In Dublin 8, a new group aims to represent the interests of local football clubs

The astroturf on the football pitch outside the F2 Centre in Rialto is coming apart.

Three lines of tears and holes in the dull green surface travel from one set of goal posts to the other.

It’s not fit to be used, said Damien Farrell, a local independent community activist last Wednesday. “People are coming in to train and they’re getting injured.”

Five other men join him. Each has a logo on their jacket or cap: Oliver Bond Celtic FC, Iveagh Celtic FC, Rialto FC, Transport Iveagh Trust FC, and Fatima Rangers FC.

They’re all meeting for a walk around the Liberties, to inspect and highlight what they say is a lack of publicly-owned football facilities.

Together, they’ve formed the Liberties Football Alliance, a new organisation with representatives from five clubs, calling for improved football facilities in Dublin 8.

The pitch at the F2 Centre is one of the few community pitches in Dublin 8, he says.

Two pitches in St Teresa’s Gardens were closed by Dublin City Council almost two decades ago, he says. “Those were down there for the old Boys Brigade team.”

The council is slated to develop a municipal pitch in St Teresa’s, which would include football facilities. They are also drawing up designs for a new full-sized pitch at Marrowbone Lane.

But these are both long-term plans, Farrell says. “We’re not gonna put all our eggs in one basket. There are other issues here that DCC can and should improve and that could make a difference.”

While the Sportings Liberties campaign is already actively seeking better sports facilities in Dublin 8, the Liberties Football Alliance was established to pursue objectives that are specific to local football clubs. “It’s the likes of the conditions of public pitches and access for training.”

The council, in its 2024 to 2029 sports plan, has €9 million allocated for upgrade of existing all-weather pitches, as well as the provision of new ones.

In the plan, it has also proposed to carry out an audit of all playing pitches.

Every home game is away

A group of six teenage boys come into the Rialto pitch with a brown boxer.

The dog bounds around. The boys climb into the small stand that runs along one length of the pitch.

A wall on the other side which is covered by a mural of the old Fatima flats, a pale blue butterfly and an excavator.

“We’re trying to get this place fixed, so you can use this,” says Tony May, Fatima Rangers’ secretary, to the boys.

Eddie Kehoe, who chairs both Oliver Bond Celtic FC and the Liberties Football Alliance, grimaces as he spots one particularly large pothole in the pitch.

It swallows his left foot.

For clubs in the Liberties, every “home” game is an away game, Kehoe says. “We played a home game as far out as Raheny last year.”

They couldn’t get a pitch in Dublin 8, so they rented one almost 10km away, on the opposite side of the city in St Anne’s Park, he says. “I had two junior internationals, and my team rose from the bottom league to playing Derry City two years ago.”

But the lack of facilities hampered the Oliver Bond club, he says. “We hadn’t got facilities and now I haven’t got a senior team.”

The club has just five kids’ teams and a few academy players, he says. “That’s how far you can go. There are unbelievable players in the area. But when it comes to progressing, you can’t if you’ve no facilities.”

Steeped in history

The men walk over to Dolphin House, a short stroll.

May hops on his bike, and cycles alongside. “We’re steeped in history, all of this area,” he says.

The Liberties was once awash with football clubs and talent, boasting international players like Paul McGrath and Andy Reid, he says.

“There was St Andy’s, Our Lady of Fatima, Fatima Celtic, Dolphin, Meath Rangers. All in Rialto,” he says.

And the Drimnagh Dynamos and the Pimlico Rangers too, says Paddy Lyne. “You could name twenty teams off the top of my head. All gone.”

It isn’t hard to figure out why they folded, says Kehoe. “They’re all gone mainly for the same reason. There’s nowhere to play.”

At Dolphin House, they stop at the black steel fence that surrounds the former gravel pitch.

The stony pitch is overgrown with yellowing grass and weeds. The old floodlights are rusted.

More than a quarter of the ground was removed to make way for Dolphin Park, a street that wraps around the flats that were built by the council in 2018 as part of the Dolphin House regeneration project.

It was a great surface to play on, May says. “But if you fell, you were fucked.”

Supporting a new generation

At the Basin Street flats, the men clamber over nettles to get into the gravelly Oisin Kelly Park playing pitch.

Near the entrance, May greets some boys in their late teens who are hanging about by a wall.

Brown moss covers its surface, almost as thick as a low-grade astroturf. It is scattered with broken glass and litter.

It’s a good sized pitch for playing and practice, Farrell says. But it’s been abandoned by the council.

Labour Councillor Darragh Moriarty, in September 2020, asked Dublin City Council when improvements would be carried out on the pitch.

Council officials said that a clean-up would be arranged. When he queried the matter again in April 2021, he was told that it is rarely used because of anti-social behaviour.

“There is a lack of community leadership and involvement in Basin Street,” said Mark McInerney, a council project estate officer in a written report.

Kehoe says the council should be on top of maintenance when it comes to a facility like this pitch. “If they don’t help us now, they’re going to be moaning about kids being anti-social.”

He was able to get the pitch over in the Oliver Bond flats resurfaced, he says. “And the difference that it has made. Now we have dancing groups, just because we’ve somewhere to play.”

Being able to actually boot about a football on a usable pitch can do wonders, he says.

That then would start setting a good example for young kids, says Lyne. “Everybody wants to be older when they’re younger,” he says.

“If the older kids are doing drugs, the younger ones will want to be part of that gang. If the older kids are playing football, the kids’ll want to do that too,” he says.

Losing players

The sun set, the group split into two cars, both heading over towards the Oliver Bond flats.

Around a dozen kids were out playing on the astro pitch in the complex.

Stephen Whelan, the chair of Transport Iveagh Trust FC, steered his car to park. He pointed out four young boys playing around one of the goals.

Kehoe looked out the front passenger seat window. On the radio, two hosts casually chatted about how snails die when their shells are removed.

None of the boys on the pitch were wearing the red Oliver Bond Celtic club jerseys They wore dark green, the colours of Lourdes Celtic, a club over in Kimmage.

“That’s an example,” Kehoe says.

There wasn’t a grass pitch for football in Dublin 8, so the kids had to find a club outside the area, he says. “They’ve better facilities in Dublin 12.”