Bandon are thriving in the Munster Senior League Second Division after going down last season, and everyone involved at the club has their sights firmly set on promotion. The team could not have asked for a better start – they returned to action in August and won their first four games by an aggregate score of 17-4. They also progressed in the Keane Cup despite losing narrowly to Ringmahon Rangers, with that result overturned over issues involving player registration. Bandon moved on with a team led by Peter Mullins, an experienced figure in Cork soccer after previous stints with Avondale United and Riverstown. October will be one of their busiest months and, as the season intensifies, the coach tells Dylan O’Connell all about their promotion and rebuilding campaign.
“It’s been really good, really good,” says Mullins.
“It’s a new management team and a lot of restructure behind the scenes with youth teams and junior teams.
“It’s a brand new senior team put together. We had a good pre-season, had good numbers at training and it just starts from there. It breeds good habits and we had a good unbeaten pre-season. We played some good opposition. We played Ballinhassig from the First Division, who are a really good side. We played good opposition which tested us and we picked up good habits for the start of the season.”
It wasn’t just that the club are picking up the pieces after relegation and hoping to go again, they are trying to rebuild after experiencing the drop twice in three years.
They were in the Premier Division as recently as the 2023-24 season and playing against top sides like Midleton, College Corinthians, and Ringmahon Rangers. They even reached the Beamish Stout Senior Cup semi-final that year, and lost to an all-conquering Rockmount side looking for their seventh major trophy in three years.
Bandon went down with just one win recorded and four draws, as the basement side in a ten team league.
There was no immediate reprieve in the First Division during the 2024-25 season, instead they were dumped out of the Keane Cup by Carigtwohill and their league campaign started with a four match winless run. Bandon rallied and managed to finish fourth in the First Division, in addition to reaching the Round of 16 of the Munster Senior Cup and losing to Waterford at the RSC.
Instead of being a platform to build from, it was a false dawn as the 2025-26 campaign brought automatic relegation after a basement finish. Bandon could only muster two wins that year, not that it meant anything in the end.
Mullins was brought in to pick things up and restore Bandon as a force to be reckoned with in local soccer.
“I was trying to pick heads up and get the morale going again and get a winning mentality back again as well,” he explained.
“Just from the first session we said we wouldn’t work on tactics so much but there’s no excuse for hard work. Put in the hard work and it will pay dividends. We know we’ve got ability so that will come out in the performances.”
Mullins has a lot to pull from as he prepares for one of the busiest stretches of the season, with games lined up in the FAI Intermediate Cup and a number of local cup competitions.
The coach has years of experience in Cork, from a previous stint at Bandon to his first steps at Riverstown’s academy. Avondale United is where he is best known in the city after helping the club’s junior team win the Donal Linehan Cup, one of the most sought-after trophies at that level.
Mullins is now solely focused on the club in his own neck of the woods, Bandon, and part of his vision for the club is putting a sense of localism into everything they do. The goal here to build something truly local, that involves the very best footballers from the town, and slowly it is coming true.
“I have been coaching for years,” Mullins explained.
“My previous club would have been Avondale, so I was with Avondale seniors and Avondale in the Junior Premier Division for the last three or four years. I came back with a view to taking this job. I’m from Bandon but a lot of people were saying to me, are you going to get new players? Are you going to get players from the city? Are you going to get players from the club? There are players in the club every single one of those lads is from Bandon.
“I think Ger Rice in the ten lives four or five miles out in Innishannon and that’s it. There’s no one coming from Clon and there’s no one coming from the city. In that it gives you a good work ethic because they’re fighting for each other.”
What this has created is an environment where everyone knows each other, and this has made the squad stronger.
“There’s no one being brought in to play up front because we don’t have anyone in the town that can play up front – everyone is Bandon through and through and that’s a good basis,” Mullins added.
“That comes out in the performances, they’re fighting for each other. As I said at the start, get the work ethic up, the fight was there, but maybe the energy levels weren’t or the intensity wasn’t there. The new coaching team that came in, we just pushed that for the first few weeks and then dribbled tactics and systems and things like that.”
So far everything is going according to plan. Bandon are thriving in the Munster Senior League Second Division and the club’s course has been steadied after experiencing two relegations in three seasons.
There’s still a lot of work to be done. The season will run until May and there are plenty of twists to come in a title race that also involves Riverstown and a Wilton United side stepping back up to senior football.
What Bandon have to get them through this is a clear sense of local identity, and that’s something that cannot be manufactured or brought in. Mullins has nurtured this feeling and it is leading to impressive results on the pitch.
There’s still a long way to go, especially when the multitude of local cup competitions are factored in alongside the precarious nature of a calendar that is usually dictated by the weather. Bandon won’t seem to mind. The club have found their way again and Mullins is leading them forward.
