In Conversation with Lee Chin, O’Neills Ambassador
We spoke to our O’Neills ambassador Lee Chin who’s getting himself into Championship mode with Wexford. In his first conversation with O’Neills, Lee shares his memories of growing up in Wexford, starting out in his hurling career with his hurling club Faythe Harriers and his thoughts on trying to balance hurling and football in the modern game.
I played all sports growing up. It wasn’t any different to any other childhood that any person had I suppose. I grew up in Wolfetone Villas in Wexford, it was a very family oriented estate, and pretty much everyone that lived there when I was grown up was born there. You could head away for a holiday for a weekend and leave your front door open it was that kind of place. My mother grew up in the estate. Growing up there we got up to everything out on the street hurling, football, soccer, tennis basketball, my childhood memory is that you would be out on the street with your friends organising games. There were times we’d organise games, mostly soccer games against other estates in the town. It was all very exciting.
I live very close to Wolfetone, just across the street and I’d often be over collecting my little sister and I see the children seem to be in round the house more than when we were young. In the summer they’re out in the street but with us I think it was everyday I was on the street playing with my friends or getting up to mischief, you generally though don’t see many kids on the street. I drive in there now but in my day there wouldn’t have been a car that drove into Wolfetone that didn’t get a belt of two or three balls! I drive up there two or three times a week and there wouldn’t be a ball hit my way.
It was all sports growing up. Soccer was always a much more difficult sport to get to the next level. The option of going across the water for players is there though it can be daunting. Though soccer was the easier sport to adapt to and I imagine it is for all young kids, I think everyone at some stage of their childhood played soccer, it was a big part of my childhood and it was great. .
It was the whole GAA scene that I loved, for me it was so community based, there was a different culture within it and I was immediately attracted to it and I loved the whole spirit and honesty and the friends I made within in were what attracted me. I maybe didn’t see it when I was a young kid but looking back now it was what attracted me.
At sixteen years of age I was still dabbling in every type of sport. I was hurling and football mad and still playing soccer. I just loved it all and wanted to be the best at everything. It was great just feeling like you’ve found a place where you belong, I made so many friends and have so many good memories.
I was playing soccer and you realise time is passing by, lads are being scouted at fourteen years of age, and there you are at sixteen and seventeen years of age. There was a bit of contact once from a club but I didn’t really want to leave the hurling and football behind. When I hit seventeen years of age I just started focusing more and more on the GAA scene.
Lee gives a big shout out to Kennedy Park Primary School and Wexford Vocational School especially all his former teachers and classmates.
We were hurling mad at our primary school we had good teachers in the school, they loved the GAA and were hugely involved in the GAA within their own clubs and they pushed it massively within the school. It was fascinating, for me I didn’t come from a family of GAA people because my mother and my father obviously didn’t play GAA nor were my aunts and uncles involved. With the school it was one thing that pushed me towards it there were good people around me and good teachers that motivated me in that direction, they’d seen something within me I think. I adapted to that I think and got involved as quickly as I could and I just loved it from the get go, it was great in school learning new stuff educationally but especially in sport. It’s in school where a lot of people start out and that’s definitely where I started out playing hurling and football.
Wexford Vocational in Wexford Town was the school that pretty much all my family attended and it was where I went when I finished up my primary school. There was hurling in the school but it wouldn’t have been the standard of say St Peter’s here in Wexford or Good Counsel in New Ross. I wouldn’t say there was a huge emphasis on sports or trying to bring people down the sporting route.
It was the clubs that did that for me that drove it on. When the school played in any competitions or matches came along I was hugely interested in getting involved whether that was hurling or football or rugby. I loved all the days out of school to play games it was great. When there was a match on we never had any bother getting a team. At our school there was a handful of hurlers but on the day of a game you could fill four teams! We wouldn’t have enough hurls to go around with some of the lads that would turn up with gear bags to go hurling with no hurls or helmets with them. They loved getting out of class.
I joined the club when I was about ten or eleven years of age. I immediately fell in love with the club, the coaches were great, the facilities were good. It was pure hurling, me and my mates getting our hands on a ball and being coached and learning new things every day was so fascinating for me. Faythe Harriers are hurling only and I played Gaelic football for St. Mary’s Maudlintown,
I joined both clubs around the same time. There was about five are six guys that I played soccer with involved with the football club (Mary’s) so it made sense to just join them. We had a lot of success underage with that team. As every year went by I knew my love of hurling was just growing more and more till I was 17 and I made a decision to pack in the football, the interest just was not there anymore.
