First look at proposed Wexford FC stadium as CEO pitches ‘new community approach’ to League of Ireland football

However, the source of Tony’s good humour is something much bigger. While this season’s results have been a welcome endorsement of the work that the new Wexford FC board has done since it was put in place two years ago, he has his eye on much more ambitious. Something which he believes has the potential not only to transform Wexford FC and take the club to the very top, but to change the landscape for football and sports generally in Co Wexford.

Swishing his finger across his tablet, Tony provides a glimpse at his future vision. A new, state-of-the-art, 6,000 capacity football stadium situated right in Wexford town.

Just under a year ago, it was revealed that the club had been busily working with Wexford County Council, the FAI and the Wexford Football League to move their operation from the notoriously remote Ferrycarrig Park into town.

Crisis gave way to opportunity. The planned route for the M11 motorway extension from Oylegate to Rosslare would pass right through the club’s grounds, however, with the assistance of Wexford County Council, Wexford FC have secured lands to the rear of the Min Ryan Park in Killeens on the outskirts of Wexford town, which will fit in with the new South East Technological University (SETU) campus.

While the impressive images of the clubhouse and the significant stadium offer a glimpse to the future, it would foolish to expect something like this to develop overnight. There are steps in place and Tony and his team are hopeful of achieving the first big one with an application gone to the Department of Sport for Large Scale Sports Infrastructure funding totalling around €5.5 million.

“Phase 1 of the project is two full, floodlit, all-weather pitches with a 2,500sqm pavilion,” Tony explains. “We’ve applied for €5.5 million. That won’t allow us to complete the full pavilion, we’ll leave the upstairs as a shell until we get to Phase 2, which will also be the stadium itself.

“But downstairs, we’d have multiple changing rooms, physio rooms, a delegate room, ticket office, reception, press room, a club shop and a café. That would all be Phase 1. Then in the next stage, you’d be looking at putting your bar, restaurant and function room upstairs; your revenue generators really.”

While the shiny images of a glistening stadium is enough to have anyone with even a passing interest in League of Ireland football salivating, the Wexford board won’t be jumping the gun. Games will continue at Ferrycarrig Park for the foreseeable and Phase 2 is largely dependent on the pace of the M11 motorway project and the CPO process.

However, what Tony and his team are keen to do is lay the foundations for the club to grow and grow. To find an even bigger place in the hearts and minds of locals. From there, he feels the sky is the limit.

“The big thing with this whole plan is that it’s community based,” Tony stresses. “We could’ve gone in straight away and put in for funding for a stadium first. But who’s going to get the benefit only Wexford FC and junior clubs for cup finals? It’d be sitting there empty for the rest of the time. We took the view that we would go for a community-based model.

“The stadium has to be step two. We need to look after the junior clubs and have a centre for all these programmes that we’re running. That will help us get to step two. Other applicants went for big stadiums and stuff. That’s where our approach was a bit different and I hope that the department will see that there’s merit to it.”

The aim then is to provide high-level sporting facilities for clubs and organisations from right across the community.

“This is not just for Wexford FC. There’s 56 clubs, including women, in junior league. They’ll all have access. We’ve got 11 schools signed up for licence; we have our own down syndrome team; our wheelchair football team.

“Then in the pavilion we can also have the likes of yoga classes, table tennis, fitness classes. This is part of an overall SETU development too, so you’re going to have a gym, swimming pool, the works.

“We’re talking multiple sports here as well. We don’t want this to be pigeon-holed as just about football. If GAA or rugby or anyone else want to use this facility for training, they’re more than welcome. You can’t be selective when you’re talking about community.

“In order to develop Wexford FC, we simply have to be involved in the community.”

It’s a compelling pitch for Minister for Sport Thomas Byrne and his department.

“There are lots of people in for this funding,” the Wexford CEO says. “Obviously, we’re not all going to get it. But the effort that’s been put into this application is amazing. The help from Wexford County Council – Eddie Taaffe (Chief Executive), Carolyne Godkin (Director of Services) and the former Chief Tom Enright – has been just brilliant.

“I can’t stress enough, if we can get this funding, it’s an absolute game-changer for the county. We need the message to go out clearly – we’re taking a different approach here. We are a community club and we’re for everyone.

If successful in their funding application, Wexford FC are hopeful that they could have the pavilion clubhouse and two all-weather, floodlit pitches with the potential for a temporary 1,500 capacity stand operational in Wexford town for the Spring of 2027.

In terms of the 6,000 capacity stadium, timelines are a little more vague. At a recent meeting of Wexford County Council, it was revealed that we won’t see a shovel in the ground on the Oylegate to Rosslare motorway until 2027 at the earliest. For the club, they’ll be ready to fire ahead as soon as the CPO of their existing Ferrycarrig grounds is approved.

Drawing on his business background, Tony is calm on this.

“You’re not going to get exactly what you want on day one in any business,” he smiles, but it appears there’s no question. This stadium is happening.

“The stadium is a modular build. It can go up to 6,000 capacity,” he explains. “We could start at 2,500 and build on. That’s the beauty of it.

“This stadium will be built to UEFA standards. We’re building not for now, but the key is that we’re building for the future. That’s why we’re saying up to 6,000.

