FEATURE: Inspiring the next generation

Niall Gartland speaks to Liam Grugan about the role of primary schools in developing our future GAA stars.

IN 2019, St Lawrence’s Primary School in Fintona reigned supreme at the Millennium Cup – a prestigious annual competition for budding young Gaelic footballers from Omagh and its surrounding areas.

Check out the pertinent photograph on these pages and if you’re familiar with Tyrone’s recent All-Ireland Minor success, you may immediately recognise a few faces. And if not, there’s a caption there to guide you.

There’s a giddy looking Diarmuid Martin, who kicked the dramatic winning point against Kerry in the All-Ireland final. He also captained Omagh CBS to Rannafast Cup honours last December. There’s Peter Colton, that swashbuckling attacking player who inspired Tyrone’s second-half charge with a ruthlessly dispatched penalty against the Kingdom. And you’ll also see Padraig Goodman, who made the number three jersey his own in Tyrone’s first All-Ireland Minor title since 2010.

Six years ago, they were primary school children but they were already firmly on the path to stellar footballing careers, and that’s a testament both to St Lawrence’s and their club, Fintona Pearses.

And that’s something that Liam Grugan, former Tyrone footballer and a long-standing teacher at St Conor’s Primary School, Omagh, the hosts of the Millennium Cup, strongly wishes to convey. The Gaelic footballing (and hurling, and camogie…) stars of today didn’t arrive fully formed in a gift-wrapped package.

“There’s a massive amount of work being done. There’s a raft of men and women out there who are doing a serious amount of work. People would’ve said back in the day that primary school was a nine-to-three job, but that’s definitely not the case. Teachers really are putting their shoulders to the wheel, coaching teams at dinner-time and after school, even with the massive workload, the overload of paperwork and directive time.

“It gets me that whenever you gave a Tyrone team reach an All-Ireland final, be it minor or u-20, the school or university they go to is listed – it’s like people don’t realise that young boys are girls are playing games before they turn 12 years of age.

“It’s like building a house – if your foundations are really good, you’re going to have a really strong house, and it’s the same with sport. At this present time, there’s so many competitions out there for primary school children between football, hurling, handball and camogie, and it’s brilliant for them.”

The seven-a-side Millennium Cup competition was founded 25 years ago, following in the footsteps of similar competitions from around the county – the Knockmany Cup, the Cabragh Cup and so on. Grugan says you can draw a line between success at primary schools level and later glories, a trend he insists is no coincidence.

“We began the Millennium Cup in 2000, and the first team that won it was St Colmcille’s, and there was a young fella playing by the name of Peter Harte.

“For the first few years, it was just ourselves (St Conor’s) and St Colmcille’s winning it, and then Tattyreagh came along and won, and then you had the primary schools from Newtownstewart, Drumquin and Fintona, which gave them ownership of the tournament as well.

“It isn’t an exact science but we’ve seen the likes of Fintona, Loughmacrory, Donaghmore, Galbally, Tattyreagh having really good primary schools and you can see that coming like a wave right up through their respective clubs.

“You watch the progress of young players coming through and it makes so you proud, even the players we participated against. Twenty five years ago we’d already heard of Conor Meyler, Tiernan McCann and Ronan O’Neill, because we’d watched them.

“We saw the likes of Eoin McElholm and Ruairi McCullagh coming through when they were no age – they won Ulster Indoor titles with St Teresa’s, Loughmacrory.”

He continued: “Gareth Haughey is a past pupil of St Conor’s and he’s the first Omagh CBS man to captain a Hogan Cup-winning team. He stood out when he was 10 or 11 years of age, and there’s a lot of youngsters at that age who are like him, who you can predict are going to have big futures. There’s teachers right throughout Tyrone and other counties who are leaving their pupils in a really good place for Ulster Colleges to take them on to the next level.”

“And it’s obviously not just about the schools, it’s about the clubs, and complementing what the clubs are doing.”

Grugan also draws a contrast with the untouchable, almost unknowable world, of millionaire soccer players across the water. In the GAA, our icons aren’t just confined to the television screens.

“Young lads talk about Liverpool, Manchester United and Spurs, and they might go over and watch them sometimes, but it’s not comparable to what we have in the GAA. Errigal Ciaran are Ulster Club champions and young children around Errigal are seeing their heroes every day of the week.

“They’re so accessible, they might live just across the road, they’re in the local shops, they’re in the chapel. And kids think, ‘if they can do it, then so can I’.

“I point out in the classroom, that’s where Aidan Clarke sat, or that’s where Christiane Hunter or Orlagh McNamee sat. It’s about inspiring the next generation and leaving things in as good a place as you found it.

“It extends to teaching as well – Holy Trinity won the Millennium Cup and other competitions and it’s going to be seriously interesting watching that team come up – Aidan Clarke is teaching in their school, he’s a past pupil of ours, and he’s in there with Declan McCusker, captain of the Fermanagh senior lads. Lads like Aidan and Declan are putting in a serious shift.”

“Holy Family won the Millennium Cup and other competitions and it’s going to be seriously interesting watching that team come up. Within the club we’re really excited about that.”

“At St Conor’s we’ve been very lucky this last few years, we’ve had Cian Bradley from Omagh and Ben Monk and Cian Murphy from Drumragh coming in. We’d have coached them when they were at St Conor’s and now they’re back, so you have club players giving back to the primary schools.”

Grugan is also mindful that he’s standing on the shoulders of giants. Primary schools’ football has a long and distinguished history in the county and thankfully, the flame burns as brightly as ever.

“Donal Magee, who taught in Killyclogher, had this idea of having a Feis Sevens – a seven-a-side competition down the Brothers Park and St Pat’s Park. It went on all day and included schools from around the county. It was a carnival of football. I came from a small school from Tattyreagh, we got to the final and we were beaten by St Patrick’s Primary School from Dungannon. They were managed by Iggy Jones, they were a really good team, and we had overachieved by getting to the final.

“Then Cumann na mBunscol came on board with organised competitions, regulating primary schools football and set up competitions for all the different grades. There’s so many people over the years who have put in an incredible amount of work into Cumann na mBunscol. Over the years it’s gone from strength-to-strength, catering for all the codes, with finals’ days up in Garvaghey, and there’s a skills day where some of the players are picked to play at All-Ireland semi-finals and finals. Players are also taken from each school and get to play at Tyrone matches, so it’s brilliant.”

He concluded: “Those men 50 or 60 years ago ignited a flame, and I know the likes of Donal Magee ignited a flame in me. I still talk to him about the Feis Sevens and the day I played against St Pat’s Dungannon in the final, even though we got absolutely hammered!”