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Christy Murray.
A LOCAL athletics legend has been put forward for a national “Golden Volunteer” award for his invaluable contribution to the Kerry games.
Christy Murray, from St Brendans Park, is up for an overall award with 26 other nominees from around the country, as part of a series of national celebrations marking the fiftieth anniversary of Community Games.
Sponsored by Aldi, the ‘Golden Jubilee Volunteer’ will be announced at an awards ceremony on March 18th and will be presented with a holiday prize sponsored by The Irish Independent.
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The award will be decided by public vote and you can cast your vote for Christy by clicking here and follow the instructions. Voting lines close at midnight on March 13. One vote per reader.
Christy and the late Bob Casey set up Kerry Community Games in 1972, just five years after
the national movement was founded. In August 1972, they set up a committee and assembled ten areas in Tralee for the first community games athletics finals with Christy serving as chairman and athletics starter.
Over the next few years, Christy worked tirelessly to develop the organisation. He spent long
evenings after work driving across the county encouraging parents to set up local committees.
Between 1972 and 1975, he served as county chairman, development officer and PRO and was also an athletics starter at the national finals for two years. By the time Christy passed on his county leadership role, there were 49 areas registered in Kerry.
Christy was always available to his local area a true grassroots person and every year since 1972 he has marked out the athletic track.
He is always helping with church gate collections and awards nights. Christy always wanted to acknowledge all the children in the area, whether they won county, national or just competed locally.
A member of St John’s Athletics Club, he won a number of national sprint medals and continued to compete into his sixties.
Now 81, Christy is currently president of the St Brendan’s area, where he has held an officer position since 1972. His children and grandchildren all passed through the games as competitors and his children went on to take up officer positions in St Brendan’s.
Thousands of adults and young people have benefited from Christy’s hard work and vision so get voting.
