Club membership numbers in Cork for the end of Dec 2016

Athletics Ireland have recently released the 2016 year end membership stats for clubs in Cork and they show club membership on the rise. This is largely due to new clubs being established in the northern part of the county as well as existing clubs running successful Couch to 5k programmes.

As you can see from the chart above though, the club membership increase is totally due to masters i.e. those aged 35 and above. These would be referred to as 'recreational runners' as opposed to say athletes involved in track and field.

The thing here though is that people just don't get to the age of 35 and then decide to start running. It's safe to say that a large percentage of the 'Seniors' are probably in the 28 to 34 age bracket and that probably grew in line with the masters numbers. That being the case, those aged between 20 and 27 must have declined. This is the very age bracket  for those involved in track and field.

Cork Clubs........These are the clubs in Cork with more than 80 adult members....

Mallow AC have been very successful in attracting lots of new members in 2016 and this was due in no small part to their Couch to 5k programme. They now replace Ballymore Cobh AC as the largest club.

Ballymore Cobh AC and Eagle AC are down a bit while Leevale AC see an increase.

Togher AC is another club with a successful Couch to 5k programme as they pile on the members to take the 6th spot.

As you can see, the rest are up and down a bit while the Dromahane Couch to 5k programme puts them in 12th spot.

These are some of the clubs with 30 to 80 adult members...

As always, numbers aren't everything. Some clubs like East Cork AC are more involved in the serious side of running and their numbers are small as a result. The charts above just show the relative sizes of each club, not how good or bad they are.

The charts also don't show non-AAI clubs like Happy Feet and the Wibbly Wobbly Wonders who are very successful with their own programmes.

The full figures for all the clubs in the country can be seen on the Athletics Ireland website.