When Jason Ryan was the Wexford football manager back in 2012 He contacted me to join him, I was 18 at this stage and obviously we had discussed around the fact that I have not played football in over a year and half. I was really interested in just hurling but I decided to give the football a go, so when I decided to go back I joined a different club, the Sarsfields, Mainly the reason why I went there was because most of the guys I was hurling with were at the club.
My main focus is on the Wexford senior hurling team at the moment. I am getting a lot of enjoyment from just doing that. I have in the past played a bit of football but my priority is hurling with Wexford and the Faythe Harriers.
I didn’t participate in any of the football championship in April because I had a hamstring injury that occurred during the national league. I didn’t want to jeopardise my chances of being ready for the championship with Wexford. I play sport because I get a lot of enjoyment from it, but in terms of the bigger picture I just love hurling, it’s where I get the most fulfilment and enjoyment.
You can see now a lot of hurling clubs, the standard of coaching, the standard of facilities, the level that players are at, everything that they have, the level it has got to. You still can hurl away and play football for your club. I think it’s very near impossible at county level, I know guys have tried it, I did it because I wanted to try it and it was an honour to represent my county Wexford in football and hurling in the same year. But in hindsight I was not getting the best out of myself in either or. It’s very hard to focus on two goals throughout the year, very hard to involved yourself with two panels and claim your place then in two teams. I just think that the level football and hurling has got to at county level its well nigh impossible.
I know myself being involved with Wexford hurlers, if there was a guy that was only there even 60 or 70 per cent of the time there wouldn’t be a hope in hell of him being in with a shout of the starting team, let alone getting in the 26. If you weren’t there 100% of the time putting in the same effort as everyone else, even though you would be away and still training and doing the work on the football you wouldn’t stand a chance of even getting on the bench in my opinion. In our panel if there was a guy trying to do both I don’t think he would last too long.
Everything’s going well, we were with the clubs there in April, which was good, though it was hard to keep in touch with all the lads because we weren’t training and also you’re trying to stay injury free.
I find I’m good with all that goes with the Championship, things are going well. Anywhere you go you find a lot of people that want to talk about the games, and I’m pretty good with it and you almost go into autodrive but you just get on with it, it’s all part and parcel of playing for Wexford. People are just interested to see how you’re going and they mean well. It’s great to see the passion they have for it. The championship is what we train for and the interest is huge.
The people of Wexford are so enthusiastic, we’re very lucky to be playing for the county. It’s a huge honour. We’re in the final stages now of getting ready so I’m looking forward to it. We want to do well for ourselves and the Wexford supporters.
Wolfetone Villas
I played all sports growing up. It wasn’t any different to any other childhood that any person had I suppose. I grew up in Wolfetone Villas in Wexford, it was a very family oriented estate, and pretty much everyone that lived there when I was grown up was born there. You could head away for a holiday for a weekend and leave your front door open it was that kind of place. My mother grew up in the estate. Growing up there we got up to everything out on the street hurling, football, soccer, tennis basketball, my childhood memory is that you would be out on the street with your friends organising games. There were times we’d organise games, mostly soccer games against other estates in the town. It was all very exciting.
I live very close to Wolfetone, just across the street and I’d often be over collecting my little sister and I see the children seem to be in round the house more than when we were young. In the summer they’re out in the street but with us I think it was everyday I was on the street playing with my friends or getting up to mischief, you generally though don’t see many kids on the street. I drive in there now but in my day there wouldn’t have been a car that drove into Wolfetone that didn’t get a belt of two or three balls! I drive up there two or three times a week and there wouldn’t be a ball hit my way.
On Sport Growing Up
It was all sports growing up. Soccer was always a much more difficult sport to get to the next level. The option of going across the water for players is there though it can be daunting. Though soccer was the easier sport to adapt to and I imagine it is for all young kids, I think everyone at some stage of their childhood played soccer, it was a big part of my childhood and it was great. .
It was the whole GAA scene that I loved, for me it was so community based, there was a different culture within it and I was immediately attracted to it and I loved the whole spirit and honesty and the friends I made within in were what attracted me. I maybe didn’t see it when I was a young kid but looking back now it was what attracted me.
At sixteen years of age I was still dabbling in every type of sport. I was hurling and football mad and still playing soccer. I just loved it all and wanted to be the best at everything. It was great just feeling like you’ve found a place where you belong, I made so many friends and have so many good memories.
I was playing soccer and you realise time is passing by, lads are being scouted at fourteen years of age, and there you are at sixteen and seventeen years of age. There was a bit of contact once from a club but I didn’t really want to leave the hurling and football behind. When I hit seventeen years of age I just started focusing more and more on the GAA scene.
School Days.
Lee gives a big shout out to Kennedy Park Primary School and Wexford Vocational School especially all his former teachers and classmates.
