Usher Celtic and boss Wes Doyle aiming to sideline Bohemians in Leinster Senior Cup final

On Bridgefoot Street in Dublin’s south inner-city, Wes Doyle is talking about beginnings.

He points towards the Liffey. It’s late May, a promise of summer in the air and on people’s lips. “You can see it [there], Usher’s Island,” he says, wearing a peak cap and tracksuit.

Doyle is head coach at Usher Celtic FC, an inner-city club named after this short stretch of roadway along the quays. Founded in 1934, the club has drawn many of its players from this area over the decades — Usher’s Island, Usher’s Quay, Bridgefoot Street and Oliver Bond flats.

Doyle lives in Oliver Bond and has done so for more than 15 years. Originally from Queen Street just over the river, the 43-year-old married into the flats — his wife Gayle grew up in the Dublin City Council complex.

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Jordan Buckley also grew up in Oliver Bond. He is walking alongside Doyle back towards the flats, a short walk from Usher’s Island.

“Myself and a lot of my mates, because we were from this area, [Usher] was the schoolboys’ [team] closest to us,” Buckley says.

Buckley is 28 years old and has played for Usher Celtic for the last five seasons. “He’s one of the reasons [why we are] where we are today,” Doyle says.

Usher Celtic is on the brink of an unlikely treble. Already champions of the Leinster Senior League (LSL) Sunday Division 1A and the Lummey Cup, Usher will face Bohemians on Monday night in the final of the 2022-23 Leinster Senior Cup.

Only five non-league teams have lifted the cup since the League of Ireland was established in 1921.

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It was still in the depths of winter when Doyle pulled out the soccer supplement from a copy of the Irish Daily Star and moved down through the coming week’s amateur football league fixtures.

In early 2014, Doyle was new to his role at Usher. The club had not fielded an adult side in Dublin’s labyrinthine amateur football league system since 2011. He cycled through the fixtures, looking to spot a team who were without a game that weekend. Once he had figured out who was free, Doyle picked up the phone to arrange a friendly match.

The previous August, Doyle had left another Dublin club following a disagreement. The side had been doing well, but he didn’t agree with some players on the team getting paid to play amateur football. At the time, he didn’t want his departure to upset the progress of the team. “It’d be very unfair of me to ask [others] to leave,” he says.

But several players followed him out. “That’s something I’ll never forget.”

Players went their separate ways, to other clubs. But soon, former team-mates were getting in touch with Doyle, calling, texting. Would he take the reins at a new club? Start again?

That’s how he came to Usher. With some of his former clubmates in tow, he had the foundations of a team. In those first months, he rang around week after week, arranging matches and moulding a team.

Against Ayrfield United, in one of those early friendlies, Doyle’s fledgling team played without a natural goalkeeper and lost 6-1. Retreating to the dressingroom, nagging questions circled.

Is it going to work? Is it worth doing?

Later that year, Usher Celtic entered a team into the Athletic Union League (AUL) Premier C division. That was the humble start of it.

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Under Doyle’s stewardship, Usher clambered up through Dublin’s amateur divisions. In 2019, after several years of progressing through the AUL pyramid, they moved across to the LSL.

Making the decision to switch to the LSL was a big commitment. “When you start off in the Leinster Senior League ... you’re put down in the lower leagues,” Buckley explains. “I’ve been on board since we moved across.”

Buckley’s commitment is an example of the loyalty within the Usher squad, Doyle says.

Despite the drop, players stayed. With a squad featuring talent from the Usher’s Quay area — as well as other parts of the inner-city, Cabra, Finglas and elsewhere — the team pushed on.

A remarkable run has earned the club promotion as league champions three times in the last three seasons — this season, they are competing in the LSL Sunday Division 1, one level below the top tier of Irish amateur football.

Consistency is hard to come by in amateur football. Teams come and go and standards change year on year. Player retention is difficult, with talent is snapped up by more established teams.

But at Usher, an unlikely persistence has resulted in a dramatic rise through the leagues and a shot at the treble. A core group of players — including Buckley — has carried the team in its recent ascent.

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On a humid evening in early May, at the War Memorial Gardens in Islandbridge, Doyle unlocks a gate lodge, tucked away in a corner of the park. “This is where it started,” he says.

Inside, green and white painted corridors lead to a dressingroom. Match reports from seasons past, ripped from tabloid newspapers and laminated, line the wall.

Inside the changing room, Doyle reflects. “I eat, sleep and breathe football. What would I do without it? I’m a passionate fella, I think [the players] feed off that. I love it. It’s a drug.”

There is a vindication to the decisions that were made back in 2014. In 2019, when the club moved to the LSL. “We left something good and came to this. I believe that ... it happened for a reason.”

He’s quick to praise the club’s players and coaching team, dodging suggestions that he might be the reason for their success. “I’m proud of the whole group ... without any of them, it doesn’t work.”

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Some months before taking over at Usher Celtic, Doyle stood in Tony O’Rourke’s eponymous shop-cum-cafe on Bridgefoot Street, talking football. Chatting with O’Rourke, Doyle turned the conversation: would Usher ever field a senior team again?

“Yes,” replied O’Rourke, “but not in my lifetime.” O’Rourke was a stalwart of Usher, involved in the club since 1984, and served as the club’s secretary for several years.

He was wrong in his prediction. When senior football did return at Usher, O’Rourke was back doing what he’d done for so many years before — organising buses, sorting insurance, laying out gear.

During the preparation of this article, O’Rourke died, aged 69. At his funeral, a Tricolour emblazoned with the Usher Celtic crest was draped across his coffin.

“The man was Mr Usher,” Doyle says.

Last May, speaking in his apartment above the Bridgefoot Street shop, O’Rourke spoke about legacy.

For him, Usher Celtic — the gate lodge and dressingrooms and grounds and the teams that played on it — was something to preserve.

“I was minding the ground for Wes,” O’Rourke said. “Whoever had the ground before was minding it for me. I came along, I put a couple of years into it and where it goes after that, God knows.”

When Usher Celtic line out for the Leinster Senior Cup final, the team will wear T-shirts honouring O’Rourke’s work — both at the club and in the Liberties community.

A chance to add to the cherished legacy awaits.

• Leinster Senior Cup final: Usher Celtic v Bohemians, Monday, Dalymount Park, 7.45pm