A brief History of the Skerries Karate Club.

Early 80's

The club was founded in late 1981 when the Skerries Community Centre first opened, along with many other new sports in the town including Judo and archery. Out of these the Skerries Karate club is one the the only few still on the go. To date the club has had an eventful history with its troubles and some great times.

When the club was first started there was an average of 30 students training on a regular basis, over the years the number has dwindled and jumped, all really depending on the time of  year and the films that were the block busters at the time. But over all the club has survived and helped in the development and creation of some champions in both kata and kuimite. The legacy of the high standard from the students of the Skerries Karate club started back in the early 80's with entrants from the club in the national championships winning bronze and silver medals in both kata and kuimite in different age groups. At this time Instructors would have to travel from Dublin to Skerries to teach the classes. But as time went on the local students developed and started to teach the classes for the lower grade students.

Mid 80's

In the mid to late 80's the club grew to about 130 students under the instruction of Mark who was a brown belt at the time. This was the golden era for the club, Gradings were been held on a regular basis, students were rapidly climbing up the ladder of grades which were all conducted by the K.U.I.. (Karate Union of Ireland). The K.U.I. was the largest organisation that Shotokan clubs could affiliate to, but over time there were splits and other groups started up which claimed that they could offer more to their members. During the up heavil with the organisation the Skerries Karate Club stood fast and stayed with the K.U.I.

Around this time the club instructor Mark had an opportunity to move to Australia so he handed the reigns over to another student who was also a brown belt. The organisation the the club was affiliated with was not supporting us as much as they use to and the competitions and Grading started to dwindle. Because of this the interest that the students had was also fading and the club was starting to break up. The students started to go to other sports and other students just left karate all together. The club was quite for a while as it struggled for survival and to retain it place as one of the top ranking clubs in the area.

Late 80's

In the late 80's the newly appointed instructor had other interests which he had to look after so he in turn handed the control over to Dara. Dara was another brown belt student who studied in the club for many years and was also one of the clubs main Kata competition winners. Dara kept the club running for a few years, and when times were hard he moved the location of the club from the community centre to the old De La Salle college. This assisted the club financially as the rent on the hall was almost halved, but there were fewer students joining as the location was not central. at the end of the summer in 1990 Dara was to start in College. This meant that he too would not be able to keep up his position as instructor of the Skerries Karate Club.

Early 90's

In 1990 Brendan and Mark took control of the club, Brendan was a green belt and Mark was a Brown belt at the time. To assist them the approached a Black belt they knew from Balbriggan. As there was always a strong bond between the two clubs Michael agreed to help them in any way possible. After about 6 months of co-operation they moved the club back to the community centre. Here they are able to nurture the club again and increase the membership back to about 20 to 25 students. By the mid 90's the club was doing well, so well it was the best it had done in the last 8 to 10 years with about 40 to 45 students training on a regular basis.

The next stage for improving the club for the students was changing affiliation to S.I.K.A (Shotokan Ireland Karate Association). As Michael and the Balbriggan Karate Club were already members we had friends on the inside, so it was known what to expect as members of the new organisation, it was also known what they would expect from the members of the club.

Early to Mid 90's

After we joined S.I.K.A. the instructors of the Skerries and Balbriggan Karate clubs joined together to form a new alliance and put it the agreement in writing. With this agreement they formed the North Fingal Shotokan Group. In this agreement they set out new rules that they were to follow that will enable them to improve the standard of the local students by opening up all the clubs in the N.F.S.G. to them. And to ensure that if any of the local instructors were unable to teach their class for what ever reason that one of the others would step in on a temporary basis.

Mid 90's

Now that the alliance had been formed, the standard was improving, the organisation needed to grow. We opened a new club in a nearby town called Loughshinney. We acquired a small town hall for the classes and advertised. With the agreements of the N.F.S.G. the other two clubs had to support the new one, not that this was a problem. Students from the other clubs rallied round at the idea of another night that they could go training, and what's more, with another instructor. Paul, a first Dan black belt from the Balbriggan club was the instructor here.

Mid to Late 90's

 In the mid to late 90's the members of S.I.K.A. were in talks with the W.S.K.F. (World Shotokan Karate Federation) seeking membership. The delegation that met with officials was led by Michael and they took place in London.  After a successful meeting the members of the Skerries Karate Club became members of the W.S.K.F. along with all other members of the N.F.S.G. and S.I.K.A.

2000 to 2002

The standard of the members of the Skerries Karate club improved with the regular coaching from Michael, Brendan and Mark, along with the regular competitions and gradings offered by the W.S.K.F. Ireland. The students from the Skerries club started to win local and national competitions again. And to show that the standard of the club was second to none some of the students were invited to train with the W.S.K.F. by chief instructor in Ireland and to try for a place on the national squad for the W.S.K.F. Ireland in 2002.

Between the Skerries and Balbriggan Karate clubs 7 of the students were selected to be on the national squad for the W.S.K.F. world championships. The competition was held in Straslund in Germany. The 7 students with instructors Michael and Brendan accompanied by some of the students parents attended the the competition with the rest of the national squad. Although none of the Students from either club gained any titles at the competition some of them did come pretty close.

2003

Since the world championships the students have taken part in other local and national competitions and have gained any where between 1st and 3rd rankings. Other things have also been happening in the back round. Political rang lings within karate organisations. These are things that I do not like and with good reason. Skerries and Balbriggan clubs from the W.S.K.F. Ireland and pursued the goal that we had been steered away from, and that is the N.F.S.G. and all that we understood it to stand for.

Early to mid 2003

As you can see we have had our ups and downs, and for the future we hope to have more ups than downs. Skerries Karate Club has had a long history even with it's troubles and it has managed to survive and get back on top. Now with the practical destruction of the club we are working hard to re build it into it's former self with the same high standard it once had. Indeed this rebuilding is already in progress as the club already has one national kata champion, and they achieved this all within 10 weeks of starting karate for the first time and this student was still a white belt.

Mid 2003

Skerries Karate Club has now signed up and become a member of Karate-Do Ireland. This is a step that will help the club grow stronger. And this alliance will be great for our students as it will also allow them to attend a new range of events that they may not have had access to before. This also gives us the opportunity to look at more national and international events that we may attend.

2004

This year the students of the club's have attended national and international competitions with one of the highlights been the Malta international karate championships in which two members won trophies. Also, while the squad was in Malta two members were graded to 1st dan black belts by the Karate-Do Ireland's grading panel. The clubs also attended the ONAKAI competitions and league with the members doing very well in both kata's and kumite.

This has to have been the most sucessful  years for awards in either kumite or kata. Have a look at the photo page to see a picture of the trophies won in 2004.

2005

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Finally

If any old members of the club or indeed any of the old instructors read this and feel that we have misrepresented the club or any of the history in any way please feel free to contact us at info@SkerriesKarateClub.com or, if you have any other information that we could use on this site please let us know.

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