Imokilly footballers have 'untapped potential' as they find their feet again

After a challenging number of years for the Imokilly footballers, they are finding their feet again.

Having been unable to field a team in the McCarthy Insurance Group Premier SFC in 2024 and ’25, the plan from their point of view is to put in a team for the upcoming campaign.

A huge amount of work has gone in behind the scenes by so many people to just get to this stage.

A large management group has been put in place with Martin Enright and John O’Connor joint-managers.

Imokilly had their first training session of 2026 last week on Midleton’s fabulous new 3G pitch. Over 70 players turned up.

“It’s very important that the younger lads have something to aim for now in Imokilly,” joint-manager Enright says.

“There’s a lot of young lads coming through at the moment through the development squads, a lot of East Cork representation in the football, which there hasn’t been for a few years.

“John [O’Connor] and myself know that there’s an awful lot of really, really good footballers in East Cork, and it just hasn’t been tapped into. So we put out a call to the players, went directly to the players, and the response has been massive.

“Over 70 lads came back to us within two weeks wanting to try this out and wanting to come through the trial phase straight away. The plan now is that we’ll have two contact points in January with the lads, we’ll have challenge games in February, and that’ll help us reduce the squad then. So every lad is getting at least two games.

“We’re hurling mad down here in East Cork, but the football has always been there in the background, it just wasn’t given its full place. So now we just feel that if we can get an opportunity to get lads on to the pitch, the football will speak for itself.

“The management here now have kind of committed that we’ll give it absolutely every opportunity this year, and we’ll be hoping to stay on next year and try and keep it going as much as physically possible.

“Guys have come on board, they’ve done their bit, and then it has fallen away. So what we’re trying to do now is keep it as consistent as possible. Any lad that doesn’t make it this year, we’re going to try and keep the group together throughout the year as a training panel."

The Imokilly footballers were the kingpins of the county. They won the top-tier championship on Leeside in 1984 and again in 1986.

It was only three years ago they defeated Muskerry, but unfortunately for Imokilly, it proved to be a false dawn.

Muskerry recovered to win the Tadhg Crowley Cup in 2024 and went into the championship proper.

“I do think the football down here in East Cork can go as high as the hurling,” Enright said.

“We’re kind of seeing it as our duty now to put in place a system so that the football can flourish down here.

“We know there’s great footballers here. It has untapped potential. East Cork is only getting bigger. If we can keep the football some way alive and make a structure, it can be a multi-year thing.

“That’s our big plan here. We need football to improve.”