IT’S A DIRTY, blustery and horribly grey morning when I make my way to the Sunshine Estate on the Crumlin Road. The irony isn’t lost on me.
From the outside, it doesn’t look like much with its collection of random units. On one side, there’s a car repair shop. On the other a florist. And nestled somewhere in the middle is a fitness club.
Conceived and managed by two former footballers, Dublin Fit Club (DFC) has no ads on the radio, on TV or in newspapers or magazines. In fact, it has no marketing of any kind beyond a Facebook page and a no-frills website. Yet, on any given day, there could be hundreds of people using the facilities.
Word of mouth has ensured a remarkable and diverse client list. Despite the ultra-competitive nature of the fitness business, this place is expanding at a rapid rate. And very quickly after arriving, I begin to realise why.
Any well-read League of Ireland fan, will remember Brian Cash and Pat Jennings Jr. The former spent five years at Nottingham Forest before returning home and enjoying subsequent spells at Derry City, Sligo Rovers and St Pats. A high-energy midfielder, Cash was an under-age Irish international alongside the likes of Andy Reid.
Jennings, a goalkeeper and the son of Tottenham, Arsenal and Northern Ireland’s legendary shot-stopper, began his career at Spurs and turned pro at Wimbledon before a scholarship brought him to Dublin and UCD. He spent three years with the Students before moving to Derry and striking up a friendship with Cash. Later, their paths crossed again at Sligo and as they got older and injuries began to crop up more frequently, conversations turned to what their respective post-football lives would look like.
It made sense to stick with what they knew and so they enrolled at DCU, studying fitness instruction and picking up various other certificates once they’d finished.
By 2011, Cash was done as a player and Jennings wasn’t too far behind. There was a fork in the road and both went right.
“I got a job in a commercial gym and straight away I knew I wanted to do something in the industry but I didn’t want to be in a gym”, says Cash.
It wasn’t for me. It was just a cattle-market, basically – thousands of people coming through the door each week, not knowing anyone, just doing classes, personal training with people you hardly knew. At that stage, PJ (Jennings) was starting to take a step back from playing. He had done the courses with me in DCU so I ended up saying to him ‘Why don’t we go about setting up our own stuff?’”
Football in Ireland is an unforgiving environment. A lot of players can’t get approved for car loans or mortgages because of the short-term nature of their contracts. Jennings appreciates that he and Cash are in the minority, having thought about their futures and subsequently seeking out the requisite qualifications.
“It’s sad even now”, he says.
“I’m still involved with Pats (as goalkeeping coach) and there’s nothing there structurally for the lads when they finish playing. It’s year-to-year employment or ten-month employment because they’re not paid in the off-season which is shocking. And there’s no contingency plan but Brian and I had a bit of foresight, I think. I was about 29 and thought ‘What am I going to do?’ but luckily we got our house in order and got qualified. And I don’t know how but we’ve stuck each other for the last few years and we work well together.”
We both started in a gym and saw what we thought we could probably improve. For us, it’s about the personal touch and getting more involved with the clients as opposed to just turning them out. It’s just evolved to where we are now.”
The initial steps were small, tentative. The first incarnation of the project came to life in the unglamorous setting of Lourdes Celtic’s indoor hall in Crumlin. Since then though, it’s consistently been bigger and better. And there are ambitious plans for the future.
“We started off with no equipment. We didn’t have a clue what we were doing but from there we built it up”, Cash says.
We moved to our first premises – that was a one-room studio. We’ve been at it about three-and-a-half years and we’re now in this place. Eventually, we want to turn it into a training centre with a physio, yoga teachers, Pilates, personal training, fitness classes, a weights area and eventually that will branch out into dealing specifically with athletes and sports team. Essentially keeping one side for the public and the other for team-specific training and athletes.”
We chat over a cup of tea (no sugar) in a small office. What strikes me is that despite having lived out every boy’s dream and playing football professionally, Cash and Jennings gloss over their careers and what they’ve accomplished. Humble and grounded with no airs and graces, such an approach clearly serves them well with their clients.
“It just reflects our character”, says Cash.
“We wouldn’t have been making a big song and dance about it when we were training so we’re very laid back as it is. It’s very low-key here. I think personal experience is a big thing. We’ve been in this since we’re fifteen – that’s close to forty years experience between the two of us.”
Cash and Jennings pride themselves on building relationships with everyone who attends classes. Sometimes, it’s something small – using a person’s name when praising them during a circuit. On a bigger scale, the pair will go through diet, sleep patterns and lifestyle choices with clients. They’ll ask to be sent photos of what clients are eating for various meals. It’s incredibly detailed and goes far beyond just going to a class, doing a 30-minute stint and leaving again. But, they’re keen to stress that it’s all objectives.
“Before we start training anyone, we ask the person to figure out what their actual aims and goals are and then work towards them”, says Cash.
