Nestled in the foothills of north Wicklow, Enniskerry is rightly renowned for being one of the country’s most picturesque villages.
A lesser known quirk about the sylvan neighbourhood is that it currently has not one, but two, of its citizens captaining teams in senior domestic football.
Áine O’Gorman, the 107-times capped Ireland international is the better known of them, having led Peamount United to back-to-back WNL titles last year.
The other is Daniel Blackbyrne of Cabinteely in the First Division of the League of Ireland.
“That’s it,” exclaimed Blackbyrne proudly on the somewhat unlikely fact of little Enniskerry having two skippers at senior football level in the country at the same time.
“I would have played with Áine a little bit underage when I was smaller coming up. What a great player.”
Unlike O’Gorman, it’s been a slow burner of a career for the now 24-year-old Blackbyrne who started out at Bray Wanderers before a desire for game time brought him to Cabo in late 2018.
“I’m delighted to get the captaincy. It’s a personal achievement,” said the right-back on the added responsibility entrusted upon him by boss Pat Devlin this year.
“It’s my first time to captain a League of Ireland side.
“I’m going to take it with both hands and just leave everything in every game.”
Cabo ground out a 1-0 win over Cobh Ramblers last Friday to leave them fourth in the table just three points off leaders Shelbourne.
“It’s going to be a tough league this year as everyone will take points off everyone else,” acknowledged Blackbyrne on yet another hugely competitive second tier.
“I felt we were hard done by in previous games, but we’ve bounced back with two wins on the spin. It’s still early days and all to play for.”
Avoiding what happened 12 months ago is now the goal for Devlin’s Stradbrook-based side.
Last year began most promisingly for Cabo who were top of the table for the first half of the campaign before hitting the buffers.
Three heavy defeats mid-season was followed by their managing to win just two of their remaining eight games.
Having two points they’d been awarded subsequently deducted after Wexford won an appeal for having fielded an ineligible player then meant they lost out on a play-off place to Galway United.
And the Tribesmen were again the unwitting opposition when Cabo had to forfeit a game against John Caulfield's side last month due to a Covid-19 issue.
That’s history now for Blackbyrne whose focus is on another promotion push - and learning from the vast tree of knowledge at the club provided by gaffer Devlin, his assistant Eddie Gormley and coaches Collie O’Neill and Paul Heffernan.
“We’ve years of experience to tap into and it’s easy to learn from them. I’m enjoying playing for them. There is loads of knowledge to take in.
“It’s good to have the chemistry we had from last season and adding a few bodies in has helped us and given us something different.
“I believe we have a stronger team this year and we’ll give it a good go.”
