At the heart of the community

LENAMORE Rovers is a small rural club with its grounds located two miles from the village of Ballylongford on the Ballylongford to Moyvane Road.

The club have a fine pitch and clubhouse which is a great achievement for a club of this size. While most of their players come from Ballylongford they also have a few players from the neighbouring parishes.

Back in the late 80s an underage structure was put in place by a few local people and they entered teams at under 14 and under 16 in the Kerry Schoolboys League. The idea to concentrate on underage teams was the brainchild of David Murphy and it proved to be a master stroke that prepared young players for the formation of a club.

The thinking behind this decision was that they would bring up their players through the underage process with a view to entering a senior side in the KDL. This resulted in the club having a team with an age bracket from 17 to 20 when they joined the league and while they were young they and a bit of experience gained at competitive level.

Then one evening in October 1994 a number of people interested in getting a club off the ground held a meeting at The Rovers Return Bar in Ballylongford and the idea was given the stamp of approval.

The committee that was elected was

Seamus Boyle, Michael Brassil and John Joe Hussey. Micheál Dennehy was appointed manager of the team. They team grew in stature when they got a bit of experience behind them and began to make their presence felt in the KDL.

Starting out in Division 5 and the years that followed they moved their way right up to the top division. They were Division 5 Champions early on and got promoted twice and won the Division 3 title.

They got promoted for the next two seasons and won Premier B title in 2008 with a 2-0 win over a fancied Fenit Samphires in the final. Getting up to the top flight of Kerry soccer was a great achievement but the big clubs came into the equation then so keeping their top flight status would be very difficult to maintain.

They moved up and down divisions after this but they kept the momentum going and strived hard to get on the upward spiral again. Micheál Dennehy stepped down as manager in 2015 due to health reasons and he was replaced by Brian Godfrey.

He was in the job for two years and was replaced by Tony Fennel who is the present manager of the team. They were in the hunt for promotion in Division 2B prior to the Covid-19 shut down and they will be hoping to secure their mission if or when the season resumes again.