Ballyboden St Enda’s won seniors 30 yrs ago

BALLYBODEN St Enda’s first won the Dublin Senior Football Championship 30 years ago with the victory being commemorated in a reunion held last Saturday.

The year not only saw them win their county crown but reach the semi-finals of their province.

Led by manager Sean FitzMaurice, the side contained players of note such as Brian Stynes and Paul Bealin who would go on to win the All Ireland with Dublin that year.

Their route to the county championship win saw them take on Round Tower, Civil Service, St Marks, St Vincents and then the final was played against Erin’s Isle.

Boden were not favoured coming into the final and, to make matters worse, their key man Brian Stynes was forced to play with effectively one arm after an injury in the semi-final versus St Vincents.

Manager Sean Fitzmaurice spoke about the expectations.

“Erin’s Isle would have been favourites by a long shot. Going into the day they would have been strong favourites.

‘At the start of the year our odds going into the championship were low. I thought I saw somewhere have us at 33/1 but I see 25/1 get quoted most of the time now. We were complete outsiders for it.”

Erin’s Isle had a host of intercounty players within their ranks such as Mick Deegan, Keith Barr, Johnny Barr, Robbie Boyle and Ciaran O’Hare.

“That was probably their weakness, they were tied up with the county for the year.

‘I’ve seen other teams where it’s similar, Kilmacud Crokes won the All Ireland the year before us and they only had Mick Pender on the subs, it’s important to play all the time through the league and build your team.”

The match between the two sides would be razor-close, only minutes before the end of the game saw Erin’s Isle take a one-point lead after a free from Keith Barr.

Boden would respond only moments later with Damien Bolger finding the back of the net for St Enda’s after some brilliant play from Ken Murray.

There would be further drama after the goal with Barr again striking from a free to reduce the gap to a single point, Ger Flaherty and Brendan Young managed to prevent Erin’s Isle’s Mick Deegan from scoring a goal of his own right at the death of the game.

The final score would be 1-7 to 0-09 in favour of Ballyboden St Enda’s. Liam Callan is worthy of a mention also scoring four of Boden’s seven points from play.

The win of the Dublin title would see Ballyboden progress to the provincial level where their first test would be Edenderry from Offaly. Edenderry were comfortably in the lead at half-time leading by 0-8 to 1-01 but a massive second-half performance by Ballyboden St Enda’s would see them come back to win 2-08 to 0-10, restricting Edenderry to just two points the entirety of the second half with Paul Bealin playing a massive role.

Unfortunately in the semi-finals the provincial run would come to an end with Ballyboden St Enda’s losing by a single point to Carlow side Éire Óg, who were seen as a major force in the club championship despite Carlow’s senior intercounty side not being seen as particularly competitive.

Again a poor first half would damage Boden and ultimately they would not be able to recover as they had before against Edenderry, despite a goal from Paul Bealin immediately into the second half.

Overall the scoreline would read 2-06 to 1-10 with Boden losing out by a point. Despite starting off the second-half well, Boden would go through a 13-minute period of not scoring a

point which ultimately ended their campaign.

The win in 1995 would be the first of many for Ballyboden St Enda’s. They have won the Dublin Championship three times since then with the most recent coming in 2019.

They have also won the Leinster Championship twice since in 2015-16 and 2019-20 and even became All Ireland Champions in 2015-16.

The club has grown from the springboard of 1995 and become among the biggest in Dublin.