10th May, 2019, 40th day since I relocated to Ireland from India: Friday evening, a casual walk with my family to Clonmore Park, Stillorgan. I never thought it would be a pleasant kick off to my football journey in Ireland.

Sports is a great way to connect with like minded people. Sports also gives an opportunity to be the ice breaker when you are in a new surrounding , new country, etc. This is my way to say thank you to this awesome cohort of ‘Real Social Dads’ football players who have been super welcoming and gave me an opportunity to be part of this. A short story of the ‘Friday Football Dads of Stillorgan’, the grassroots level football at its best.

I was fortunate enough to meet the 10 lads on that Friday evening (10th May, 2019) who were playing football in a make shift pitch in the park.

It is always good to watch anyone play football, so I moved closer to the so called ‘touchline’ of the pitch to get a better view. The players were having fun and it didn’t take much time for me to understand this could be the group whom I can approach to get some game time. As the game was happening, I had a chance to speak to Craig (now one of my best go to person to know anything around Ireland and UK) and expressed my interest to join them. The substitution 😉 happened instantly and I got my chance to play football.

The group which had around 10-12 players was started by Nathan Fox. Now almost 4.5 years down the line, Nathan has got this Friday football going consistently every week throughout the year. The growth of this ‘club’ is because of the support and suggestions of each player, family who are involved in this Stillorgan Friday footie. Though I keep talking to Nathan , it was recently I decided to ask him the reason behind starting the Friday football at Clonmore Park, Stillorgan.

“I think the first evening was 3rd May 2019. I have 4 children, so life is busy and I volunteer a lot in my community. I always felt that the mothers from the local area were great at chatting and organising to meet up, whereas the men would just nod to each other and have a few short words. I am very interested in fitness and helping others keep fit, stay active . I have always loved playing soccer. I was never really competitive at it but just loved playing as a young lad with my friends. I work as a PE teacher in St Raphaela’s, so I just went around and asked lots of the Dads if they were interested in a kick about in Clonmore Park on a Friday. I think we had about 8 players on the first night but it grew quickly to about 8 to 10 aside.”

The best part about the combination of football and community is that the word spreads really fast. It did not take much time for the game to turn from 5 a side to 11 a side.

The dedication showed by around 25-30 players to turn up every Friday evening at 6 pm to play football slowly pushed everyone part of it to make it more interesting and have slightly more competitive games along with having fun.

The players who turned up at 6 pm were divided in to two teams and given bibs. This went on steadily for few months. Winter came knocking and due to early sunset, we had to look for an alternate venue. For a season, we played few games at Ballyogan.

By the time the team was eagerly waiting to get back to Clonmore Park for the summer football, Covid hit. Again, this football gang was the best to happen for the people in Stillorgan. The moment government gave a go ahead for cohort of 15 or less players to start playing sports, the ‘Friday Football Dads’ were back in Clonmore. The game was managed as two 7 a side games happening simultaneously there by giving an opportunity for around 30 players to come out and be active. The gang also had their summer drinks session, by the pitch side :). The most important thing awaited by all the players, during this time, was the big lawn mover’s arrival. This gave a fresh pitch to play for at least 2-3 weeks :).

The ‘Friday Football Dads’ had become a regular discussion topic around Stillorgan and it was time the group had a proper name & logo. The discussion in the WhatsApp group finally picked ‘Real Social Dads Stillorgan’ as the name.

Nathan surprised everyone by getting jerseys printed with the Real Social Dads logo. The teams were now divided into blue and orange.

By mid of 2021, we had a steady set of players who joined the game and this gave an idea of the skill, game style , position, etc. of the players. So nowadays, the teams get decided pre match and the team news is shared in the WhatsApp group one hour before the kick off.

It was in October 2021, the big decision happened. It was winter again and Real Social Dads had to find a new pitch. Again, thanks to Nathan , Real Social Dads decided to move to the hockey astro pitch at the St. Raphaela’s School, Stillorgan. There hasn’t been a looking back from there on. Now just over 2 years since we started playing at the hockey astro pitch, it’s been amazing.

The number of players in the group are around 120 with another 25-30 players who would have played once or twice. The regular turn out averages to 28 players. There is no restriction on the playing numbers on each team. The underlying idea of Real Social Dads is to give opportunity to everyone who wants to play football, to join the group and play. So the highest turn out on the pitch was 16 a side and though it looked to be crowded , the pitch is really big to accommodate the high numbers. The cramped feeling is only the first 10 minutes and by the end of the 90th minute, the feeling is like somebody please run…!!!

The quality of the game as well as players have gone up multiple notches. As the word kept spreading , the group is now not restricted to ‘dads’. We do have young talents joining on Fridays and the usual feedback from them at the end of the game is “how do you all manage to be so fit at this age?’ :).

Real Social Dads Stillorgan has put the Stillorgan map in the football world :). Friday evening is the most awaited time of the week for most of the players associated with RSD Stillorgan now. Work life balance and an instant stress buster before heading to the weekends :).

The best part is the friendships that has got build in this , on and off the pitch. Milestones are celebrated and important life decisions as well. This in addition to various other fun banter which always happen in the WhatsApp group and on the pitch.

As beautifully summarised by Nathan: “I’m very proud of the Dads soccer group as over the years we have always welcomed new players of different abilities and nationalities which makes it a great community group. ” and speaking about his memory of me gatecrashing on 10th May, 2019 : ‘

A group of Irish men in their 40’s playing soccer in a park, no pitch, no goal posts and an Indian chap turns up and asks to play and we just get on with it!

Some of our world leaders could learn a lot from that!” 😉

I am really fortunate to have been part of this amazing group of people. Thank you Real Social Dads. I am not mentioning the names as the list is looong and all are really close to me. Cheers to everyone….!!! Until next Friday…!!!

The beautiful game always brings together people from across the globe. It is still a welcome mystery for many who do not follow the sport of football as to why billions across the globe watch / play a game with 22 players running behind a ball.

The game now takes place at the hockey astro pitch of St. Raphaela School, Stillorgan : Every Friday throughout the year 6:30 pm to 8:15 pm.

https://www.instagram.com/realsocialdadsstillorgan/

The jersey has travelled to many international destinations as well , few of them captured below (out of the many).