Captain Kelly happy to prove early doubters wrong as Two Mile House create history

Photos by Pat Tinsley

If you told someone around the Two Mile House club around 10 to 15 years ago if they thought they would be playing in the Kildare Senior Football Championship in 2019 and you might have received a response of ‘yeah right’.

Certainly, Peter Kelly received plenty of those type of sentiments when he was growing up and going to school in Newbridge, joined by players from established and successful senior clubs such as Moorefield and Sarsfields. Those who he played football with there would never be shy in telling him that he was wasting his time with his home club, but on Sunday he captained the small parish on the outskirts of Naas to their first ever Intermediate Championship title. That glory arrived four years on from the All-Ireland Junior Championship win in 2014, so it’s fair to say that Kelly and his colleagues have had more big days than most in his club career.

“It means everything to me,” Kelly told KildareNow afterwards.

“Growing up we were a junior club and I would have coming to games in Newbridge here watching Two Mile House play senior clubs’ C teams and losing, so to be here 10 or 15 years later and to be able to say we’re a senior club… it just really means everything to me.

“I went to school here in Newbridge and all my friends were Moorefield or Sarsfields lads, and to say I got stick in school would be an understatement. Transfer forms were being thrown in my face; lads saying come to Moorefield, come to Sarsfields because you’re never going to win anything with Two Mile House. To say now that we’re at the same level and in the same championship as them next year, it means everything to me.”

The success has been built slowly over the years, with various players introduced every couple of years to strengthen the existing spine and even enhance it. Right from 37-year-old John Goff in goals to 18-year-old Jack Collins who wore the number 15 jersey, there was a sprinkling of players aged from their late teens to their mid 30s throughout the side.

“I think we have four or five generations of teams put together from lads that are 36 or 37 years of age all the way down to our latest minor team and lads that are training with us now who are 16 or 17,” explained Kelly.

On a personal level, Kelly had a superb game on Sunday. The Kildare defender has been operating at midfield for his club this year, and once again he dominated that sector alongside the experienced Shane Darcy. The pair provided the platform for their win, squeezing the Monasterevan kickout and bursting onto breaking balls in their area. According to Kelly, that was a pre-planned move.

“The management team had their homework done,” he said.

“We played against Monasterevan three times in championship this year so we kind of had a grasp of what way their kickouts were going to go, and the lads were at their last three games as well. In fairness to the management team, they left no stone unturned and they had their homework done. We kind of knew where the kickouts were going to go and we were going to flood the breaks. We just got in there and we had hunger for the ball and we got numbers there, and it was kind of a launchpad for our attacks.

Two Mile House now enter the provincial series for the first time since 2013, a year in which they won the Leinster Junior title before claiming All-Ireland glory at the end of that same campaign in 2014. They will have high hopes of going on another run such as that.

“We’ll take it one game at a time in Leinster, but you can be sure that we’ll give it one hell of a rattle as well. We won’t be just happy with this game here today, we’ll definitely be going for it. We know what it feels like to win a Leinster and an All-Ireland so we’ll definitely be going for that too,” concluded Kelly.