Waterford FLOODLIT SOCCER

Kelly & Dollard Football Club

 

Formed:

November 1997

Previous Names:

The Half Monty 1997 - 1998

Norfolk Line Football Club 1998 – 2005

DFDS Football Club 2005 – 2010

Kelly & Dollard 2010 - 2015

Managers:

George O’Grady November 1997

Richard Treacy Nov. 1997 to Sept. 2006

Paul Treacy Sept. 2006 to Oct. 2008

Cormac O’Keeffe Oct 2008 to May 2009

Paul Treacy June 2009 to May 2015

Honours:

FSL Premier League Champions - 2011/12

FSL ‘A’ League Runner-up - 2010/11

FSL 1st Division Runner-up - 2009/10

FSL Cup runners-up - 2011/12

FSL Shield Runners-up - 2003/04, 2009/10

 

Kelly & Dollard FC started out in 1997 when a bunch of friends, with a high (and mistaken) opinion about their footballing abilities, joined the newly established Niteowls League. At the time, the concept of midweek football was fairly alien to the people of Waterford, so the Half Monty (as we were then) became one of the twelve founding members of the League.

George O’Grady was appointed manager and we played our first game on 27th November 1997 against ABU – a team of Gardai. Unfortunately, we didn’t get off to the perfect start as a very late goal (a sign of things to come?), saw us fall to a 1-0 defeat. 

Unfortunately, as our original squad of players were drawn from a Tuesday night 5-a-side game, plus a few friends (most of whom hadn’t played 11 a side football in years) it was no surprise when the defeats started coming quick and fast. A 3-0 defeat in our second game saw a change of manager (possibly the quickest in history!), with Richard Treacy taking over. 

Results failed to improve and we started the season with 8 straight defeats. The only highlight of this run was our first goal, fittingly scored by ex-manager O’Grady. Our 9th game saw our first win, a 3-1 defeat of the Reginald Bar, which took us off the bottom of the table. The rest of the season was a struggle, with only 2 more wins, and we eventually finished 11th. The cup proved to be the highlight of our first season, when we reached the semi-final only to lose a penalty shoot-out.

The 1998/99 season saw a number of new players join the team and although we finished 11th again, we more than doubled our wins and were far more competitive. We reached the cup semi-final once again, only to lose on penalties for the second straight year.

1999/2000 saw the introduction of an additional division, so relegation became a factor. 14 goals from defender turned striker Michael Ryan ensured we finished 8th and maintained our Premier League status. A similar pattern emerged over the next three seasons, finishing between 7th and 9th on each occasion.

During this time Niteowls folded to be replaced by FSL. Many of the original teams had folded, but newer, better ones had joined. Our increasing struggles meant we had to abandon our ‘friends only’ policy and recruit from outside, in some cases even outside the county!

2003/04 saw this overhaul of the squad take place, bringing in 7 new players, including 3 from as far away as Clonmel. This bore fruit as we won 8 of our first 12 games to briefly lead the league for the first time in our history. Unfortunately, we lost a crucial game to soon-to-be champions Seanti, and we tailed off to finish 4th. We also made our first shield final where we met the Seanti again. In a game we will never want to remember, we conceded 3 goals in the opening 10 minutes and never recovered.

Our Clonmel contingent left us at the end of the season. We were unable to adequately replace them and a relegation battle ensued.

 

To be continued….