The Kingdom boy done good

He turned his back on a promising GAA career but tonight Billy Dennehy can become only the second Kerryman to win Irish soccer’s biggest prize. He spoke to Liam Mackey.

HAD events taken a different course, he might have won All-Ireland honours in the green and gold of Kerry but instead Billy Dennehy now stands on the brink of a league and cup double in the green and white of Shamrock Rovers.

The first 90 minutes which will define his season takes place at the Carlisle Grounds in Bray tonight where Rovers can clinch their first title in 16 years.

Should they succeed, then it will also rank as a notable personal achievement for a footballer from the Kingdom, although one that Dennehy will share with another former Rovers man who, like Billy, was also born in Tralee — Tony O’Connell, a league medal-winner with Dundalk back in 1967.

For the 23-year-old winger, there are absolutely no regrets about turning his back on the dominant sport of his birthplace.

“You’re always aware of the big gaelic culture down there,” he says. “When I was playing gaelic I knew that was a route I could go down and probably be involved in the Kerry senior team but you kind of want to do something different. You want to be stepping up to bigger challenges and hopefully doing well at them.

“And, no doubt, this is probably one of the biggest ones soccer-wise for a player from down that way. There are probably All-Ireland medals on nearly every other door step in Kerry and it’s obviously the biggest sport down there. But there’s a bit more interest in Rovers now and hopefully we can finish things off tonight.”

There weren’t too many high profile role models for an aspiring soccer player in Tralee but more than a few locals who thought that young Dennehy – who played corner forward for Austin Stacks — was frankly mad to walk away from a promising gaelic career.

“You looked up to players like Roy Keane and Liam Miller because they were closer to home,” he recalls. “I saw them as an inspiration and that was the path I wanted to follow. And, yeah, I got a bit of stick at the time. We were in the All Ireland semi-final with the Kerry minors and I’d been in the team all up along, winning the Munster Championship and stuff like that, but it came to the time where Sunderland offered me a contract to go over and so I had to make a decision there and then. But it wasn’t a hard decision really, when an English club wants you to go over and play professionally. So I stuck with it and thankfully it’s paying off so far.”

DARREN Dennehy, a centre-half with Barnet, has followed in his brother’s footsteps, the siblings backed all the way by their approving parents.

“Being from the older school, my dad would have grown up playing gaelic more than soccer but my mom and dad were always very supportive of me and my brother,” says Billy. “If we were playing badminton, tennis or bowling, it wouldn’t matter to them, they’d be there to support us anyway. So when we made our decision, me and my brother, to do the soccer, they supported us. Now, I’m glad they’ve got days like this to come – I’ve got them tickets for the Bray game. There’s massive interest at home. A lot of my friends and family will be travelling up for the game. I suppose with Kerry going out of the All-Ireland so early it kind of shifted the interest over to the soccer and Rovers more.”

As a teenager, Dennehy’s eye-catching performances for Tralee Dynamos and Kingdom Boys and at under-age level for Ireland made him a highly rated young talent but, as is so often the case for a developing player, his professional career hasn’t been all plain-sailing.

He recalls his time at Sunderland fondly, noting that the arrival there of Roy Keane means he will be able to recall in old age how he trained with “one of the greatest Irish players of all time.”

A loan spell at Accrington Stanley was followed by a move to Derry City but it wasn’t until last season at Cork City that he finally found his feet and his form – ironically at a time when the club itself was almost collapsing around him and more experienced colleagues like Dan Murray and Danny Murphy with whom he is now reunited at Rovers.

“Murph and Dan had a few great years in Cork before everything happened,” he reflects. “They had seen the good times as well but, for me, it was my first year there. Everything was up in the air off the pitch but on the pitch was a different story. I think you saw that by the way we played and the way we finished.

“Of course, it’s a relief to be able to just focus on football but I think when you’re young you just do that anyway. I mean, some of the other lads had families to feed and bills to pay. But I was young, living at home, and it didn’t affect me as much as them. But definitely when you’re at a proper professional club it does take those kinds of worries off players with bigger commitments so I’m sure they’re a lot happier their wages are there every week.”

For Dennehy, his decision to join the Hoops – despite interest from across the water – was motivated in the main by a desire to continue the strides he felt he’d made at Turner’s Cross.

“I think, in fairness, last year at Cork was my first year of being settled and enjoying my football,” he says. “When the chance came to move it was very important for me that I pick a club where I thought I could continue that. And I definitely made the right choice. Hamilton and Hartlepool were two clubs I could have gone to in the off-season. But it wasn’t important for me to go straight back. What was important was to continue the way I’d played at Cork and thankfully that’s the way it’s been. I’m enjoying myself and I think that’s the most important thing when you play.”

WHICH is not to say, of course, that it’s been all plain-sailing at Rovers either, their recent wobble threatening to derail their whole season before they finally got their destiny back in their own hands.

“I think as a player you’re going to have those times throughout every season,” says Dennehy. “For us, the bad patch was just unfortunate timing. But I have to say I never felt we were playing poorly as a team. We were just being more unlucky than anything else, not getting little breaks and decisions and stuff. The attitude of the team never changed, we always went out to play and to win. We responded well to that and I think all the players knew that we were good enough to turn it around. And thankfully it’s turned around in our favour now.”

Although, as Billy Dennehy is quick to remind you, there’s still 180 minutes of work to be done, beginning tonight in the Carlisle Grounds. And that’s the only game he has in his mind right now.

“I haven’t really thought about the cup final,” he says. “Honestly, it’s not in my mind at all. I’ve always been a player to take one game at a time. Train every day as hard as you can and play every game as hard as you can. So I’m looking at tonight first – and I’ll look at the cup final after that.”