Derry club Culmore mark birthday with a silver lining

City club Culmore Cú Chulainns are Derry’s youngest club. They won their first county title last week on their eighth birthday. Michael McMullan spoke with chairman Dermot McErlean about the journey…

THERE will be many cups presented across Derry in the weeks ahead as the championship season hurtles into full flow.

Joy and speeches and photos capping off a season of work, celebrating in those minutes of raw emotion after the final whistle.

Silver is silver. Success, on any scale, is both relative and personal. Medals get misplaced but memories never fade.

There won’t be a more poignant presentation moment than last Tuesday night in Celtic Park, September 23, when Charlie Bonner presented Daragh Quigley with the u-14 C trophy.

It marked eight years to the very day Culmore Cú Chulainns came into existence, launching as an underage club at the opening of Culmore Country Park in 2017.

The groundwork began the previous year when Gaels hatched an idea of a new club in the area and put wheels on their vision.

After sounding out members of Derry GAA, an initial meeting took place in March 2017.

“Three of us floated the idea to them just verbally,” recalls Dermot McErlean, current chairman, u-16 coach and founding member.

“We explained the situation here, we had our own parish, we had our two primary schools, we had a girls grammar school and that we had a population upwards of 4,000 and growing.”

It was a starting point with Derry asking for more meat around the bones before a follow-up in the spring.

The sleeves were rolled up. A core of eight people got to work. McErlean, his brothers Niall and Sean, their wives, Donna and Ann, Sean Hegarty, Ruairi and Alicia O’Kane.

A questionnaire around the doors yielded over 1000 signatures interested in what was being proposed and believing it would work. Without a club on their doorstep, children were already playing for three different GAA clubs across the city.

“It coincided with the council’s proposals for the former waste site at Culmore point,” Dermot added.

“They had floated an idea of playing pitches on that site for community use and that tied well with our ambition.”

By June, a Culmore delegation was sat in front of Ulster GAA. Bringing games to an urban centre was music to their ears.

When the green light eventually came, a letter from Derry GAA offered a hand of welcome to the newest addition to the family.

There was a stipulation of u-6, u-8 and u-10 teams for at least two years before a move towards u-12.

Culmore now have five boys’ teams, up as far as u-16. Their u-10, u-12 and u-14 girls’ teams will be joined by an u-16 group in January as LGFA involvement since 2021 has doubled their playing pool.

The plan to field a senior team in time for the 2029 season in their model of nurturing a club built on solid foundations.

“I know if you put two coats down this evening on a green field and had a ball and invited people out to play, you’d get them of all ages,” McErlean added.

“We were restricted to primary school children and it was the best thing that ever happened to us because we went about our work.”

By September, a family fun day coincided with the Culmore Country Park’s opening, allowing the club to have their brand out there.

Blue was the colour associated with Culmore. With many Derry clubs already wearing the royal blue and influenced by the all-conquering Dublin team, sky blue was the unique colour of their jersey.

A look out McErlean’s window and you see Culmore fort and the kids sketched the first impression of the club crest – the fort, the lighthouse and Cuchulainn.

Underage players would be dressed as warriors in Derry’s Halloween parades.

“They’d have hats with horns on them, they’d be carrying a shield and a spear,” he said.

On the field, they translated it into a never say die attitude in games with the Cuchulainn on their crest.

The club used the nearby Thornhill College as their base with their indoor facilities a welcome solace for coaching skills with the winter elements on the outside.

“Since those early days, it has grown immensely so we have a real headache now,” McErlean added.

“The two indoor halls available to us in Thornhill are no longer sufficient.

“We’re in a real difficult situation because the coaches at all ages are just looking at all their own sessions and their own times.”

The club invested in a mini-bus to take players to blitzes and games across the county. Within weeks it was packed and they now have a second bus.

Many clubs can be used as a babysitting service but Culmore look at it differently.

“We were installing that sense of unity of team and of memories,” McErlean said, with the pride evident across every sentence.

The bus ferried their players to all of Derry’s league and championship games. The recent news of the McKenna Cup’s return had the group chat lighting up. Is the bus going?

