Corduff Football Club in a nutshell.

Corduff Football Club is the largest Football club in Blanchardstown. We operate on the north side of the Blanchardstown Bypass. The club operates currently with seventeen teams across various ages and levels.
Corduff as an area is the largest council estate in Blanchardstown. Being a council estate, Corduff F.C was formed with a critical goal in mind; to keep kids off the streets and away from unsocial behavior without burdening the family with excessive costs as seen in far too many clubs across the city.

Primarily, Corduff F.C is a community club as opposed to an elitist club. We don’t scour the city for players who have no relation to the Blanchardstown community, nor do we reject any kid based on where they come from. Our policy is community first, everything else second. The club is a melting pot of different backgrounds, cultures and nationalities. Blanchardstown its self is a microcosm of Irish life today and Corduff F.C is a direct reflection of that. The club is 50% Native Irish and 50% of various nationalities including Irish born kids from foreign parents.
Geographically, Corduff F.C has a sizable contingent of members from Corduff, but more increasingly; Mulhuddart. This has made the club a far stronger set-up with a fantastic local backbone that any aspiring club must have. Parts of Mulhuddart are located in the old town land of Corduff before the new estate was finished in 1979.
The club has had some relative success on and off the field. The club operate from Corduff sports centre and we are an anchor tenant within this facility. This state of the art centre is complemented with a synthetic all-weather grass pitch with floodlights and the complex is complemented by Corduff Park that boasts perhaps two of the best public pitches in the city including a fully railed pitch for the big occasions. The club have exclusive access on Tuesdays and Thursdays plus weekends to the Corduff sports centre. We utilise the finest facilities in Blanchardstown by quite some distance.
Amongst numerous league titles and cup wins across all teams, two notable campaigns recently have seen both a senior side and schoolboy side reach the semi final of their respective all Ireland cup. This success and progress is all relative but it’s a marker for where we were and where we now are.

Many teams have come and gone and many past members have since passed for various reasons including natural causes, accident and more often from the effects of social deprivation. Corduff and surrounding estates have been tarnished with the same brush both by the media and by the public’s inaccurate perceptions. Corduff has obviously got more good people than we would be given credit for. The contributing factors alone is what drives the members of this proud club to reach higher and higher within soccer circles as soccer is one of the most widely acknowledged ways of expressing a communities spirit.

In recent years Corduff F.C has set excellent standards with regard to the little things that make a big difference. Since the start Corduff F.C only charge a weekly subscription fee. There is no signing on fee and no registration fee, no insurance fee and no training fee. Before a player kicks a ball, everything is catered for. Equipment, insurance, league fees, pitch fees etc are all paid for without ripping off players and parents who have enough on their plate come September with school costs and the impending Christmas which can be tough in the current climate. We charge a match day subscription only of €5 per game and €3 per kid if more than one family member plays for the club (excluding 17 and over).
Corduff Football Club aim to have a team at all ages. At senior level, we play in A.U.L Premier A and hold our own there. Premier A is regarded as the best junior soccer division in the country and we worked ten long years to get there. In addition to the first team, we have a senior Saturday side which consists of players, usually younger players fighting to play in the premier A team. We have two more teams in addition to this, at division 2 level and over 35 level. This is a comprehensive adult range of teams.

Corduff Football Club launched its football nursery in October 2005, catering for 4,5 and 6 year’s of age who are close to actually playing for a team. Only two other clubs in Blanchardstown run a nursery. Corduff run the nursery on the synthetic pitch and within the indoor hall at €2 a week. Mark McCormack, an ex league of Ireland player heads up this nursery and this has gotten so popular we have had to limit the numbers attending.

Corduff Football club now has a very sizable membership from the Ladyswell, Parslickstown and ethnic communities. This has made the club stronger all round and long may it continue.

Corduff Football club do not compensate, pay or look after any of its members with remuneration in anyway. This is a far cry from other clubs that look after some players and pay managers and coaches to run their senior teams when the money could be better spent on the schoolboy/girl set-up within their respective clubs. In turn, we are totally against the idea that kids pay their subs and senior managers + coaches get paid. We are also the first football club in Blanchardstown that runs a website for seniors and more crucially, its schoolboys/girls and this site is now in existence since 2003 with 80,000 individual hits. As far as we are concerned there is no point in paying anyone in soccer, as there is no prize that can even come close to repaying back this money. This money when it comes in generously from our supporters should be used to improve all aspects of our football club and allow the kids of tomorrow to enjoy better standards than what we were used to.

With the 2010/11 season on the horizon, Corduff have now reached ten years of Resurgence since a very bleak time in the communities history. With only two teams at the turn of the century, Corduff now have seventeen teams. The schoolboy age will range as follows. U7 x1, U8 x2, u9 x3, u10 x2, u11 x2, u12 x1, u13 x1, u14 x1 and four adult teams. Add the nursery to this and the club membership exceeds 600.

Now you know who we are, where we come from and the reason why we are a very proud club. If you think like we think and appreciate the acute considerations we need to take as a club in a council estate, well then make contact with anyone in Corduff F.C and find out where you can fit in. If you can help, come on board. We have a job for you to do.

Up the Duff!