Ballinora U21 footballers emerge from the shadows 

NO matter what happens in the rest of the campaign, it has already been an historic year for Ballinora.

The club won the Muskerry U21 A football championship title for the first time ever last month as they emerged from the shadows of their more illustrious neighbours to clinch the trophy. Over the last 20 years, Ballincollig and Éire Óg had dominated the championship between them. 

Prior to this season, you had to go back to 2018 when a club other than Ballincollig and Éire Óg won the divisional championship, which was Kilmurry, so it was a brilliant achievement when Ballinora broke the mould last month.

Just over six weeks on from the famous achievement for the team in red and green, manager of the victorious winning team Willie Lyons says it will take some time for the success to properly sink in.

“It’s only in the weeks and months afterwards that it does sink in, it hasn’t yet though,” says Lyons, who is also manager of the Ballinora intermediate A football team.

“We could only dream about winning this particular championship previously, even at the start of the year, but slowly but surely it will sink in and it will be a great memory to look back on. It’s a fantastic achievement for a club like ourselves to be the kingpins of U21 football in Muskerry when you see the amount of big clubs in the division who have won this title on many occasions.

“For us, it was all about being competitive at A level, unfortunately it wasn’t to be over the last few years. These are a good bunch of young lads. They have all shown promise since they started out at U5 level, we have held them together and a lot of people deserve an awful lot of credit. Winning the championship was a culmination of 15 years of hard work.” 

Ballinora had to do it the hard way this year, beating a Ballincollig side in the semi-final, who were going for their third successive crown, and were favourites to do so. Despite missing a few key players, the Village were fancied to scrape over the line against Ballinora at Ballymah.

“Beating Ballincollig was a massive moment for us,” the manager said.

“They were rightly favourites coming into it. To be honest, we probably targeted that game when the draw was made. It was a huge focus for us. Seven of the team, it’s their last year at U21 level, so it was a significant one. Look, we came out on the right side by a point, but we did have the rub of the green. We held our composure in the closing stages and got the scores at crucial stages. On another day, the result could have been different.” 

There was then an element of pressure on the Ballinora team heading into the final against Naomh Abán, after being underdogs in the semi-final, they were now favourites to get over the men from Ballyvourney, who themselves had a fine victory in the last four against Éire Óg.

“I would have to say there was pressure on us to deliver,” says Lyons.

“Not to sound big headed now, but a few of the players have had success and have been familiar with the favourite tag and it’s something that wrests reasonably positively on them. There were just eight days between the semi-final and final, so it was a very quick turnaround. I was satisfied after training a couple of days after the Ballincollig win that the lads had moved on from it and were focused on the final. The risk was a potential hangover.” 

And there was certainly no signs of nerves in the decider, especially in the first 30 minutes when Ballinora led 1-10 to 0-4 at the break. Naomh Abán did rally, but Ballinora won 3-11 to 0-9, which sparked wild celebrations.

“I was just delighted with the performance. When I looked back at the video, our backs were outstanding. They snuffed out a lot of promising Naomh Abán attacks. It was a real team performance from everyone. We have a panel of 25, and they have all contributed. Similar to the semi-final, we got the scores at the right time. It’s such a marvellous achievement.

“Results and trophies are brilliant, but ultimately it’s about participation and engagement because there will always be more bad days than good days when it comes to silverware, so we will keep our feet on the ground.” Lyons concluded.

Ballinora will play in the U21 A football county championship towards the end of the year.