St Malachy’ s OB Youth FC was established in May 2015 with an initial 16 week soccer school to ascertain the interest in the North Belfast area on setting up a junior Football team.

From this initial period the team has massively expanded. We are now over 100 registered children with age groups competing each week and representing the club from Under 10 years of age level right down to Under 5's. We have approximately 20 coaches helping develop the kids and we also have increased our number of sponsors across all the age groups.

Our vision is to further develop ST Malachy’s OB Youth FC as an integral part of the local community, providing support direction and leadership to young footballers of all abilities in a safe, fun environment using football as a tool.

To do this we develop our various coaches of all abilities, age’s, gender and social/religious backgrounds by providing them with the opportunity to take I.F.A. coaching badges and relevant child protection courses whilst volunteering within our club to gain valuable experience.

Our long term aim is to develop our own club infrastructure, experience, qualifications and skills to offer our youngsters the best service we can at their stage of development.

That's where you come in.

All this wonderful work cannot be done with the support of the community. We have many people volunteering their time and contributing in so many ways to the club.

Of those people 5 teams will run the Belfast Marathon relay. Our fantastic volunteers will be running 210.5 km, the distance from Belfast to Athlone, in aid of supporting the development of St Malachy's OB Youth Team, and of course our chosen sponsor, the Northern Ireland Children's Hospice.

So we are asking if you can donate, big or small. Even a single pound will help buy some foot cream for our poor marathon runners.

And of course, please come down to the Belfast Marathon to cheer on our marvellous coaches, parents and volunteers!