It’ll be used by more than the football team, said club committee member Keith O’Connell, but open to other local groups and a youth club too.
“We’ve been running this club on fresh air for the last 48 years,” says Ayrfield United FC committee member Keith O’Connell.
The club, founded in 1977, now boasts more than 1,000 members and more than 350 active players, from four years of age up to senior level, O’Connell said by phone on Wednesday.
While the club’s main playing pitch is on Blunden Drive in Donaghmede, it has never had a dedicated clubhouse, he says.
They only got changing facilities eight years ago when two prefabs were installed on-site, says O’Connell.
Those prefabs are a state by now, he says. “We’ve still no access to electricity, to waste services, to running water.”
At a meeting on Monday of Dublin City Council’s North Central Area Committee, councillors voted to change that.
They voted to lease the former Credit Union building on Blunden Drive, next to the home pitch, to the local football club.
There are still terms and conditions to be worked out between the club and the council, said Daryl Barron, a Fianna Fáil councillor, who is chair of the committee, on the phone on Tuesday.
But the lease is likely to be a three- to five-year agreement initially, with a longer-term deal down the road, he said.
O’Connell said this will allow them to create more than a football club, but a community hub with a brand new youth club.
In 2013, O’Connell set up an Ayrfield United women’s team. It lasted four years, he says.
A huge reason it fell apart was the lack of adequate facilities, he says.
On one occasion, when a team had travelled from Kingscourt in Co. Cavan for a match, he says, the away side had to queue up and use the home toilet of a player who lived nearby.
Now, O’Connell says a big aim for the club over the next several years will be to create a launchpad for girls’ and women’s football in the area.
While football is at the heart of plans, activities at the new clubhouse are to extend beyond sport, says O’Connell.
The new clubhouse will be a multi-use community facility, with Ayrfield Men’s Shed set to base themselves there, along with other local groups, he says.
A new youth club is also on the plans, he says. “Our area has pretty much been deprived of anything for youths, other than ourselves and O’Toole’s GAA.”
The club hopes to broaden its net and be a safe place for kids who have other interests outside football, like art and music, he says. “To keep kids out of trouble and give them an outlet after school.”
O’Connell says he was lucky to have found his lifelong group of friends through his involvement with Ayrfield United from a young age – his own father was a founding member.
He wants the same for a whole new generation of local young people, he says.
Barron, the Fianna Fáil councillor, says soccer clubs are too often left to feel like the poor cousins of their GAA counterparts.
He is involved with St Malachy’s FC in Edenmore, which had no clubhouse of any sort for 40 years, he says.
In 2017, after a lot of graft, the club secured a sports capital grant from central government, in partnership with Dublin City Council. With that, a new clubhouse was built on Springdale Road, he says.
“A lot of GAA clubs get a lot of the wealth of assets, like clubhouses or astroturf pitches. Soccer is usually the poor cousin that's left behind,” he says
In this instance, however, Barron says it’s great to see a club that has so many members but is not financially as strong as some GAA clubs, getting this kind of support.
Independent Councillor John Lyons says he is thrilled to see Ayrfield United taking such a huge step forward, but other football clubs in the area still face the same issues.
He namechecks Kilmore Celtic FC and St John Vianney FC, both in Dublin 5.
It points to a lack of investment in the area in sports as well as community facilities over decades, he says. The North Central Area is bottom of the table when it comes to capital investment from the council, he said.
There have been improvements, but any situation where young children do not have adequate facilities to change and use toilets is not good enough, he says.
The council and councillors need to support all the volunteers behind these clubs, he says.
“They give us so much of their time, energy and effort to provide opportunities for the children in the area. That should be matched, at the very least, by financial support, by way of facilities,” Lyons says.
The dearth of toilet facilities at Woodside in St Anne’s Park, where Clontarf FC play their home games is a long-standing issue.
At the June meeting of the North Central Area Committee, independent Councillor Kevin Breen raised an emergency motion seeking some temporary solution, such as portaloos, while they await a permanent solution.
“It’s not just about convenience, it's about dignity and safeguarding our children, allowing them to play sport in comfort and enjoy outdoor spaces,” Breen said later, by phone.
When the lease for the Credit Union building came up at the North Central Area Committee meeting on Monday, Sinn Féin’s Micheál Mac Donncha proposed Ayrfield United for selection.
“They have been operating in the very restricted premises for a long, long time. They've done a huge amount for the area, they’re very local,” he said.
Combined with the O’Toole’s GAA Club, which is right nearby, it would almost make a new sports campus in the area, said Mac Donncha.
Lyons seconded Mac Donncha’s proposal.
Donna Cooney, a Green Party councillor, praised the club for how they addressed financing concerns in their application.
Cooney also acknowledged the club was proposing a small increase in its membership fees, while still keeping it affordable.
“I think this is really good and the fact that they do actually have finances there to put into the works that are needed. So yeah, very supportive of them,” she said.
She said she hopes the lease allows them to operate a “coffee hub”, she said, which would add another resource for the community.
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.
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