Clones have a senior ladies team returning this season. Michaela Freeman is buzzing about pulling her home jersey back on again. Declan Flanagan is part of the management. They spoke to Michael McMullan…

THE excitement in Michaela Freeman’s voice tells more than words ever can. Having the chance to pull on the Clones jersey again was something she always wanted. Now it’s here.

Ladies football first began in the club back in 1993. There were bumpy parts of the road. There were glory days too.

A golden spell included Monaghan and Ulster Intermediate titles in 2005. There was another league title the following year and another climb up to senior.

Then came a rocky spell. Within two years, the ladies football side of the club was petering out. Numbers dwindled. Players were starting families or moving away for college. Others went travelling. Retirement took some as well.

Other local clubs that had folded rediscovered roots, with the players Clones had inherited moving back home.

The combination of factors saw the successful Clones group disappear fast.

With the core of their intermediate winning team gone, the senior grade became a real struggle. Hammerings sucked away any enthusiasm needed to create another spark.

The pool of volunteers they’d leaned on to coach teams and run club business was drying up too. A typical case of too few doing too much until they ran out of road.

“I do remember the meeting where we all said goodbye in the Leonard Arms,” Freeman (née Newell) recalls.

“I was only 16 when it folded. I can remember only 10 came to the meeting but it was the only 10 we had left.”

Of that, some transferred to the local nearby Killeevan and Emmet Óg clubs.

Just months after becoming a mother for the third time, Freeman was part of the Emmet Óg team that won the senior title last season, ending Donaghmoyne’s amazing run.

Killeevan are also the current Monaghan and Ulster intermediate champions but the Clones girls on board both teams had already made the commitment it was their last season.

With numbers growing at underage level, this was always going to be the year they returned home to help steer them into adult football.

“I think the numbers were there and we could see how much talent was coming out of Clones,” Freeman said.

“The schools were doing well and a lot of the Clones girls on the amalgamated teams were so talented.

“There are a lot more volunteers now. A lot of men are willing to watch women’s football and enjoy it.”

Last Saturday evening, the newly formed Clones senior team stood outside the Creighton Hotel. All 29 of them.

Earlier in the day, they were in Carlingford for an outdoor pursuits’ afternoon. It was back for grub in the Crieghton Hotel before dodging around a few of the town’s pubs.

They’ve had a series of challenge games during the preseason and they’ll begin life in the Monaghan junior ranks.

It’s a mixture of the returnees from Killeevan and Emmet Óg blended in with some who haven’t played since Clones folded and some of the underage that have fused in.

“They decided to start with u-8s, u-10s and u-12s around 2017,” points out PRO Declan Flanagan of the reformation of ladies’ football at underage level.

Flanagan is part of Damien ‘Packie’ Reilly and Ronan McDonald’s management team; the duo having been involved previously with the minor team and big drivers in getting a senior team moving again.

The initial youth structure came off the back of Pat McCabe, Joanne Reihill, Fintan Cunningham and Sharon Cunningham O’Shaughnessy’s collective effort.

People like current chairperson Shane Bonner. Alexia Bonner, Finian O’Hart and secretary Marie O’Neill have carried the baton.

“We are ahead of schedule in terms of fielding a senior team,” Flanagan added.

“Girls were playing for other teams but they always said they’d return to Clones when they had a senior team.

“Those 12-year-olds are now playing senior and that’s great to see. There was plenty of interest and while it started off slow, it has really taken off.”

There were bits and pieces of success. A first championship arrived in the form of the 2024 u-14 title. It has moved on and Clones will have their first minor team this year, on their own two feet, separate from any previous amalgamations.

“It is great to have a full rebirth of the ladies’ side of the club in Clones,” Flanagan added.

“There is great excitement around the whole club and the girls have shown a tremendous level of dedication to training and the challenge games we have played.

“We are confident enough we will be competitive in the Junior Championship. We have a lot of good players who have played at a high level – back from Emmet Óg and Killeevan.

“We also have a girl who has not played since u-14. She is now excelling at midfield, having come on really well in training, got it back into her system and loving it.”

Off the field, there have been plenty of offers of support with their time or businesses prepared to put money into the ladies’ rebirth.

From saying goodbye in 2008, it has turned full circle. Freeman saw a sparsely populated meeting as the club stepped away.

It was supposed to be for the short term but one year led into the next. Almost a decade passed before ladies’ football returned to Clones in the form of coaching at the grassroots.

Looking at the here and now, a love for football still oozes out of Freeman’s every word.

“I actually never even played minors in my own age group, we didn’t have a minor team,” she said of her own underage days.

“You could see where it was going and after u-16s, there was nowhere for the young ones to go.

“When the club started up again, the numbers began to grow. It started with the very young and we added u-14 and u-16 teams as the years passed.

