GOAL’s Sporting Connections
GOAL has always enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the sporting fraternity. Our sporting connections and friendships range across all disciplines and age groups, and straddle the national and international and the amateur and professional spheres.
This close relationship is hardly surprising, considering that GOAL’s founder and chief executive, John O’Shea, is a former sports journalist, and has always been a very keen sports fan and participant – in the 1990s, he represented Ireland in the World Veteran Tennis Championships in Argentina, Australia and Spain.
A love of sport, and sense of fellowship with sportspeople, was therefore inculcated within GOAL from the outset. As a consequence, sportspeople almost immediately felt an affiliation with GOAL, and the relationship was soon reciprocal.
Since its inception in 1977, representatives of virtually every sport have been enormously generous to GOAL. From local amateurs to international superstars, they have devoted time and energy to GOAL. We are enormously grateful.
In 1985, John O'Shea convinced Irish runners Eamonn Coghlan, Marcus O'Sullivan, Ray Flynn and Frank O'Meara to take on the 4x1 mile relay world record in aid of GOAL. Before hundreds of spectators on a hot August afternoon at University College Dublin, the four Irishmen set a time that still stands to this day.
Stars in the field
A number of top sports stars and personalities, including those pictured below, have visited some of GOAL's projects in the developing world over the years, both to learn more about, and help us to highlight, the work that we do.
 |
 |
| Irish rugby star, Jamie Heaslip, gets his hands dirty at one of India's brick kilns, where GOAL is delivering aid |
Heaslip learns how to make a brick by hand at one of the kilns |
 |
 |
| London Irish captain, Bob Casey, pushes a wheelbarrow full of mud at one of the kilns... |
...and plays with children at a dump where we provide vital assistance for vulnerable families |
 |
 |
| Irish rugby star, Gordon D'Arcy |
Former Wimbledon champion, Pat Cash |
 |
 |
| Legendary GAA broadcaster, Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh |
US tennis doubles maestro, Peter Fleming |