Girls continue to do it for themselves at Killavilla

Their under-14 girls’ team has qualified for an SFAI Cup final, against Greystones, this Saturday in Kilkenny.

KILLAVILLA UNITED v GREYSTONES UNITED

Evergreen FC, Kilkenny

Saturday, 11th May

Kick-off @ 3.00pm

By Thomas Conway

Founded in 1969, Killavilla United is North Tipperary’s oldest football club. But a quick glance through its social media accounts should be enough to tell you that this club is every bit as modern and sophisticated as your contemporary Premier League outfit.

Its Facebook page is teeming with posts, including everything from concise match reports to details about the club’s €20,000 lotto jackpot. The club is, quite literally, a hive of activity. The underage section is thriving, the adult ranks are stacked with players, the sense of enthusiasm, of sheer possibility, is inescapable. And now Killavilla has broken new ground.

Their under-14 girls’ team has qualified for an SFAI Cup final, against Greystones, this Saturday in Kilkenny. It’s an achievement that ranks among the club’s highest, but it also tells you a little bit more about Killavilla as a club. This is a progressive place, a space where women and girls are given the opportunities and privileges that males have long enjoyed. And now, one group of girls has seized that opportunity, climbing all the way to a national final playing an attractive brand of on-the-ground football that Katie McCabe and co. would be proud of.

Make no mistake about it, this SFAI Cup Final is a massive occasion, not just for those girls but for the club in general. Killavilla stand on the cusp of history, but their nerveless manager Pio Fitzpatrick shows little sign of anxiety or pressure. Fitzpatrick knows the stakes. He knows how big a game this is. But instead of nerves, he’s filled with pride.

“This is the biggest competition at underage level for girls, and it’s a huge achievement for us just to get there,” said the Killavilla manager.

“Especially coming from North Tipp as well - it’s a small region, there wouldn’t be a lot of soccer teams in it, so it’s a really big deal. This is like Ireland getting to the World Cup Final, for us, it’s the equivalent!”

As in so many other clubs, the story of Killavilla’s girls academy is a story of volunteerism, ambition, and realising potential. Pio has only joined the carnival in recent years, but the foundations had already been set by those who walked before him - the likes of Brian Brooks and Paul Kirwan. Both were instrumental in first developing a female section within the club, setting in motion a chain of events which would ultimately lead to where we are now, a National Cup final.

Fitzpatrick readily admits that neither him nor his fellow coaches had much experience in coaching girls, but that didn’t matter. They embraced their roles, as best they could. Ultimately, the girls would thank them for it.

“The girls section is huge,” he revealed.

“It started off there maybe ten years ago - Brian Brooks was over the girls’ teams and then Paul Kirwan came in and took over. Then I came in and started coaching. So, we’re all former players. We would have all played senior soccer with Killavilla, and we’ve probably been training the girls just like we were training the lads. That’s just the way it was.

“We had very little experience with girls, but we got involved with them anyway. But look, it’s all great for development. The girls play matches against the boys or the girls go and play with the boys, and that all benefits the girls in the long run.”

Killavilla’s under-14 girls currently sit second in the NTSFL table, with one game to go. Win it and they can toast domestic success, but the domestic competitions weren’t exactly the priority when they set out along this path in the middle of last summer. As Fitzpatrick explains, the girls were hungry for something more, for national stardom perhaps, and the SFAI Cup was the obvious target.

Fitzpatrick is unambiguous. Their stated aim at the beginning of this season was to qualify for a national final. Months later, after games a plenty and a whistle stop tour of the country, they are where they wanted to be. In the decider, facing Greystones - another underdog force that few foresaw as a potential finalist when this competition initially kicked off.

“North Tipp is great, the league and the cups are great, but at the start of the year we set it out and our main aim was to get to the National Cup Final,” Fitzpatrick said.

“That’s not just saying it because we’ve got there, it was genuinely our aim. We wanted to find something that was really hard to achieve, and we set out to do it and we’re there now. We had a long route to it, a few tough games along the way, but we’re where we wanted to be at the start of the season - in a Cup Final.”

Does Fitzpatrick believe his side can win it? Does he believe his group of girls can write their own little bit of history in Kilkenny next Saturday afternoon? Absolutely. The Roscrea man is unequivocal. His team, if they produce a performance, have every prospect of lifting silverware this weekend. It won’t be easy. Greystones are quick moving and slick.

Fitzpatrick was a curious observer at their semi-final against Kilnamanagh FC of Dublin, in which the Wicklow side snook away with a 1-0 win. It could be low-scoring as well on Saturday, if one team scores and then retreats into a defensive shell, but you can be sure of one thing. Killavilla will be there to play football. That philosophy has underpinned Fitzpatrick’s coaching style from the very beginning.

“When my own daughter was in the academy in Killavilla I would have regularly gone down and watched some of the teams in action,” he added.

“I would have been watching games that the younger boys were playing and I was always coming away with a feeling of frustration - I never thought the kids were playing the proper way, or being taught how to play the proper way.

“So, when I was asked to go and do the girls, I said to myself that I want to do this the proper way, I want to teach them how to play football.

“So, the way we play now, everything is on the ground, we play it out from the back, we’re able to play two or three different formations that we worked on over the summer. So, the girls are very advanced, in terms of their knowledge of tactics and their knowledge of the game.”

Whatever the outcome this Saturday, whatever way this game evolves, the people of Roscrea will remain proud of this group of footballers. Busloads of supporters will travel from the club itself - arrangements have been to ferry more or less all the club’s underage outfits to the game to offer their support.

Killavilla United are, in Pio’s estimation, the first boys or girls team ever to emerge from North Tipperary and qualify for a national final. He concedes that the squad has been hit by injury but expects everyone to be fully fit come Saturday. To win this Killavilla will have to perform out of their skins, cast away the nerves and anxiety and just relax and play football, like they’ve grown up doing. It will be tight. It will be tense. But it should be an occasion for all to relish. History beckons, for Killavilla United.