Athletics Ireland have released the club membership numbers for the end of December 2014. These are probably the most significant ones of the year as they give the true size of each club.
As you can see from the data below, the largest club is Bandon AC with Leevale AC in second place.
In terms of adult membership, these are the clubs with over 80 members...
1) St.Finbarr's AC are now the largest club in Cork by just one member! Their numbers have remained pretty steady since 2012.
2) Midleton AC have seen a big drop in numbers since 2012, possibly due to newer clubs starting up or expanding their membership.
3) Bandon AC have grown by 35% in the last year and are now 3rd largest.
4) Eagle AC are up by 18.5% in the last year and move from 5th to 4th.
5) Leevale AC grew by 5% in 2014. It's worth noting also that a lot of their members would be involved in the track & field side of athletics rather than just running.
6) Youghal AC have seen a big drop in numbers, again possibly due to other clubs getting bigger.
As you can see, the other clubs have shown varying degrees of growth with Watergrasshill AC and Ballymore-Cobh AC attracting big numbers.
These are the figures for clubs between 30 and 80 members.....
1) The biggest change here is Bantry AC. They've dropped from 180 in 2012 to 62 in 2014.
The rest show varying degrees of growth or staying pretty steady.
As always, it's worth pointing out that the various clubs may be slightly different in that they often have their own priorities in terms of track and field, cross country, Fit4Lfe, marathon and half-marathon training and so on.
In terms of counties with over 1000 adult club members, there are 7...
Dublin, Cork and Meath are all enjoying strong growth.
You can see the figures for all the clubs in Ireland on the
Athletics Ireland website.
