The Sportsco complex in South Lotts, Ringsend is one of the country’s top sports and leisure facilities. Situated next door to Shelbourne Park, Sportsco is the official sports association of the ESB, but its membership is open to everyone who has an interest in staying fit and healthy.

Having celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2004, Sportsco has also recently seen the appointment of its first female general manager, Ringsend-born Lorna Brady.

38 year old Lorna started her working life as a lifeguard in Sportco’s swimming pool in 1982. She has gone on to work her way through successive positions in Sportsco to become General Manager in January of this year. Lorna’s achievement is a combination of hard work, dedication and inside knowledge of more than 20 years service to Sportsco.

She has seen a lot of changes in that time. Ringsend, she feels has become more corporate and less family-orientated with more business than ever in the area and much more house letting than family-occupied homes.

More aware than anyone of the immense changes in the community, Lorna has made a conscious effort to facilitate local people into Sportsco.

Ringsend residents for instance, are regular users of the centre’s swimming pool. The schools in the area avail of the multi-purpose sports hall (there’s also Easter and summer sports camps for kids) and the local community often receives preferential treatment for Sportco’s function room. The community connection is further enhanced with a quarter of Sportsco’s staff coming from the neighbourhood.

The success of Sportsco with over 12,000 members and 20,000 visitors per month is due to the wealth of facilities on offer but also to the personalised, one to one service which marks the Dublin 4 spot out among leisure centres.

Lorna herself, who is on first name terms with many of Sportsco members is quick to praise the quality of her staff, whom she says are among the most loyal and dedicated within the health and fitness industry.

Lorna has taken charge of Sportsco at a very exciting time in the centre’s development. Planning permission has recently being granted to extend the South Lotts facility. We can expect a doubling in the size of the gymnasium for starters and an improvement in the changing room facilities.

After that, we need to wait and see. Keeping her thousands of members happy and the competition guessing, is the challenge local woman Lorna faces every day. And you get the feeling she’s loving every moment of it.