Size doesn’t matter in the AIB club championship, not even when you boast the largest playing body in Europe, possibly even the world. At least not according to Andrew Kerin.
Although in his almost 30 years of playing with Ballyboden St Enda’s rarely has Kerin faced such a numerical mismatch: Saturday’s All-Ireland semi-final sees the Dublin dual club giants and Leinster football champions take on Clonmel Commercials, the near exclusively football club from south Tipperary.
It’s not just Ballyboden St Enda’s are fed by the densely populated tracts of south Dublin – including Ballyboden, Rathfarnham, Knocklyon, Ballycullen, Ballyroan and Firhouse; they field almost 100 teams across all four different codes (football, hurling women’s football, and camogie), and are the only club in the country to win county senior titles in all four codes. Numerically they are estimated to be largest of their type in the world.
Kerin, however, joined the club at age four, and now aged 33, believes the club has retained a deep sense of locality. Indeed Ballyboden head into Saturday’s semi-final on the back of winning a first Leinster football championship, and Kerin is happy to play down the idea of it being an indisputable case of poor old David versus the rich new Goliath.
Real GAA club
“You talk to some people and they don’t see us as a real GAA club,” says Kerin, their star corner forward who was recently named AIB provincial footballer of 2015. “But the support we’ve got around the whole area, all the local pubs and shops have stuff up, so it’s just as relevant for the area as is it is for a small town down the country. And the rich thing is, well, we don’t even have a pitch to train on. We train at our local rivals, St Anne’s, because we don’t have a floodlight pitch.
“And with all the teams we do have that brings financial constraints as well. Drive around on a Saturday morning, at the academy, the amount of people involved, it’s a huge operation.”
Truth is the football side of Ballyboden St Enda’s has been in the shadow of the club hurling success over the last decade, with the hurlers capturing five Dublin titles in a row between 2007 and 2011: “A lot of lads play both so there is no begrudging the hurlers. I suppose when they did five in a row it was hard to watch on, and they’re in the same boat now, watching us having the success. But we would never begrudge them, they kind of drove us that bit further.”
The Dublin football title they won last November was their first since 2009, and only third ever, and Kerin admits it came against many expectations, especially when they very nearly lost to Clontarf in the early stages – then upset St Vincent’s in the final. They were lucky to avoid extra-time in the Leinster final in December, when Paul Cahalane from Portlaoise stood over an easy free: instead, he inexplicably missed, and Kerin – who also takes frees for his club – could hardly believe it.
Disgusted
“I was actually disgusted myself, because I’d just missed a goal chance about five minutes before that, and was thinking we were going to have to settle for extra-time. Touch wood I haven’t missed any easy ones this year, but they are the worst type of frees. I feel sorry him, I can only imagine how it feels.”
They’ll start Saturday’s game as favourites, although Kerin only has to point to the semi-final opponents to issue a reminder of how futile that is: Clonmel went into the Munster final as rank outsiders against Cork giants Nemo Rangers, only to seal an equally historic win, thanks to a spectacular goal from Michael Quinlivan, two minutes into injury time.
“We’ve done plenty of homework on Clonmel. I’ve watched the Nemo game, thought they were very impressive, looked really good but still Clonmel deserved it, with a great goal in the end. So when you see a team like Clonmel topple a big superpower like Nemo that does keep you on guard.”