“We want Wexford to be the hub of the south east. This year, it is the best academy in the south east and the east outside of Dublin. We want to have the facilities to reflect that.”

While recent results have been a source of pride, it’s the work being done in the Wexford FC Academy and in local communities that is the biggest source of pride for the CEO.

“I came in as CEO two years ago. When I got in, there was a complete disjoint between League of Ireland and junior football in Wexford. That was clear as day,” Tony recalls.

“There was nothing within the community either. We didn’t exist. We were out in Ferrycarrig, but we might as well have been out on an island somewhere.

“The first thing we wanted to do was build relations with the junior league In addition, there were around 52 academy players playing academy football outside of Wexford at the time. That’s completely changed around now.

“The job the guys have done in the academy is phenomenal. We’re one of only three clubs in Ireland where every academy team qualified for the elite stage.

“We want to provide a pathway. We don’t want lads to get as far as the U20s and then it’s ‘good luck, hope you had a lovely time in Wexford’. There has to be a pathway. It’s already happening with the women’s team. We’ve had some of the young players already move into the first team squad, one or two as young as 17 years of age.

“We’ve the likes of Kaylem Harnett, 17 years of age and on the Ireland U19 team, playing with the first team. The talent in Wexford is brilliant.”

While Tony would love to see Wexford taking a historic step further in the FAI cup and achieving promotion to the Premier Division, he’s measuring success for the club in different ways.

“No disrespect to our first teams, men and women, but I would predominantly define success as the work we’re doing in communities this year,” he said.

“The work Mark Ross is doing with the likes of our down syndrome team, wheelchair football, walking football, coaching sessions in Ferndale. That and the academy is key. Anything else is a bonus.

“Everyone says ‘oh, it would be great to win the league and go up’ or ‘it would be great to win the cup’. That would be fantastic, don’t get me wrong. But where we are now, those things are only a bonus if they happened. Our progress has to be sustainable.”

Sustainability is a talking point in League of Ireland circles currently. A division above, heavyweights Dundalk are a club battling for their life as financial difficulties build up.

“We differ greatly,” Tony says. “This is a club that was bottom of the division for years and years and years. It was bottom of tier two in the academies for years and years. The academy is the key. We don’t want to be the ones to go out and buy all these top players. We want to build our own players and bring them through the club.

“Dundalk, they’re competing where they have to spend big money on players and stuff. We kind of want to do the Wimbledon job on it. I don’t see why we can’t. You have players that have come back. They wanted to come back to Wexford. They may not have in the past, but now they do.

“If we have the correct environment for these Wexford players, they’ll want to take on the challenge and stay in the county. We don’t have to import a whole load of players. This is the best football county in the country.

“Over a period of time then, you look to build the club to a strength where you can keep the players that you are developing to a high standard. That’s what takes time.

Tony has had to quickly get himself up to speed with the stresses and strains of being a League of Ireland CEO since taking the reins in Wexford two years ago.

“I knew nothing about League of Ireland football when I took over, as in the running of a League of Ireland club. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve probably made more mistakes than anyone else in the club, but I’ve learned from them. What we had to do initially was get the club into a profile where it had respect and support.

“Previously we had no engagement with the council or the FAI from a development perspective; with the junior league clubs. Now we’ve developed all three – that’s the big difference.

“The club didn’t have the resources or expertise to do a lot of stuff. We’ve brought in a CFO – a fully qualified senior financial accountant. We have a marketing/commercial executive who’s been very successful in his own field. We’re gradually putting in really strong people into these different roles.

The building of relationships with clubs across the Wexford football league has also been key. Something that was missing from the club’s previous iteration – Wexford Youths.

“We’ve formed a football alliance in Wexford,” Tony explains. “That’s never been done before. We’ve formed a company – Wexford Football Alliance – and that entity will be what drives all facilities going forward, whether that’s an all-weather pitch in New Ross or facilities for Wexford FC. Given the fact that we’ve the biggest junior league in the country outside of Dublin, the facilities in Wexford have been horrendous.

“Wexford FC is the senior Wexford club. We need to be in a situation where we’re giving something back to the clubs.”

Unveiling major plans like a shiny new stadium brings with it a pressure to deliver. So far, it seems it’s not proving too much of a burden for the CEO as he is unshakable in his belief that Wexford can slowly but surely be built into a force in League of Ireland football.

“We’re not getting carried away here by any means, but we’re currently two games away from an FAI cup final as it is and we’ve a good chance,” he smiles. “James Keddy and the team are a super bunch.

“There’s no question that we could get to the level of the very top clubs. They have generations of tradition. We don’t have that, but we are a sports mad county. If you bring a product that’s accessible, people will buy in.

“What we have at the moment is good football, it’s good to watch, men and women, but we’re still just a little bit too far out there in Ferrycarrig. We need to get into the heart of the big town. If you’re in Enniscorthy or Gorey, you can hop on a bus or train down. You can have something to eat or have a few drinks in the facility at the match and then get the bus back. It’s going to be a real game-changer.”

The decision from the Department in relation to the funding for Wexford FC’s ambitious plans is due in the coming months. In the meantime, the stadium images presented by Olan Conway of AWL Architects are just another thing to spark a bit of excitement as the men’s team make that final promotion push and look to make history in the cup.