JOHN SAVAGE
FORMER senior boss Colin Kelly is excited and enthusiastic about Louth football again and doesn’t rule out returning to a coaching role with his native county in the future.
‘I’m very passionate about Louth and I’m very lucky to have the opportunity to represent Louth as a player for 20 years and then coach at all levels. So if there was an opportunity to stay involved in the coaching I’d be only too happy to,’ he said.
And the arrival of his old teammate Peter Fitzpatrick to the role of chairman can only be a good thing, insists the fomrer Newtown Blues man.
‘We have probably been a bit lethargic in our efforts over the last few years. I remember when we got to Division 2 at the end of my term, I think my words were ‘be careful what you wish for’ because we need to resource this to the high heavens and push on and I think we probably didn’t do enough of that.
‘I think we’re probably not progressive enough in terms of how we view ourselves as a county and I think that’s going to change over the next few years with Fitzer.
‘He’s so energetic and he delegates to people and gets the right people around him. Bob [Doheny] would be very efficient as secretary and the new PRO [Mark Byrne] looks excellent and Sean McClean from Hunterstown is good guy. And of course Aidan has always been a superb treasurer.
‘So it’s an exciting time and while everyone is preoccupied by bigger issues at the moment, it won’t be too long before we’re out the other side of this and we can get it moving again. The new stadium is a big, big project. I was asked to get involved with a development group with some really good people and hopefully we can come up with some new ideas.’
All of that is on hold at the moment as the country remains in lockdown in the fight against COVID-19.
Kelly’s return to Dreadnots has been stalled as result as only a handful of subsidiary games were played prior to the season being halted.
But as much as he misses football, Kelly is enjoying the quiet life too.
‘It’s out of our control and I haven’t thought about it too much from a football perspective. It’s probably one of the only times where we’ve actually had real downtime and I’m not actually thinking about football. As you walk around the village and stuff, you see lads out for a run and you stop and talk, but it’s not something we’re discussing
‘It’s just about family time for us. You know, sitting down and having dinner together, which is something we’ve never done.
‘Either we’re in Dublin with Tara playing music or football or Conall’s playing football or I’m training teams, so we’re like ships passing each other by. So to just have time to sit down and spend time with your family is strange but really nice.
‘From a football point of view it’s out of our control and the most important thing is that everyone stays safe and I’m sure we’ll come out the other side of it. Dreadnots have a good experienced bunch who I know will come straight back in and pick up the mantle again straight away.’
When the times does come to return to action Kelly feels both the league and championship can proceed as normal, but he feels relegation should be scrapped.
‘Our League consists of 11 games and a championship so is it possible to say that if we got it going in mid June , over the last two weeks of June and first three weeks of July you could play five league matches and then break for the Championship and play the last six after the Championship? I wouldn’t have relegation because it’s very unfair on managers coming into a new team and it will favour clubs with settled coaching teams.
‘But look as it stands at the minute, no one knows where it’s going or what’s going to happen. It’s imperative we stay healthy and keep going.
‘It depends too how quickly they ease restrictions. I’d say if we played a run-of-themill club match in Clogher tomorrow it would draw a bumper crowd so managing, you know, 40 or 50 or 60,000 people in Croke Park is a huge challenge and I think crowds will be that big with the public having been starved of any sporting action for so long.
‘It’s easy to understand how so many people attended sports games years and years ago when there wasn’t as much stuff open and things were quieter. So, now I think people are starting to appreciate what’s important and I think you’ll see a push back into sport in a big way and hopefully we can just get going as quick as we can.’