McCarthy brings a hint of European experience to

WE doubt Kerry FC sporting director Billy Dennehy and the club’s recent signing, Daire McCarthy, have spent too long swapping stories of their time involved in European football, but right now they are the only two people at the club who have first-hand experience of the European club competiton.

Dennehy, of course, has just over 20 appearances between Europa League and Champions League qualifiers, and the Europa League group stage, from his time at Shamrock Rovers, St Patrick’s Athletic and Cork City. He has played against FC Copenhagan, Juventus and Tottenham among others, even finding the net against PAOK Salonika for Rovers.

McCarthy’s ‘European nights’ don’t quite carry the same weight: truth is, he hasn’t played a minute of European football, but he has been there and worn the jersey.

As a Sligo Rovers player, McCarthy

was included in four match squads for Rovers’ Europa Conference League qualifying campaign in the summer of 2022. A native of Athenry in east Galway, McCarthy – understandably – “played a good bit of hurling when I was younger but the soccer took over then when I got to my teenage years”.

Having worked his work through his local club at schoolboys level, he joined Galway United at the age of 15 and spent two years at Eamonn Deacy Park. From there he went to Sligo Rovers where he spent about a year and a half at the Showgrounds, and where he got his first taste of European competition.

“Oh it was unbelievable, it was class, the stuff of dreams,” he says when asked to recall that time. McCarthy, still only 17 years of age at the time, was included in the Sligo Rovers match day squads for their Europa Conference League first qualifying round wins home and away to Bala Town from Wales, the second round qualifier away leg to Motherwell, and the home leg of the third round qualifier against Viking from Norway.

Needless to say, it was the trip to Scotland that stands out for McCarthy.

“You don’t realise how good it is until you’re over there. I was in the squad that travelled to Motherwell for the game over there, that we won 1-0, and it was just unreal. It was just class. An Aidan Keena goal won it and it is hard to even describe how good it was. You come over and look out on the pitch and it is just an absolute carpet, you could almost play snooker on it,” he says. “It’s all a learning curve at the end of the day. When you’re over there and you see these big set-ups, I think Motherwell have a stadium near to 10,000 [capacity – it is almost 14,000] and you’re just looking around. The atmosphere in the place was just unbelievable.” Sligo didn’t make it to the group stage of the Confer ence League and McCarthy’s time up the N17 ended, with the teenager returning to Athenry to complete his Leaving Cert, fall back in with Galway United and continue to dream big about his soccer career.

Now 19 years old, he is studying Commerce in NUIG, while also wanting to further education himself in the beautiful game. With Galway United winning promotion to the Premier Division for this season, McCarthy – and his longtime friend Steven Healy – had to weigh up their options, with a loan spell deemed the best option for the pair.

“We met John [Caufield, Galway manager] at the end of last year and we spoke about our options for [the] next year and what was best, and we thought maybe our best bet was to get game time and get as much games under our belt as we can. Games [for us] could be few and far between in the Premier Division or we could have been on the bench for a lot of the year so I think our best bet was to get games. We’re still both only nineteen, we still have time to learn, and we have to learn bits to get to a higher standard,” McCarthy explained.

“That was how it came about, and I think John had known James Sugrue and Billy [Dennehy] and Conor McCarthy from before and I think that’s how it came about really. Once I spoke to John, then I spoke to James Sugrue and Conor McCarthy and they were great. They really helped me transition through, they were really positive, and I liked the way their outlook on football was, so I just went with it and hoped for the best.”

McCarthy – and Healy – train with Galway United on Monday and Wednesday, then make the trip south on Thursday to train with Kerry FC, and stay overnight and play with their new club, home or away, on Friday night.

“I came down for the first session in January, saw what it was like and just went for it from there.