Louth's Grimes relishing trip from dog days to packed Croker

Conor Grimes at the Louth GAA Centre of Excellence. Pic: ©INPHO/Morgan Treacy

Conor Grimes still has vivid memories of the one-man-and-his-dog days with Louth.

When he made his Championship debut for Louth in 2014, against Westmeath in a preliminary round Leinster tie, the Wee County had just been relegated to Division 3. They would eventually bottom out in Division 4.

From there to here, the journey to playing in front of an anticipated capacity crowd at Croke Park this Saturday, with an All-Ireland final place on the line, has been nothing short of incredible.

"The early part of my career was spent in Division 3 and Division 4, and yo-yoing between the two," said Grimes. "You'd have 50, 80 people at games. Even Mickey Harte's first Championship game as manager, there were about 100 people at the game. We watched it back and you can hear a dog barking in the background.

"Now, you're selling out Croke Park for the last few weeks, and hopefully for the next couple of weeks. That's a massive change for players.

"But that's what we aimed to create, we aim to create that hype train. We wanted to create this, but we wanted to create it for the fans and the spectators. It's important that we don't get caught up in the hype train, as players."

Grimes played a couple of seasons with Louth before taking off for a year with his now wife, Jayne.

"We went to New Zealand and Australia, it was on the way back home from that, when we went through India and Asia, that we developed the idea for our business," said the Glen Emmets man, referencing the Spoonful Botanical brand and joint support product that the pair developed.

"We were on RTÉ's Nationwide which was a massive breakthrough for us. From that then we started getting into more and more stores, we're in over 500 stores now around Ireland. We ship all over Europe. We have seven people full-time and 12 people part-time working for us."

The Grimes' have a child too, daughter Izzy. And on the day that Conor conducted this interview, he was up at 4am, making the health food product and ensuring that staff could hit the ground running when they came in at 8am.

Life, work and football. That's a lot of balls to be juggling in the air at the one time.

But he figures that it's worth it, with Louth flying high and making giant strides forward each year. Just like his business.

"I've been lucky and extremely privileged, and I've said this a number of times, that Mickey Harte came in when he did," said Grimes of Harte's late 2020 arrival in the north-east. "He put the foundations in place."

It's unlikely but not beyond the realms of possibility that Louth could move into their brand-new stadium in Dundalk in 2027 as All-Ireland holders.

Even days like this weekend, playing Mayo in an All-Ireland semi-final, Grimes couldn't have foreseen coming.

"In the early part of my career, the first five or six years, no," he acknowledged. "But I remember the day we got the call about Mickey becoming involved. I absolutely believed in the work being done around the place. And if you'd asked me, say, two or three years ago if this is possible, I would have said, yes. And not in an arrogant or cocky way. 

"But when you see the amount of work going in around the place, from sponsors to management to everyone rowing in, and the levels the underage teams are operating at on a consistent basis, I think you have to believe that this was achievable."