Last July’s 29 degrees of heat seems long ago but there was a day which reaffirmed Colin Healy’s belief that senior soccer can comfortably coexist in the Kingdom.
An hour separated the conclusion of Kerry’s All-Ireland semi-final win over Tyrone and the League of Ireland team kicking off at Longford Town on a balmy Saturday evening.
Jack O’Connor’s side mightn’t have paid too much attention to proceedings in the midlands but the other code were consumed by the action from GAA headquarters as they digested their pre-match meal.
“All of our players were glued to the TV watching the end of the semi,” explained Healy, their Corkman boss since last May. “Even the English lads were tuned in.” Kerry’s heroes, reigning All-Ireland champions, will always hold pride of place in the county but the soccer squad are catching up at their own pace.
Whereas Treaty United manager Tommy Barrett has bemoaned soccer languishing in the shadow of hurling and rugby for affection in Limerick, Healy doesn’t consider it competition. Sport, each and every bit of it, can be embraced.
Friday’s visit to UCD kickstarts the fourth year of Kerry in the professional ranks of Irish soccer.
Like every team in the second tier, bar his old club Cork City, they’re not technically fully professional but the growing demands on part-time players sometimes make it feel that way.
Attracting Healy to the job as first-team boss marked a milestone in the club’s evolution. As a 13-times former Ireland international with experience at Celtic and Sunderland, his playing career garnered respect.
He seamlessly migrated into coaching, working with underage Ireland and Cork City squads before assuming the senior post at the latter soon after his 40th birthday.
Healy led City to the First Division title in 2022, then operated as Eileen Gleeson’s assistant boss for the Ireland women’s team before returning to the club circuit in May.
If that sounds deliberately sequential, it certainly wasn’t. 2024 was the hardest year of his life, losing his wife and mother of his two children, Kelly, following an eight-year battle with cancer. Then he lost his job with the FAI in controversial circumstances, a fiasco handled with scant compassion for his personal anguish.
Conflicting signals from the FAI led to him rejecting an initial approach from Kerry. Specifically, that came from Billy Dennehy, a former teammate at Sunderland and Cork City. He’d helped found his hometown club, develop the squads by coaching at various levels but veered into the chief executive brief.
Healy was eventually coaxed to the position, once content the work-life balance facilitated fatherly duties to his two kids.
His son, 20-year-old Arran, has accompanied him on the daily 90-minute commute up the N22 since joining from Cork City last summer.
Success came in the shape of reaching the FAI Cup semi-final for the first time. An epic 4-3 comeback quarter-final victory over top-flight side Sligo Rovers was masterminded by a sweep of Healy substitution. The other Rovers, eventual double holder Shamrock, was too far of a bridge to conquer on their home patch of Tallaght.
Kerry sat ninth in the table when the new boss took charge and there they remained when the 36 games concluded. An improvement on the first two seasons of bottom-placed finishes but not the extent of progress envisioned by the boss.
He had his first full pre-season to plan, backed by the resources of US-based owner John Wall. The businessman, originally from Tralee, took ownership in December 2024, pumping an initial €1.5m into the coffers.
He’s prepared to take the hit until the club becomes self-sustainable and while he’s flirted with the aspiration of bringing European football to the Kingdom, steady rather than spectacular investment is his modus operandi.
Money has been spent on relaying a new artificial surface and installing a gym at Mounthawk Park but an increase in playing budget should lend itself to an upturn in results too.
Two of his former Cork City players, Jonas Häkkinen and Cian Murphy, are part of the recruitment drive, both signed from Cobh Ramblers. American Vincent Borden is stepping down from Premier side Galway United, while experienced defender Killian Cantwell has also arrived.
What weds the quartet in terms of profile is their history of being part of First Division title-winning sides.
Healy is conditioned long enough in the game to avoid grand declarations about challenging Cork City for the sole guaranteed promotion spot but doesn’t downplay their ambitions.
“We want to take Kerry into the Premier Division,” he outlines. “Nobody is saying that will happen this year but I feel we’ve addressed some of the areas requiring improvement.
“We lacked strong voices in dressing rooms, senior players to guide our crop of young talented lads.
“I know from experience that you learn more from players beside you in the dressing-room than staff.
“These lads we’ve brought have done it before and can set an example for others to follow in how they prepare for games and carry themselves.
“They also know how I work, realising soon enough something is up if I’m shouting and roaring.”
Kerry train in the afternoons, an environment created to give the so-called established forces in the division the toughest of tests, home and away.
Their short history has been noteworthy for the cosmopolitan hue to their recruits. The lack of imports during this window doesn’t represent a change of direction. Candidates from overseas were trialled, only didn’t make the cut.
“Discipline is a big thing for me,” he emphasised. “If players want to play at a decent level, they’ve got to be willing to make sacrifices.
“This club is very well run and players are looked after so there’ll be no excuses. There cannot be any and won’t be.”
City’s retention of Seáni Maguire amid interest from Premier champions Shamrock Rovers consolidates Healy’s sense of them beginning as favourites. Last week’s chastening from the Munster rivals, albeit in a friendly, underlined the surplus of quality they have on the rest. Cork’s neighbours Cobh Ramblers will challenge again and the American backers of Bray Wanderers expect them to compete in the first full year of their ownership.
“There’s no doubt that teams around the league are getting better,” Healy surmised. “The standard is much higher than when I played. Extra TV coverage and the European money has helped the league overall.
“We all know that the jump from the First Division to the Premier is big but we want to be a part of that. That starts by improving our away form from last season.
“This is similar to my time at Cork City, when the first year we relied on young players before adding strength with the likes of Ruairi Keating for the second.”
Overseeing another green-clad team to bloom is the objective. Continued growth along the way is one method of ensuring local and national eyeballs monitor the ball firing under, rather than over, the opposition crossbar.
