Mayo FC will play their first ever competitive match on Saturday, hosting St Francis at Milebrush Park in Castlebar as the county gains a senior team in Irish football's national league for the first time.
The club unveiled its green and red jersey a fortnight ago at Castlebar's TF Royal Hotel, amid weeks of celebration in Mayo after the county's Gaelic footballers climbed the Hogan Stand steps last month, with much of the talk still centred on Ryan O'Donoghue's shimmy and Darragh Beirne's finish in the final.
Many of the players who lifted that trophy were accomplished junior or juvenile soccer players in their own right. O'Donoghue, seen as the beating heart of that team, was an Ireland underage soccer international whose parents drove him an hour and a half from Belmullet several times a week so he could train with the Sligo Rovers academy.
Keeping talent in the county
Mark Duffy, the Fine Gael senator who was a driving force behind the Mayo FC project and a former goalkeeper for Ballina Town, said the club aims to change that pattern.
"You've heard Ryan O'Donoghue speak even in the past few weeks about the sacrifices his parents made, driving him to Sligo from Belmullet when he was in Rovers academy. That shouldn't be the case," Duffy said. "Now, we have a chance to keep all these talented young players in Mayo and work with them here. In the past, if players such as Ryan wanted to progress, they had to go outside the county."
Mayo has never had a club in the League of Ireland, though the county has long had links to Irish football. Jack Charlton, the former Republic of Ireland manager, used to fish at the Ridge Pool on the River Moy and bought a holiday home near Ballina. Kevin Kilbane has spoken of his ties to Achill Island, while Giovanni Trapattoni visited Castlebar Celtic, Westport United and Croagh Patrick on a trip in 2008.
Mayo was the first county to successfully switch its junior soccer leagues to a summer season, but fans wanting to watch senior football had to travel to the Showgrounds in Sligo or to Galway, and promising young players tended to end up at the Sligo Rovers academy.
Building an identity from scratch
Anthony O'Neill, the club's first senior manager, said Mayo FC has the chance to build something the county can call its own. "That can change now. We can build a club that the people of Mayo can identify with," O'Neill said. "I suppose most people get to join an existing club but one of the things about starting from scratch is we can create our identity and be who we want to be."
O'Neill, from Galway, spent two seasons working under John Caulfield with the first team at Galway United before a season in charge of Westport United. He pointed to Kerry FC and Meath FC as clubs that have taken a similar approach. "There's the chance here to create a team that represents the whole of Mayo. And the market is there for a club like this," he said. "When the League of Ireland was starting a third division, it felt like a county like Mayo needed a presence in it, because it is a big county and there are a lot of talented young footballers here, some who might have fallen through the net in the past."
The club's underage structure has been running for three years, but the senior side had to be assembled from scratch. Striker Noe Baba and James McGrath, who played for Ballinamallard United in the Irish League last season, were among the key local signings.
Noe Baba's homecoming
Club chairman Joe Faughnan said bringing in local players was central to the project. "We wanted to bring in as many local players as possible, just to have that identity," Faughnan said. "To have Noe back is brilliant because from a very young age, he was considered the hottest property in Mayo soccer, everyone in the county knew about him."
Baba went for trials at Manchester United, signed for Fulham and went on to play in Germany before returning to Ireland with Finn Harps and Athlone. Faughnan said the club's new academy, which includes two full-time roles created through a government scheme run with the Football Association of Ireland, means future talents like Baba can now be developed at home. "We have the structure now to develop our own players, which hasn't happened in Mayo before, and that's a big thing," he said. "That's why the investment in these academies is so important."
Not every junior club has provided players, since some, including Castlebar Celtic, remain in the FAI Junior Cup, where they are competing with Westport for the title.
Squad building against the clock
Mayo FC have until September 23 to complete their squad, with the possibility of loan signings from Sligo Rovers and Galway United. The FAI is still finalising rules on loans between League of Ireland academies and the new third tier, but they are expected to become more common, giving young players their first taste of senior football at a time Irish football has had to rethink talent development in light of Brexit. It is one of the reasons the new National League hopes to succeed where previous efforts, notably the A Championship, have failed.
O'Neill believes the shortened inaugural season will help the club settle in. "We have four home games and four away games in the structure, and we will have also played four friendlies, since coming together in July," he said. "So, we can have 12 games this year and that will tell us a lot about the team and what else we need."
Alongside Baba and McGrath, O'Neill has signed Gary Armstrong, a former League of Ireland player who also came through the Sligo Rovers academy, and Seán McAteer, who joins from Ballinamallard. O'Neill worked with a squad of 21 in training last week, 17 senior players and four promoted from the club's under-20s. "That's probably enough in the squad, especially for a shortened season like this one," he said. "That's how we want to work it, to be bringing players up from our academy and feeding them into the senior squad. If the club are doing that, then it will be a success."
Learning from Kerry FC
Faughnan and other club officials visited Kerry FC last year, the last League of Ireland club to start from scratch while also competing alongside a strong junior scene. "Kerry have been very successful, but one of the things they told us is that it will probably take five years to get up to a competitive level. We are three years now with our underage teams, so we are getting there," said Faughnan, who is from Knockmore. "We have some very strong groups underage, some of our girls and boys teams, and then there are a couple of groups that are struggling. But that is all part of forming a new club like this. We have to remember the goal, which is to have a team competing at a high level of competitive football in Mayo."
A goalkeeper's last stand
Duffy had stepped away from playing as his political career took up more of his time, but a goalkeeping crisis at Ballina Town saw him recalled for a game against Westport United over the summer, which they won 3-1.
"I probably made my comeback and had my retirement match in the same game," Duffy said. "We won the game, but with my final save, right at full-time, I fell awkwardly and managed to dislocate my shoulder and collarbone, so that told me that it was time to hang up the gloves."
Duffy said the emotion Mayo people have felt over the past month shows the merit of the Mayo FC project, and that the club hopes to build on the feelgood factor generated by Andy Moran's team. "Every Mayo person across the world knows all about the unifying effect of sport after the All-Ireland final," he said. "That showed how sport can bring everyone together, so hopefully, this club can build on that and create something that Mayo people will want to get behind. That's what we want to do."
Mayo FC share the same sponsor as the county's Gaelic football team, and some of the All-Ireland winners are expected at Milebrush Park on Saturday. The club's away jersey, like the shirts worn by the All-Ireland champions, is white.
Mayo FC face St Francis, TU Dublin, Letterkenny Rovers and Salthill Devon in Group 2 of the new FAI National League, which launches this weekend.
