Sports Gear Direct Cork Business League Launches New Website

Friday April 12th, 13:00

The Sports Gear Direct Cork Business League is an adult amateur male junior soccer league which currently operates in the Autumn – Spring football season. Founded in 1953, still affectionately referred to as the ‘shipping league’, has provided junior football for teams representing their places of work for over half a century and recently celebrated its 65th anniversary of its affiliation to the Munster Football Association as a fully-fledged Junior League.

To coincide with this milestone, we felt that 2019 was a good time to begin a re-brand of the League. Our first port of call was to ensure we were visibly active across all Social Media platforms, as this is where many of our clubs & players already had a large presence. At the start of the 2018 / 2019 season the following accounts were created to meet this objective:

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

LinkedIn

YouTube

To ensure we stay close to our foundations of the present League – we needed to go back in the late 40’s when a number of companies engaged in trading through the Port of Cork (hence the use of shipping in the title) organised a knock-out competition to run between February and April. Like the present day Inter-House league, they were allowed dual registration by the MFA. The League was granted full junior status in the 1952 – 1953 season. Eight teams competed in the first league championship which was won by Cork Harbour Commissioners. The League trophy donated by Cork Steam Packet Company is still in use today, most recently won by UCC United FC during the 2017 / 2018 season.

From humble beginnings the league has grown and in its modern form had it’s highest numbers of thirty teams and three divisions over the last 2 decades. With the existing website being in use since 2008, it was certainly time for a new lease of life online. We approached On The Ball Media to undertake this task as we had seen the high level of quality put into previous projects (most notably the Cork Youths Leagues and Cork City FC). Declan Carey jumped at the opportunity to work with us, even dedicated his time in helping us come up with a brand new crest for the modern era

We have removed alot of clutter that nowadays would turn off users on returning to Websites, and made sure that the new site is both Desktop, Tablet and Mobile friendly. Currently, we are no-where near finished working on the website with alot more value to be added in the near future. Topics such as “CBSL History Lessons w/ Finbarr Buckley”, “Disciplinary Tables”, “Top Scorers” & “Company Guides” are due to follow in the next couple of months.

One of the main reasons we saw fit to launch a new website is to help the Cork Business League grow and to spread the word even easier of this unique league that we are all part of. If you or your company is interested in joining the league next season – take a look here.

Oh – and don’t worry – the CBSL News Room is still broadcasting 😉

Cork Business League Committee

*Please Note: While we transition over to our new Website, the existing site will also be kept up-to-date with Fixtures & Results here. Once that website has been closed, we will send out a notification*