raised €3,500 that was donated to St Francis Hospice. The Invitational also has a sponsor in the shape of top Apple iPhone & iPad online reseller, Viberstore, who jumped on board with €1,000 to help Alan kickstart the event.
“We are delighted to help play our part with this wonderful charity event,” said Brian Egan of Viberstore.
“We try to do our best to help in different areas, from our educational iPad schemes to charity events such as this. I know Alan very well through our football ties and from living in the area.
“Jimmy had just moved into a new house across the road from me but unfortunately he never actually got to live in it due to his illness.
“I’m so happy to be able to do something for Jimmy and St Francis Hospice. Karl Murphy (Viberstore business partner) and I wanted to help Alan out as soon as possible once news broke of the tournament’s third year.”
Alan has thanked all those involved in the tournament, including Viberstore for their generosity and the National Sports Campus for being so helpful with Invitational.
“Special thanks to all the staff in The Quarry House who hosted post-tournament food and drinks and thank you so much to everyone who took part whether it was playing, volunteering to help and online donating,” he added.
“It was an amazing day. I can’t wait to see you all at the JM Invitational 2017.”
