Gary has the midas touch in junior soccer

SUCCESS in football can be a hard thing to come by and some managers/coaches go through their whole career in Junior Soccer without achieving anything, while others may win one trophy, reports John Mooney.

But Gary Stokes, of Lucan United’s Major 1A Saturday side, is the exception and no matter what he turns his hand to seems to turn to gold, you could say he has the midas touch.

Darts, Bowling and Astro Team Football all proved to be successful, before he approached Luke Richardson, secretary of Belgard Athletic, to allow him, and his trusted side kick Conor Duffy, to form a second team for their first foray into 11-a-side soccer.

With three full seasons behind him seven trophies have been collected, and more are bound to follow by this season’s end.

A very successful stint with Belgard Athletic in the United Churches Football League saw him guiding them to two league titles and two shields in the space of a couple of seasons.

Lucan saw the potential and asked if he and Conor would be interested in coming along, where they were joined on the coaching side by the club’s John Markey.

In his first season they won the Major 1B title, LFA Junior Cup, Tom Carroll Cup, runner up in the Noel Ryan Cup and went out of the FAI Junior Cup in the last 16 to Pike Rovers.

While, already this term, United are in the semi-final of the FAI Junior Cup, where they will face Fairview Rangers of Limerick at home, are the lowest ranked team ever to reach the last four of this prestigious competition and, in the process, have qualified for the FAI Cup next season.

They have a last 16 away day against Balbriggan FC in the LFA Junior Cup tomorrow night, and if Lucan can get through that it’s a quarter final clash with Tallaght United.

That would be an interesting game considering Gary, Conor and a few of their players are from Tallaght.

The team look odds on to win the league title, they have ten wins on the trot, and are still in the hunt for Glenn Fullam Cup.

Like most managers/coaches there is a ritual before every game and that is both he and Conor visit Conor’s father, Pat’s, grave.

It was what they did before their first game with Belgard, and have continued every week for the past three and a half seasons.

And Gary freely admits that he feels Pat Duffy is the real hero behind their success, as he is sure Pat got them out of some tight spots over the years.

At the moment he is very happy with his lot in Lucan, the club and people and says “It’s a great club”,  but, no matter what way you look at it, if he ever wants to try his hand at the senior Sunday side of the game I’m sure there would be plenty of offers on the table.