Stradbally to Bective, Picnic to Pitch

Andy Leech had an incredibly busy weekend as he went from performing a late night set at Electric Picnic to lining out for Navan O'Mahonys a few hours

Navan man Andy Leech was a busy man last weekend as he played two shows at Electric Picnic. Leech is a member of the band Le Boom alongside his brother Christie and friend, Kildare native, Peter Fleming.

The band were playing two shows at the popular festival in Stradbally in Laois. The second gig began at 1.30am in the early hours of Sunday morning and it was 5am before Leech returned to his home in Navan.

After only a couple of hours in bed, Leech rose again and got himself down to Bective where the team he plays for, Navan O’Mahonys third team, played their final group game of the JACFC Div 4. The Brews Hill side got the better of their local rivals Bective to top the group.

Leech lined out at full back for Navan O’Mahonys and he told the Irish Independent that he started the game slow but a collision midway through the first-half woke him up.

“A couple of high balls came in during the first few minutes and I was off the pace but our manager John Nugent was laughing saying that whatever happened with that collision it had a good impact on you because you were useless for the first quarter of an hour.”

Leech went onto speak about how the third team was set up and the competitiveness within the team and in the division.

“Ian Matthews, a legend in the club, put together a third team around Covid time for lads who couldn’t fully commit to those two or three nights a week of training. It can be a fairly high standard as well. We’ve 30-odd lads on our panel. There was a time when this grade was a bunch of auld lads, but now it’s certainly not that way, you could end up marking some 17-year-old who’ll run you around for the hour. “ said Leech.

“I had seen the fixtures and I knew it was the same weekend as EP and having won the first two games, I was thinking maybe I’d get away with not playing this game. We were just missing a good few lads. All of the young lads were actually down at EP for the weekend themselves. So Saturday night I said right I’d finish at 2.30…it was possible to make it back.”

Le Boom are an electronic dance style group that lean into Irish culture and the Irish language. The Leech brothers went to school in the Gaeltacht region of Rathcairn and all three members of the band are fluent in Irish which has given the band a lot of opportunities not just in Ireland but abroad as well.

“We’re all Irish speakers and there’s a massive appetite there for the Irish language and culture at the minute. “It’s not just in Ireland, we filled a room in Liverpool for a ‘Gael Rave.’ No-one there was first generation Irish but it’s a cool thing to be into now, have your Guinness and come to a Le Boom gig.”

When Leech took to the stage in the early hours of Sunday morning, he noticed a few familiar faces in the front row. He said it was a very proud moment for him to perform in front of his fellow Navan O’Mahonys clubmen.

"There was a bit of a stage invasion then at the end of our gig and I turned around and there was the whole half-back line standing behind me. When I came out, it was blue and white everywhere. There was a bit of a stage invasion then at the end of our gig and I turned around and there was the whole half-back line standing behind me. It was just brilliant with the two worlds colliding for the first time, it was a proud moment.”

Leech also went viral during the summer with a couple of poems that he wrote in support of the Meath senior team during their incredible run in the All-Ireland series.