Ladies Gaelic Football

www.ladiesgaelic.ie | AUTUMN 2022 | 47 www.ladiesgaelic.ie | AUTUMN 2022 | 47 Michelle Davoren of Kilmacud Crokes during the Dublin County Senior Ladies Football Championship Final match between Foxrock Cabinteely and Kilmacud Crokes at Lawless Memorial Park in Fingallians GAA, Swords, Dublin. CLUB FOCUS 2004, he was the driving force behind the annual All-Ireland U14 7s tournament, which is held on the eve of the TG4 All-Ireland Finals. John also served as chairperson of Dublin LGFA and was a Dublin Central Council delegate for many years. Davoren reflects: "It would be remiss of me to talk about Ladies Football in the club and not mention John Sheridan, the beginning, the end, the everything of Ladies Football in Crokes. "He was mammoth in my underage experience. A lot of people say this about stalwarts but he really did give everything, not only within Crokes but he was involved with the county board and Dublin ladies." It was after the game when Sheridan's impact sank in with Davoren and many of her team-mates. She explains: "Before the game, you're trying to focus so little on the emotional side of it. "Certainly I was…if you bring too much emotion into it, it becomes too much of a passion piece than a clinical thing you need to finish. The first time I thought of John was when Emer mentioned him in the acceptance speech. It became, sombre is not the right word, but hyper-emotional then. He gave so much and I vividly remember him on 7s day at U14, orchestrating everything like it was his finest piece of work. "You never acknowledge that at 13, 14 years of age. That was our first U14 experience but he gave that to every single person that came through the club, he made them feel that they were the most important person on the team and the value of that can't be overplayed. He made so many people stay in football and helped to create a structure in which they could flourish." And it's to people like John Sheridan and, latterly, team manager Paddy O'Donoghue that Crokes owe their county senior championship success. A county minor success early in the last decade sparked a run of successive titles and laid the foundations for what would follow in the Intermediate and Senior ranks. Davoren says: "It's taken years to get to this position, years in the making. "Our journey as a team was fraught with what I would consider devastating (Senior) losses. "Paddy alluded to it in his interview after the match but we would have put a lot of pressure on ourselves as a group, we would have seen the talent coming through the ranks. "We almost had this since of expectation that we needed to win it to prove ourselves. "I guess it's easy to say now, having won it, but we should have seen semi-final and final appearances in recent years as positives but we threw the 'bottlers' tag around a bit. "There was the county final in 2019 that went to extra-time and was close enough to going to kicks to decide it. "That was extremely tough to take and then in 2020, that was a game we feel we massively underperformed in. We had the beating of Fox-Cab, while last year it was disappointing not to get to a semi-final. "But it was a wake-up call to say that we had taken for granted all of the things we had achieved up to that point." Davoren's form was central to the Crokes success. She notched 1-4 in the semi-final victory over St Sylvester's, before adding 0-2 and the Player of the Match award against Thomas Davis. Davoren's worn the Dublin shirt at underage and senior levels, winning an All-Ireland u21 title along the way, and while she was a member of Mick Bohan's Senior panel at the start of the year, she opted out for personal reasons. When asked if her form could prompt a return to the county senior squad, Davoren replies: "I'd love to play for Dublin at some point in the future. I have absolute joy in putting on the jersey, massive respect for the set-up and everything it represents but I don't know what lies ahead in my own life of work. What I do is so chaotic and tumultuous, it could bring you anywhere!" Davoren is a Communications Officer with The Green Party, a role she enjoys. "I've been involved with the Green Party directly, with the press team, for a little over a year and a half. "I worked with a politician from the Green Party in the European Parliament for two years before that, so I'm involved in this sphere for three and a half, four years. "I really enjoy it – I'm a divil for punishment!" she laughs. "In my current job, I deal with a variety of things, general comms (communications), internal comms within the party, proofing, writing press releases, social media, which has become a whole other beast. What I really enjoy is getting involved with the press on media notices, dealing with press queries, setting people up for media appearances and briefings. I touch on a bit of all, a jack of all trades but you have to be when you have a small enough team." On and off the pitch, Michelle Davoren is very much the team player. Humble, grounded, witty and intelligent, it's no surprise that success tends to follow.

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