Shane Horan still keeping things local at Kilmacud Crokes

When Shane Horan was six years old his parents brought him down to join the nursery football team at their local GAA club Kilmacud Crokes. He hasn’t missed a season since.

Now 31, married last December and still living in the area, Horan will look to win a second consecutive AIB Leinster club football title on Sunday when Crokes face off against Westmeath champions The Downs in Croke Park.

With some gentle irony perhaps, Horan has switched county in the years since: after trying out for a few development squads in Dublin, he switched to Offaly in 2019, the home county of his parents, although there has only ever been one home club.

“That’s where it all started, with the club nursery, the football, then the hurling for a while,” he says. “We’d a good group of parents, who stuck with us. From there up to under-16, when maybe some lads start doing their own thing.

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“Moving up I would have played a bit of soccer as well, and as you’re growing up, the Gaelic could be Saturday morning, then changed to Sunday, then you’d have to change your soccer team. So Crokes was always the one solid over the weekend, you’d fit other sports in around.

“So no, there was no need to go elsewhere. I knew a few lads played some rugby as well. I think half of it is the sport, and half of it is the people you’re doing it with. A lot of us would have been at school together here in St Laurence’s as well, so probably got sick of each other more than we got sick of sport.”

Getting back to Sunday’s showdown is significant on several fronts: it’s not yet 10 months since Crokes lost the All-Ireland club football final to Kilcoo, a Jerome Johnston goal deep into extra-time delivering a dramatic one-point victory, and a first ever title for the Down champions.

Afterwards, Crokes manager Robbie Brennan spoke of the chance to make amends before the year was out, by getting out of Dublin again as champions and back for another Leinster showdown – exactly where they are now.

“After the game, everyone was down, and Robbie made that comment, like we need to get back to Croke Park in the same year. That was a nice thing to hear, that you weren’t going away to slog it out for another 12, 18 months.

“That kind of focused the mind, and once you get back into Dublin, it’s so hard to get out of, you know you need to be at it from the off, and that’s how we’re progressed, taking each game as it comes.”

Indeed the Crokes hurling team have been too, and will also contest Sunday’s double-bill of finals when they face reigning provincial champions Ballyhale Shamrocks.

Originally the footballers were to be up first, before the Leinster Council switched things around to facilitate Crokes duel player Brian Sheehy, who is now facing the prospect of two Leinster club finals in the same day.

[ Dual duel for Kilmacud may disrupt Leinster double header ]

Sheehy is expected to line out for the hurlers first, then play some part with the footballers, having come on as an impact sub in the semi-final defeat of Portarlington. Horan believes he’s well up to that task.

“When I was talking to him [Brian], after the game in the club, I said that he’s a young lad so he should be fine to do both. But I think the fixture switch does help.

“He’s at a stage where he’s competing on the hurling team, probably looking at a full game. And for then us he probably knows that we probably need to get 10 or 15 minutes out of him, hopefully towards the end of the game to see it out or else drive us on.

“So I think he’s just ready to play, he’s eager. He’s a talented lad with a great attitude, that’s why he’s an asset to both teams. I don’t think it will faze him.”