Sligo Rovers star Leah Kelly grew up playing GAA - but chose to play football and forge a career for herself in the Women's League of Ireland.

“When you're in the situation of approaching burnout, you're the last one to see it or admit to it. Even our nutritionist for Sligo Rovers - I get on very well with him and he can kind of be very honest with me as well. When this happened to me he said this will be the break you need, you haven’t taken a rest throughout the whole of the season - you’ll come back, fresher.”

Leah Kelly, Sligo Rovers

Science dictates that you have seven seconds upon meeting a stranger before a concrete first impression is formed - something an eleven-year-old Leah Kelly was blissfully unaware of as she rocked up to her first training session with St Farnans GAA in her hometown of Templeboy in County Sligo.

“When I went to Gaelic [for the first time] I went in with full Liverpool sweatbands on my arms,” She confides, bemused at her own choice of attire.  “…and a Liverpool peaked cap. There's no better way to make Gaelic people angry than to keep trying to kick the ball on the ground.”

Growing up in the mountainous barony of Tireragh, Kelly played soccer at the underage level for Strand Celtic in Carrowbunnaun.

Under the umbrella of a girls section which was founded by Finola Monaghan in 1999, Kelly would lift the Under 14 Connacht Cup with the Seasiders’ in 2012.

Laughing as she reflects on her memories of growing up in a household where her Dad and brother were die-hard Reds, Kelly reveals that in her formative years, GAA was not “even in the mind”.

“[It was] absolutely mad. My brother would have Torres on the back of his jersey and I’d have Gerard - he had Liverpool painted on his bedroom wall.

“He used to tell me I was a great goalkeeper and I used to think he was saying that because I was good but I think now when I look back it was because he wanted to take shots…but my love for soccer came from them and it was all soccer like.”

Yet in the blue and white of St Farnan’s in West Sligo, which sits surrounded by 400 houses and the rural parishes of Dromore West and Templeboy, the youngster channelled her love of the Anfield ace and soon began a dual journey where she would balance both sports deep into her teenage years. 

“I played my second year in GAA at Under 12s, so I was late going into it. After a few games, they had me playing in midfield because obviously, I'd been playing soccer, so I could probably run a bit.  Then I just started to really enjoy it and I kind of started doing both.”

Kelly would oscillate between both Gaelic and soccer until she reached the age of eighteen, when her sporting commitments at the University of Limerick (where she studied PE and Geography) and the global lockdown in 2020, would put a pin in the West Sligo natives' minutes on the soccer pitch.

“I suppose for a time there when I finished playing - let's say Under 16s in Strand Celtic or Under 18s [for Ballina Town]… there was nothing, so I ended up just playing Gaelic and I didn’t think I'd be going back to soccer.

“Then Sligo Rovers announced that they were putting out a team, but I genuinely wasn’t even going to go into the trial and then I did thank god.”

Such hesitancy from the twenty-four-year-old strikes me as being a world apart from her self-assured character. 

Unable to disguise my surprise, I encourage her to continue.

“Yeah, I still remember where I pulled in on the way in,” She recalls, sounding a little distant as she sees the scene in her mind's eye. “I’m about a half hour from Sligo. I pulled in at Ballysadare - ten minutes from the pitch and I texted one of my best friends 'I can't do this, I don’t want to go here, I'll look so daft.’”

Faced with the prospect of having to return home and tell her expectant family that she didn't participate in the trial, Kelly chose the lesser of two evils and discarded her doubts.

“I didn't know that many [girls]... there were a few I remembered from playing underage or Sligo/Leitrim, but we just played a match and they put me at right back. 

“I’d never played there before but I didn't mind it…that kind of stuck then! In Gaynor cup days I would have been a striker, which is hilarious - if you asked the girls now if I'd be a striker they would laugh in your face like.”

Her split decision to participate in the trial ultimately resulted in Kelly lining out as a regular at The Showgrounds in her debut WLOI season, where she made 23 appearances and 24 starts. In addition, Kelly secured a slice of history, becoming the first women’s senior player to record over 50 appearances for the Bit O’Red.  

As a youngster, she attended the Sligo Rovers games and summer camps at The Showgrounds with her father and speaks warmly about the constant presence of her parents on the sidelines.

“They go to every single game and it doesn't matter where - they plan their holidays around my calendar. They’ll be looking at my season and making sure they’re back. My Dads a big soccer fan but because I play Gaelic he’s so supportive of that too. I’d say if I took up boxing he’d be there loving it.”

While the number two Bit O’Red defender is undoubtedly wise beyond her years,  she has recently taken her parents advice following a hand injury sustained earlier this year.

In addition to her dual training commitments with Sligo Rovers and Sligo Ladies, Kelly works full-time as a PE teacher at Colaiste Iascaigh in Easkey, having graduated from the University of Limerick with a degree in Physical Education and Geography.

Kelly complements her studies (an MSC in Performance Coaching with Setanta College) with a part-time role as a personal trainer - a job she has now reluctantly stepped back from due to the negative impact the morning sessions were having on her recovery time.

