> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.dublininquirer.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Darndale FC juniors left out of youth football league
- URL: https://www.dublininquirer.com/darndale-fc-juniors-left-out-of-youth-football-league/
- Published: 2026-09-04T00:10:19.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-04T00:10:19.000Z
- Description: The importance for young people to play for a club that has their own community's name on it can’t be underestimated, said club chair John Lyons.
- Author: Eoin Glackin
- Tags: sports, City Desk, Local Democracy Reporting Scheme

In August, Darndale FC under-13s team held their annual award ceremony for the previous season.

There were prizes for things like “top goal scorer of the year”, “player of the year”, and “player’s player of the year” – where members of the team vote for the person who made the biggest impact across the season.

Some of those boys had been playing together since the age of four, in the club’s juvenile academy, the “Darndale Dribblers”, says Ian Currie, secretary of the club’s junior teams.

But, while the lads enjoyed the ceremony and the craic with their mates, there was more than a hint of sadness in the air, says Currie.

After so many years playing together, the now-under-14s team, as well as the club’s under-11s, no longer have a competitive league to play in.

So, before the next competitive season starts in spring, the players have gone their separate ways.

Darndale FC juniors had been playing in the North Dublin Schoolboys/Girls League (NDSL).

But earlier this year, that league merged with the North-Eastern Regional League (NERL), which serves Meath, Louth, Cavan, Monaghan, and Westmeath.

The newly merged NERL has no room for Darndale, says Currie.

After first being told they would be welcome in the NERL, the clubs involved in the league decided amongst themselves they wouldn’t travel past exit 5, Balbriggan, on the M1 for away games.

Darndale is further south, closer to exit 3\. 

So a number of clubs in north Dublin were jettisoned, including Darndale FC, Grange Woodbine FC, Portrane Athletic FC, Willows FC, and Artane Beaumont FC.

The obvious move seemed to be for those clubs to join the Dublin and District Schoolboys/Girls' League (DDSL). But they hit a wall here too.

The DDSL would only accept clubs that had a minimum of five competitive junior teams – and Darndale FC only had two.

While most of the ex-NDSL teams met the five-team-criteria, Darndale FC and Grange Woodbine FC didn’t, says Currie.

Why can't a club with two teams play? General manager of the DDSL Mick Kennedy said on Wednesday that, while he was not familiar with the Darndale FC situation, there has to be some criteria.

“We can only deal with so many players and so many clubs, and there has to be a criteria for clubs coming in,” he said. “It's as simple as that.”

Kennedy recommended contacting another DDSL email address for more information. There was no response from that address.

Independent Councillor John Lyons said on Tuesday that the fiasco "leaves the kids in one of the most deprived communities in the state, without their local football club," he says.

## Disappointment

Lyons, who is also chairperson of Darndale FC, says he has been appalled at the lack of support for their junior sides.

“I've said it in emails to the Schoolboys FAI \[SFAI\], to the Leinster FAI pointperson, and to everyone else, that I find grassroots football administration convoluted, opaque, and completely mind-bogglingly untransparent,” Lyons said on Tuesday.

It seems as if the governing body for the sport, the FAI, has little or no power or oversight of what goes on at juvenile club level, he says.

“Which means we've had a merger of two leagues, one of which was the one that Darndale was in, and there was no, it seems, responsibility to ensure that the clubs transferred into the new league,” he says. “No guarantee or any such thing.”

It was "quiteshocking**"**, he says, that there's seemingly no oversight and governance procedures in place for when such mergers happen, formal or otherwise.

The club is in its 50th year, which is "a hell of an achievement", he says.

“Given some of the difficulties we have with, say, the home pitch in the \[Darndale\] park that's been taken over by drug dealers and irresponsible horse owners,” he says.

For the club to have done all it can to keep things going, albeit struggling, to then be faced with a situation where they, suddenly, are without leagues for their under-14s and under-11s is devastating, he says.

The importance for young people to play for a club that has their own community's name on it, can’t be underestimated he says.

Now, the kids have, as far as they’re concerned, been told that to the SFAI, FAI, DDSL, and NERL, their team and all their hard work over the years meant nothing, he says.

“And to my mind, as chairperson of the club, that just sends a message to young people in the area that the adults don't care enough,” he says.

For a club that's been running for 50 years, providing training and competitive matches week in week out, every season for five decades, to be in this position, is beyond disappointing, he says.

Currie, the club junior side's secretary, says this sadly echoes what happens to Darndale's under-14 girls team two years ago.

They had been competing in the Dublin Metropolitan Girls' League (MGL), which collapsed in 2024.

The girls of Darndale were also let down to learn they didn't have the necessary five teams to join the DDSL, so they disbanded, Currie says.

Lyons says that while Darndale FC juniors will continue running their academy for four- to seven-year-olds, it hopes this latest league mess is not permanent. 

They will continue to fight to get the young people of Darndale recognised by the football powers that be, he says. 

In the meantime, Lyons says some clubs in neighbouring areas have been very helpful in offering places to the Darndale FC players, for now. “Which has been lovely.”

A spokesperson for the FAI declined to comment, saying that it was a matter for the SFAI.

Neither the SFAI nor the DDSL have responded to emails asking why the five-team-minimum rule is in place, or if they can help clubs like Darndale FC from this happening again in the future.

*Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.*