National Coach visits Badminton Club

Kilcullen Badminton Club had a visit from Ireland's National Badminton Coach Dan Magee on Thursday last, writes Enda O'Neill, the Club's PRO.The visit was in association with the national drive from Badminton Ireland to reconnect with all the clubs around Ireland.

Dan's brother and sister Sam and Chole Magee represented Ireland in the last Olympics and play in all the respective disciplines of Men’s, Ladies and Mixed Doubles on the current Irish international team and Dan himself has also graced the courts in Mixed doubles for Ireland also. He retired from the professional game a few years ago and decided to go into coaching.

With his easygoing manner he dived straight in to helping the club members, giving us tips and some excellent coaching. Mens 1 (who managed to secure another 4-0 win in the return leg against Bough on the same night), Men’s 2 and Ladies 1 all got some invaluable tips and he coached and chatted to each team individually, not sparing on his time.



Everyone who was down Thursday night really benefitted from Dan's visit. Club member John Mullin said 'the visit really helped our game especially with some of the drills he showed us'. Dan then stayed and played a few matches with our club memebers and it is only then you see what a high standard the professionals play at, but in fairness did say he ws going a bit easy on us ...

The committee would like to thank firstly the members who came down last night, for making Dan feel so welcome, secondly Dan for giving up his time to come down so graciously, and finally Mark Phelan, our current chairperson, for organising the visit.