Ratoath's ambitions mushroom like their population as they chase dream double

It's a brief history that's worth recalling because tomorrow afternoon Ratoath begin the first leg of their quest for a historic senior football/hurling double

Ratoath players, from left, Emmet Boyle, Cian O’Brien and Gareth Rooney celebrate following their side's victory in last year's county final. They put that crown on the line on Sunday. Picture: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

There was a time when if you saw a county player in Ratoath, he was probably passing through the little village on a rat-run out of Dublin.

Local county men were thin on the ground and for a village of around 500, until the population explosion in the 1990s, nobody expected a whole pile more.