“We’re on the road again now in January,” he added. “The bus has been to Croke Park four times and you can see what that has done to build a team and unify the youngsters. That’s unreal.

“It was a secret weapon for us, and building the numbers of underage. It’s just convincing them that this is a good thing, it’s the right thing, and it’s something they want to be part of.”

It’s the same with the committee and the coaches – both male and female. While he holds the position of chairman, he doesn’t trumpet it.

“Put me down as an u-16 coach,” McErlean said when asked about his role in the club.

The success is because of everyone, from the eight founders to the present day. Everybody.

“We have people with a good work ethic and just proper GAA people, people that a few years ago knew nothing about GAA or anything to do with it,” he stressed.

“People here are experiencing and tasting the value of the GAA. I’ve always told them the GAA is the heartbeat of communities up across our country.

“Growing up in Culmore, that was always absent, but it’s very prevalent now in Culmore and it’s something I’m very proud of.”

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IT’S early September 2025. A Tuesday night and Culmore u-14s have made the longest trip you can make for a half past six throw-in, from close to the Donegal border to Moneymore, on the shoulder of Tyrone.

Culmore find themselves 10 points adrift before reeling Moneymore back to force extra-time. The warrior spirit in Kieran Deeney and Michael McLoone’s team didn’t end there and a five-point win booked a county final spot.

McErlean can still see a young girl celebrating after the game. It’s imprinted. “We won,” she uttered. It’s a small thing to most but when you have secured a spot in a first ever final and are a new club, it’s priceless.

Every year, on the Saturday closest to the September 23, Culmore have celebrated their birthday. There would be a numbered shaped balloon and some goodies at training. A photograph would be taken and filed away.

In Derry, u-14 night is a Tuesday. A glance at the fixture with Ardmore and September 23 jumped out. The stars had aligned.

It was a standalone game at Celtic Park. Everything was in place. The county ground, their name on the scoreboard, their unique sky-blue flag on the flagpole. All the way down to a Culmore voice singing the anthem.

All the one per-centers most clubs take for granted. This was different. Culmore were ploughing a new furrow.

While it was just a game of football for the 21 players in sky blue, it was an emotional night.

Sean Sweeney was one of the gasáns on their first ever team. Within 60 seconds of the throw-in, he had the ball in the Ardmore net.

Before players had actually registered for the club on that first Saturday, Dermot McErlean’s three children were the only actual players. His son John Joe hit 1-2 to help Culmore – with six players who were there at the start – to an historic first ever title.

“It’s massive,” McErlean said of the success. “I think it means more than we can ever even imagine.

“It was our Culmore community coming together in unity and voice and with their flags.

“There were people running on to the pitch, adults, young and grandparents. There was such a sense of belonging. This is us and this is ours.

“We belong here. I just was so, so proud, it was an evening and a moment for anybody that was involved in the club.”

The following night, the team were back at training with two special visitors. The cup they’d won and BBC Foyle coming along to get a flavour of what had been achieved.

On Friday night last, all 21 of the squad, in their sky blue, with the cup proudly plonked at the front, were present at Culmore point for their official team photo.

An u-14 title, in the grand scheme of things, is just an underage competition. And it is, but for Culmore, regardless of what the club go on to achieve, the u-14s of 2025 will be forever their history makers.

“We’re still very small and we are grounded to where we’re at but if you think of it from the beginning, it’s moved on quite a bit but it’s still massive for us. We just have to maintain momentum and let these boys see that we’re in this for the long haul and there’s no let-up.”

Their next battle is to get a pitch to call home. Despite the building crash of nearly two decades ago, farmland in the Culmore area is of premium value and the needs of an amateur sporting club is just by the by.

Their initial plan fell through and left them “shipwrecked” but they’ve another iron in the fire. The paperwork is in place and the fingers are again crossed.

“We’re very grateful to Thornhill and all the facilities that they’re providing,” McErlean said.

“Our big fight now is to find our own facility and we have an application currently pending with Derry City Council for a new pitch.”

Culmore’s u-14 team had that warrior spirit of going to battle. For Dermot McErlean, they are eight years in and it’s only the beginning. They’ve another – a milestone of an adult team running out on their own grass. The journey continues.