St Patrick's Athletic FC are delighted to announce a football partnership with Cherry Orchard FC.

The aim of this new long term single club football partnership is to provide players from Cherry Orchard with a pathway to academy and senior League of Ireland football for both boys and girls.

We are also creating a new full-time Football Partnership Manager role, with application details below.

As part of this new partnership, we are looking forward to progressing with our plans & our expression of interest to field a team in the EA SPORTS Women's National U17 League from the 2023 season onwards.

St Pat's Academy Director Ger O'Brien said:

"We are delighted to be entering in to this partnership with Cherry Orchard.

Cherry Orchard have played a huge part in developing players that have come to our academy over the last number of years.

Players such as James Abankwah, Glory Nzingo and Ben Quinn all came from a very talented 2004 team and have all moved on via St Pat's to professional clubs in Europe and the UK.

Recent Ireland senior international Jamie McGrath also played for both clubs, with many other examples.

Cherry Orchard have excellent foundations in place for boys and girls football and we want to help them grow in this area over the next number of years."

Alan Mathews, St Pat's Technical Director, added:

"We are excited to announce this new football partnership with Cherry Orchard, a historic and prestigious club.

Cherry Orchard has a proven track record of developing players from grassroots football to international level, with a number of those players progressing through both the Cherry Orchard and St Patrick's Athletic Academies.

We look forward to working very closely with the players and coaches of Cherry Orchard, and supporting and developing the next generation of players."

Stephen O'Brien, Underage Section Chairman of Cherry Orchard said:

"We at Cherry Orchard FC are delighted to be entering into this partnership with St Patrick's Athletic FC.

Cherry Orchard have a rich history of developing players who have gone onto have very successful careers in the professional game.

In the last week, our former player Nathan Collins has been making big headlines for our international team, in addition one of our female players Jessie Stapleton has just made her debut for our Women's National Team.

To now have the advantage of a player pathway from Cherry Orchard FC into the professional National League academy structures at St Pat's bodes very well for the future development of our players.

The fact that St Patrick's Athletic are allocating a full time role to the partnership speaks volumes for the project moving forward.

The quantity of young players, many of them teenagers, playing in the St Patrick's Athletic 1st Team and gaining professional contracts at a young age provides a true player pathway from underage football into our professional league.

It's also worth noting in very recent times that former Cherry Orchard players James Abankwah and Glory Nzingo have signed as professional for St Pat's and then transferred across into European Clubs.

We are Cherry Orchard FC are looking forward to a very fruitful partnership."