Offaly county football team

Perhaps the most famous moment in football history came in the 1982 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship final when Offaly played Kerry. The match was a repeat of the previous year's final; however, not only that but a win for Kerry would give them an unprecedented fifth consecutive All-Ireland SFC title. Kerry were winning by two points with two minutes to go when Séamus Darby came on as a substitute and scored one of the most famous goals of all time in football.^[2] Kerry fumbled the counterattack which allowed Offaly to win by one single point with a score of 1–15 to 0–17.

Offaly manager Liam Kearns died suddenly in the middle of the 2023 National League campaign.^[3] Ahead of the first league game since his death (against Tipperary, another team that Kearns had managed) a moment of silence took place, with Offaly winning the game.^[4][5]

The Offaly vocational schools' team have made it to six All-Ireland finals but lost all six, including the first final when they were beaten by the Cork City team in 1961.

Professional golfer Shane Lowry said in 2021: "But any time I get the chance to go to O'Connor Park and watch Offaly play, I do and I am the first to give out if they lose and I am sitting in the stand."^[6]

Team as per Offaly vs Longford in the NFL Division 3 Round 5, 5 March 2023

^INJ Player has had an injury which has affected recent involvement with the county team.
^RET Player has since retired from the county team.
^WD Player has since withdrawn from the county team due to a non-injury issue.

• Manager: Mickey Harte
• Selectors: Martin Murphy,^[9][10] John Rouse^{[11][needs update?]}
• Coach: Alan Flynn^{[12][needs update?]}
• Backroom: Brendan Egan, Paul Fitzgerald^{[13][needs update?]}
• Strength and conditioning coach: Keith Carr^{[14][needs update?]}

Offaly have a history of appointing "foreign" managers, doing so on several occasions since taking Eugene McGee from Longford in late 1976. Emmet McDonnell became the tenth foreigner to manage the team when he was appointed in 2012. Only Tommy Lyons was a successful appointment though; Lyons led Offaly to the 1997 Leinster SFC (a first in 15 years) and then to a first National Football League Division 1 title the following year.^[15] According to Colm Keys, writing in the Irish Independent after the Offaly County Board sacked Stephen Wallace in May 2018: "In the quest for perfection, Offaly have repeatedly left themselves in a right old mess when it has come to choosing and retaining managers... No county has experienced such managerial upheaval as Offaly since the turn of the century".^[16]