“We did have a minor team, but it’s amalgamated with Killeevan. The underage has been so successful in the last number of years that we needed a senior team.

“Otherwise, all the minors that were turning 18 this year would be transferred out like we did.”

A meeting was called two years ago. Was it time for a senior team? Not just yet. The players would give one more year to both Emmet Óg and Killeevan, then they’d make the move. Sin é – 2026 would be the year.

“We met up in December for a bit of craic and have a chat,” Freeman said of the beginning.

“From the start of January, we’ve been out training twice a week and now we are out three times.”

After losing their first challenge game, there has been a steady climb. The wheels are beginning to turn. Spending last Saturday in each other’s company was a nice way to ramp up the togetherness.

“It’s amazing how quickly we’re clicking, it’s lovely,” Michaela said. “It was my dream to always come back to Clones.

“It’s been lovely that everybody felt the same. Even though we were all successful (in their previous clubs), we want it to happen with Clones.

“We’re all starting from the same point. We just want it to be successful but also stand the test of time. We don’t ever want to let it go again.”

Their squad is a mixture of a handful in their thirties and a core of players from their late teens to their mid-twenties.

“The minors trained with us the other night and loads of them could step up to seniors,” she added.

“I suppose they’ve just never been exposed to it before, so it was never an option. “

The reserve league will begin at the end of March. The graded players will then filter into the mix when the senior competitions begin.

Freeman spoke of the balance. There is a relaxed element with the players who tasted success with Killeevan and Emmet Óg filtering their traits across the squad.

The most important ingredient is something that can’t be as easily quantified – enthusiasm. It comes from a love of place.

“I’ve had more clubs than Tiger Woods because I played in New York and in Dublin,” Freeman said with a laugh.

“I just always remember my Clones years. I was so young but I loved it and still talk about it now.

“I played with four of my sisters so that was probably a good memory. My Dad was treasurer as well and my little brothers were the water boys. I can remember it so clearly, the buzz around the town.”

While winning with Emmet Óg was fulfilling and enjoyable, it wasn’t home. In recent weeks, the chat on the streets, shops and pubs in Clones has been about the ladies’ reformation.

“There’s people coming up watching all our challenge matches, there is a real camaraderie,” she added.

“With the men’s team, we’re all in the gym together and we were saying we need to build a bigger gym.

“I’m hoping my body doesn’t give up on me soon and I can keep playing for another few years.

“I have three kids and I’m just delighted to be playing for Clones. They’d always ask me, why do you not play for Clones when their daddy does”

Now they both pull on the same Clones jersey. One club. One family. One identity.

“One of the big things I was so impressed with is how they want us women to have everything the men have,” Freeman said of the club environment.

“They’re prioritising us just as much as the men. Even slots for training, the men always got to pick the best times and they’ve had to give up a few to the women.

“We’re all in it together now, it’s not the men and the women, it’s Clones as one, which is lovely.”

Times have changed. A carload of four went to training in Aghabog. Another three were going to Killeevan. Nearly half a team.

Many of their friends weren’t playing at all. The underage players were another piece of the puzzle, the succession planning part of the equation.

The crew that laughed, drank and ate in each other’s company last Saturday is the future. A collective future. One in the blue of Clones.

The fact they stood outside the Creighton Hotel, their sponsor and all-time Ulster final day icon, behind the same flag, seemed like a minor detail.

Compared to a paltry attendance at 2008 meeting when the pulled the shutters down, now, smiling faces behind the same flag is absolutely massive. It won’t kick the ball over the bar, but it represents the future.

When Flanagan penned a summary of their bonding day and continues to chart their 2026 story in pictures, to the outsider, it radiates an energy that will last.

“A lot of young girls were going to have to pick between Emmet Óg and Killeevan,” Freeman said of the crossroads that would’ve been there, had they not made the commitment to start a senior team.

“I just think everybody in the club realised, now was the time before they all commit. I can say there’s nothing like playing for Clones. I’m so excited.

“I think junior is perfect for us to get us up and running. You never know what could happen.

“Ronan (McDonald) and ‘Packy’ (Reilly) were managing the minors for the last two or three years.

“It was them who were really pushing for the seniors. They really pushed it on to get it started because they had worked with them and they didn’t want to lose them to other clubs.”

A lot of water has passed since April 1993, when Clones fielded a ladies’ team for the first time against Tyholland. By the end of the season, they won more than they lost and finished third in Division Two.

When they trot out to begin the club’s latest chapter, junior success will be tucked away somewhere in the back of their minds.

In so many ways, 2026 has been a success before a competitive ball has even been kicked.

From Go Games, through underage, to senior, every footballer will wear the same crest, wear the same colour and stand behind the same flag. One club, united and one made to last.