We were hurling mad at our primary school we had good teachers in the school, they loved the GAA and were hugely involved in the GAA within their own clubs and they pushed it massively within the school. It was fascinating, for me I didn’t come from a family of GAA people because my mother and my father obviously didn’t play GAA nor were my aunts and uncles involved. With the school it was one thing that pushed me towards it there were good people around me and good teachers that motivated me in that direction, they’d seen something within me I think. I adapted to that I think and got involved as quickly as I could and I just loved it from the get go, it was great in school learning new stuff educationally but especially in sport. It’s in school where a lot of people start out and that’s definitely where I started out playing hurling and football.
Wexford Vocational in Wexford Town was the school that pretty much all my family attended and it was where I went when I finished up my primary school. There was hurling in the school but it wouldn’t have been the standard of say St Peter’s here in Wexford or Good Counsel in New Ross. I wouldn’t say there was a huge emphasis on sports or trying to bring people down the sporting route.
It was the clubs that did that for me that drove it on. When the school played in any competitions or matches came along I was hugely interested in getting involved whether that was hurling or football or rugby. I loved all the days out of school to play games it was great. When there was a match on we never had any bother getting a team. At our school there was a handful of hurlers but on the day of a game you could fill four teams! We wouldn’t have enough hurls to go around with some of the lads that would turn up with gear bags to go hurling with no hurls or helmets with them. They loved getting out of class.
First Clubs and Hurling for Faythe Harriers
I joined the club when I was about ten or eleven years of age. I immediately fell in love with the club, the coaches were great, the facilities were good. It was pure hurling, me and my mates getting our hands on a ball and being coached and learning new things every day was so fascinating for me. Faythe Harriers are hurling only and I played Gaelic football for St. Mary’s Maudlintown,
I joined both clubs around the same time. There was about five are six guys that I played soccer with involved with the football club (Mary’s) so it made sense to just join them. We had a lot of success underage with that team. As every year went by I knew my love of hurling was just growing more and more till I was 17 and I made a decision to pack in the football, the interest just was not there anymore.
When Jason Ryan was the Wexford football manager back in 2012 He contacted me to join him, I was 18 at this stage and obviously we had discussed around the fact that I have not played football in over a year and half. I was really interested in just hurling but I decided to give the football a go, so when I decided to go back I joined a different club, the Sarsfields, Mainly the reason why I went there was because most of the guys I was hurling with were at the club.
On the Reality of being a Dual Player
My main focus is on the Wexford senior hurling team at the moment. I am getting a lot of enjoyment from just doing that. I have in the past played a bit of football but my priority is hurling with Wexford and the Faythe Harriers.
I didn’t participate in any of the football championship in April because I had a hamstring injury that occurred during the national league. I didn’t want to jeopardise my chances of being ready for the championship with Wexford. I play sport because I get a lot of enjoyment from it, but in terms of the bigger picture I just love hurling, it’s where I get the most fulfilment and enjoyment.
You can see now a lot of hurling clubs, the standard of coaching, the standard of facilities, the level that players are at, everything that they have, the level it has got to. You still can hurl away and play football for your club. I think it’s very near impossible at county level, I know guys have tried it, I did it because I wanted to try it and it was an honour to represent my county Wexford in football and hurling in the same year. But in hindsight I was not getting the best out of myself in either or. It’s very hard to focus on two goals throughout the year, very hard to involved yourself with two panels and claim your place then in two teams. I just think that the level football and hurling has got to at county level its well nigh impossible.
I know myself being involved with Wexford hurlers, if there was a guy that was only there even 60 or 70 per cent of the time there wouldn’t be a hope in hell of him being in with a shout of the starting team, let alone getting in the 26. If you weren’t there 100% of the time putting in the same effort as everyone else, even though you would be away and still training and doing the work on the football you wouldn’t stand a chance of even getting on the bench in my opinion. In our panel if there was a guy trying to do both I don’t think he would last too long.
And Any Pre Championship Nerves?
Everything’s going well, we were with the clubs there in April, which was good, though it was hard to keep in touch with all the lads because we weren’t training and also you’re trying to stay injury free.
I find I’m good with all that goes with the Championship, things are going well. Anywhere you go you find a lot of people that want to talk about the games, and I’m pretty good with it and you almost go into autodrive but you just get on with it, it’s all part and parcel of playing for Wexford. People are just interested to see how you’re going and they mean well. It’s great to see the passion they have for it. The championship is what we train for and the interest is huge.
The people of Wexford are so enthusiastic, we’re very lucky to be playing for the county. It’s a huge honour. We’re in the final stages now of getting ready so I’m looking forward to it. We want to do well for ourselves and the Wexford supporters.