“You can get someone off the street who’s looking to get out of the house for a couple of hours and de-stress. We have others who are training towards an event – like a wedding – so there are specific targets to hit.”
DFC revolves around individual needs. And Jennings is quick to point out how rare that actually is.
Everyone has a different agenda who comes through the door. It could be to blow off some steam. It could be to get fit for a holiday or lose weight or bulk up. Typically, what will happen in a commercial gym is that you’ll get quite a generic programme. If you’re there with two friends and we all have different goals but roughly doing the same training, how can it possibly work? There has to be more emphasis put on the individual and it has to be tailored for you. Typically, that doesn’t happen in gyms.”
Cash interjects.
“But we can only go off of our experience. There are hundreds of gyms all over Ireland – we worked in one. So we’re not saying what goes on in the gym down the road because we don’t know.”
One thing’s for sure – there’s a character to to this place. DFC have only been here for a few weeks and it’s still rough around the edges – Cash and Jennings are overseeing maintenance work when I arrive. But what’s so gratifying is the lack of pretension. It’s a fitness venue. It’s got everything you need. You do your work and leave.
Gyms are no longer places where you simply work out. The culture encourages some to embrace it as something more. It can be a catwalk – somewhere to show off some fancy training gear. It can be a photo-shoot location – somewhere new to pose for some selfies.
“Check anyone’s Instagram accounts”, says Cash.
“Everyone has at least one picture or they’re checking-in on Facebook. I mean, our place – just look around.”
“We don’t even have mirrors in there and there’s a reason for that”, Jennings points out.
People come here and don’t feel under pressure. It is a big deal with people going into gyms – there’s a prison-yard atmosphere around the weights areas with all the guys standing around. It’s literally like a prison yard. That’s definitely not the feel that we’d have in here. Everyone gets stuck in, no one is minding what you’re doing.”
For people of a certain age, there’s a wider appreciation for keeping fit and taking care of their bodies. But that means a relentless flow of information to digest too. There are various apps, a litany of dietary programmes to follow, so many gym exercises to try, the latest fad to investigate and replicate.
But DFC encourages people to start slowly, to get the basics right and then take a microscope to what they’re doing.
“Like everything else, there’s constant bombardment”, says Cash.
“It can be very confusing and what we’d always preach is to start from a blank canvas unless you have a health issue or a medical problem or are taking medication. Start by eating well, drinking lots of water, getting loads of sleep, try and reduce stress levels, do some sort of physical activity and you don’t have to be in the gym eight times a week.
After a month of doing that, take a step back and say ‘Right, how can we make this more detailed or more personal?’ I’ll always ask clients if there’s any food that makes them feel bloated and then ask them to make a note of how they feel after certain foods. A lot of people have an intolerance to something and don’t know it. Sometimes people might feel a bit lethargic during the week and don’t know why.”
For some though, a fitness regime becomes all-consuming. Every meal, every snack, every drink of water becomes part of a plan that can’t be interrupted. Some don’t believe in temptation. Some push themselves to the limits. But such an attitude can be counter-productive.
“Your nutrition and your training should enhance your life, not detract from it”, warns Cash.
“If you want to go to a work party on a Saturday night and you’d like to have a couple of glasses of wine with dinner, do it. You don’t have to stay out until 6am having shots of Jagermeister. Have a nice evening with your colleagues, enjoy yourself and have a laugh and a joke. Who’s to say that isn’t as good for you as sitting at home with a box of chicken and broccoli feeling miserable? The only thing is if you wake up the following day and do it again.”
Some fitness advocates will have a zero-tolerance approach to the ‘bold stuff’. Thoughts of chocolate, alcohol and finer foods may be consistently entertained but are never acted upon.
Jennings thinks that encouraging the craving is a bad thing. By allowing the ‘bold stuff’ in moderation, there’s a wider balance and a reduction of stress.
“It’s not healthy to be stressing over stuff”, he says.
“You need to enjoy yourself, laugh and have a bit of fun. I don’t like being told not to do something. It’s human nature, isn’t it? If someone says ‘You can’t do that’, the natural response is ‘Well, I might want to do it so why not’? Straight away, if you’re taking things from people, they’ll start to crave it.”
For Cash and Jennings, more expansion is on the horizon. During the summer, they hosted a number of footballers, including Cardiff’s Eoin Doyle and Liverpool’s Daniel Cleary, for some off-season training.
But the plan is that DFC will see more teams using the facility. With two floors, there’s plenty of space. A physio is moving into one of the downstairs rooms in a few weeks. It’s another step on the journey.
“We think we’re set up here so that we can bring in a few teams”, says Jennings.
“They can come in, a manager can actually observe the session from upstairs and we’ll take the conditioning. Afterwards we’ll have a recovery zone where the players can stretch and, down the line, we’ll bring it a step further with some ice baths and ice facilities.”
Something tells me they’ll get there.