“My Mum and Dad were really on to me to take a step back from the gym and the importance of sleep for recovery,” She confides. “I was working the mornings before school so I've taken a break from that now to focus on what I really want to be doing, which is playing football.”

Given the wingbacks' action-oriented personality and the less-than-ideal start for Sligo Rovers this season, who at the time of our interview, have lost four games across all competitions out of six, I ask Kelly how she has found the untimely switch from player to spectator.

“I think I missed one training [session] while I was out for the four months because I was over at a Liverpool match with my mum, dad and my brother,” She begins, and I can’t help but smile. “I went to all the training [sessions] and like I was in the cast, so I really couldn't do anything. It was tough and I kept saying to people the only thing I like doing is playing sports and now I can't do it.

“But I think like when you're in that moment you then click out of it and you think there's so much worse..like it's just your hand, it will be fine. And then obviously I went back to school after two days and going back to the students is the best distraction because they're not going to give me too much sympathy like… and then my thesis is due in July… it’s my left hand so I couldn't use it as an excuse for not typing!”

Kelly in addition has found solace in her studies, utilising her MSC in Performance Coaching to help reframe her situation.

“We did a module on psychology, and the psychology of athletes and coaching the person rather than the sport,” Kelly enthuses, “That's when you really appreciate the people who are constantly texting you, checking in. I think it made me realise as well, you know - to be texting others ... there's another girl now on the team who's in a cast so I realise initially what she'll be going through at the start of it. You're more tuned in.”

I pause for a moment and absorb the hive of activity that is Leah Kelly. 

I then ask the high-achiever where such drive and determination stems from - has she always been this driven?

“If I think back to my younger self when I was playing football,” she begins with a trace of a smile in her voice, “I'd probably call myself lazy…I relied on being skillful in Gaelic, like being that forward who wants the ball to score goals rather than working…”

Here Kelly trails off, laughing, perhaps thinking of her Rovers teammates' reaction to their goal minder as a goal-scoring machine.

“People think back to lockdown with such negative thoughts,” She continues, “whereas lockdown was one of the best things to happen to me because I became completely obsessed with fitness…that drive [though] probably came from my Mum - she’s a school principal and the hours she puts in and every single thing she does, she does with such determination and energy - both my parents have run marathons so if I was to give credit to people it's them.”

And back to the Women’s National League, where I ask Kelly what opposition players she has taken note of to date

“Thinking of ones that you hate coming up against…” She muses, “There’s so many new players that have come in this season that I haven't even gotten to play against yet but the likes of Lia O Leary, I think she's unreal, she's so versatile and she seems to have a brilliant attitude as well for her age… but then obviously if you're looking at more senior players - and I mean we're playing them tomorrow, Ciara Rossiter is just a nightmare to mark…Shelbourne seems to have so many youth players coming in too.”

‘We’re playing them tomorrow?’

A figure of speech or does Kelly know something I don’t?

“Yeah…I’m in the squad tomorrow for the first time in four months,” She reveals.

If ever you can hear an ear-to-ear grin across a telephone line from the East to the West of Ireland, it’s now.

“I’m so excited. I played two games for the Under 19s to try and get back to match sharpness, but like today, when the text came in I was at school - just to see my name on the squad I was delighted.

“But yeah it is very different as a team but I suppose it will be a new experience to be in a matchday squad as opposed to with Steve (Feeney) because you know it's not giving anything away by saying [that] they’re two very different managers!”

Looking to the Bit O’Red’s ambitions as we lead into the start of the May League fixtures, Kelly is resolute.

“Push ourselves up the table. We got to the semi-final last year in the cup so I think to go one step better this year. We don't want to keep using the ‘new’ kids on the block title…”

Of the younger players in the squad, Kelly speaks highly and believes that adjustments led by new manager Tommy Hewitt and his background team can give Sligo Rovers an edge over their competition.

“One of our advantages this year is [that] we’re probably adding a little bit more experience. We’ve always had those younger players coming up from Under 19s - I think we’re seeing them at their best now when they’re not being relied on to carry a team.

“Like the two Loughrey girls…you'd forget the age they are because they’ve played basically every game for us last season and now - they are regulars and they're still only 17 and 19. I'm a massive fan of Alice Lillie too, I think she's a class talent if you're looking at her attitude and everything else - she embodies that.”

As our conversation comes to a close I can’t help but reflect on how much Leah Kelly has already achieved in her twenty-four years, yet I ask the question regardless.

What are her goals for the rest of the year (both personally and in her sports) - yes, plural - Kelly doesn’t do anything by halves.

A contemplative intake of breath.

“Personally it would be to stay injury-free…probably manage things better so that  if I do decide to go back to Gaelic I’m managing both football and Gaelic better…and I’d love to work my way back to a starting position for Sligo Rovers.”

Knowing Leah Kelly, is it ever even in doubt?