Praise for football team from New York who helped with beach clean up

The group of players from Lansdowne Yonkers FC were in the north west last week for the Foyle Cup, and decided to help out staff members from Tank and Skinnys in Buncrana on Tuesday evening who were cleaning up the beach.

Craig Purcell, coach from Landowne Yonkers FC said the team were more than happy to help out. We just saw that the beach was left in a bit of a mess so we thought it would be a good thing for our lads to do. Our club is based in an Irish community, so it’s all about giving the lads a sense of community - if everyone does a little bit, everybody gets a reward,” he said.

A total of 54 travelled over from New York, and Craig said a lot of family members had travelled from across the country to meet up with the team also.

“There was probably about 70 of us in total. Everyone is having a good time. They loved being in Buncrana, it was beautiful scenery. We had the one day of summer in Ireland! The lads were in playing on the beach and jumping in the water at half eight at night, they wouldn’t get that opportunity in America,” added Craig.

Maria from Tank and Skinny’s Seaside said the recent good weather had brought large crowds to Buncrana pier and the adjoining beach, but this unfortunately resulted in the area being left as an “absolute disgrace.” She added that the footage of the team helping out is “positive” and has had a great reaction online.

“Every night of the Foyle Cup, we’ve had different teams in from across the globe and the team had been eating with us on Tuesday evening. The pier and the beach were an absolute disgrace. If there is any rubbish on the beach, we have a policy that the staff go out and clean it. Two of our younger staff members went out to start, and as soon as the team saw them out cleaning they came up and asked if they could get black bags to go and help. It was lovely, they weren’t even asked to help. It’s the first time that that’s happened. It gave our staff a hand which was great because the beach was a disgrace,” she said.