Portglenone – culture club

Portglenone are in their first Antrim SFC final since 2009, and club stalwart Owen Doherty tells Niall Gartland about the club’s holistic approach to success.

THESE things don’t come about by chance. Portglenone Roger Casements are set to field in their first Antrim Senior Championship final in a full 15 years when they take on Cargin this Sunday, but it’s certainly no overnight success.

Having lost five successive semi-finals, they ended their hoodoo the other week with a comfortable, even facile victory over Lámh Dhearg.

Straddling the Bann River, Portglenone sits on the Antrim-Derry border and one of its club stalwarts, Owen Doherty, has pronounced connections with the Oakleaf County.

His wife Claire is from Sleacht Néill and was a dedicated camog with the club, while son Odhran, who recently captained Portglenone to the Antrim U-16 Championship, received a subsequent message of congratulation on social media from his school, St Patrick’s, Maghera.

Owen himself is dyed-in-the-wool Antrim and Portglenone man. He’s lived there all his life while his mother Marie is a major figure in Antrim camogie while father Frankie was arguably the major figure in the club’s transformation at underage level.

He played in three Senior Championship finals during the noughties – 2005, 2007 and 2009 – though they lost out on all three occasions to an utterly dominant St Gall’s team (they hope they won’t suffer the same fate against a Cargin team that have effectively replaced St Gall’s at the county’s standard-bearers).

That noughties team was backboned by a minor team that won four championship titles on the trot in the late nineties, and it’s a similar story with their latest generation of senior stars, as Doherty explains.

“The senior team was relegated in 2010 and we were down for two years and then got back into Division One having won the Intermediate title.

“We came back with a new group of players I’d managed to the u-21 Championship back in 2013. It was the first time our club had won an ‘A’ championship so it was a big deal. We could call upon Dermot McAleese and the four Delargy boys – a lot of the lads who will be playing this weekend were on that u-21 team.”

“We had a bit of a lull, we were back competing in the Senior Championship but hadn’t won a match in a while. Myself and Barry Dillon came in and took the team and we were beaten in three successive semi-finals.

“People will remember the semi-final saga against Lámh Dhearg in 2019, it took two replays to separate us, and I think that was the start of the team’s crusade to get to a final.

“I don’t like saying it out loud but I think at times the pressure has got to us in semi-finals, but we finally got over the line this year and I’m delighted for the lads. Football can be precarious, one mistake or slip and the tide turns, but they’ve worked hard and the club has worked really hard so it’s great to get into a final.”

And the underbelly of Portglenone football is in rude health as well. Just last weekend, their minors won the ‘B’ Championship with a last-gasp victory over St Gall’s. Odhran, son of Owen, steered over a free in the last seconds of extra-time to settle the manner and he’s one of many young lads on the team who spearheaded their recent u-16 success.

Doherty said: “We won the Minor ‘B’ final and about 11 of those lads are u-16. We’ve known that there’s a lot of quality in that particular group, a few players who are a wee bit special.

“Niall Kelly, he teaches in Donaghmore and led their local school to last year’s MacLarnon Cup, he’s a cousin of mine and he’s been helping me with that team. The boys have really responded to him.

“Jim McAleese is in doing the training. Myself and Jim have been with that group since they were u-8 really.

“They won the u-16 ‘A’ Championship and will get to play in the Paul McGirr tournament which should be a great experience. They’re all 14-16 years old and are competing in ‘A’ tournaments.”

“Looking at our minor team, we’re confident that there’s another group of players coming through in the next three or four years that will add to the competition for places.

“I suppose we see that as our job, to make sure there’s enough quality players coming through to ensure we’re maintaining our Division One status and knocking on the door in the championship. A lot of it is about doing the right thing, maintaining a good relationship with the local primary school, ensuring S&C is taken care of and fostering the right culture around the club.”

In a sense, Portglenone are riding the crest of a wave. The shadow of rural depopulation doesn’t apply as there’s ample housing.

“It’s been a journey for us. Things started to move in the right direction and all of a sudden there’s a wave of people volunteering and coaching with the club and getting involved in all sorts of waves.

“We’re very lucky – I’m friendly with Neil McManus and he’s campaigning about the lack of new houses in Cushendall and we’ve been fortunate in that respect.

“We’ve had a big development in the town of about 70 or 80 houses and there’s about five or six senior lads living in that development.

“It maintains the whole feeder system, that the young lads are staying around the club, some already have young children and hopefully the sequence will follow into the future.”

Many young children of secondary school age head to nearby St Louis, Ballymena, but a not insignificant number go to schools in Derry.

“We’re right on the Derry border and we’re getting plenty of flak locally as two Greenlough men have joined us, Enda Lynn has joined us this year – he’s moved in half-a-mile up the road.

“To be honest, the border has served us well. All our underage teams go to the likes of Bellaghy and Sleacht Néill to play our challenge games and it does no harm.

“My own young fella [Odhran] went to school in Maghera, I went there in sixth form myself. Quite a few go to St Mary’s, Magherafelt – big Niall McKeever went there. An awful lot go to St Conor’s in Kilrea and there’s a big GAA contingent there – there’s Marty and Mickey Boyle, Paddy Bradley, a few Tyrone lads, and Emmett Bradley was there for a while.”

“The majority of our young lads still go to school in Ballymena but it doesn’t hurt having those Derry connections.

“My wife Claire is from Sleacht Néill and I got to realise that their glory years didn’t happen by chance. Thomas Cassidy, God rest him, was an early pioneer at Sleacht Néill and you see that and try to bring the same culture into Portglenone.”

The club is also extremely mindful of maintaining links with local primary school St Mary’s.

“Myself, John McKeever (Portglenone senior manager) and Brian Burns (a 1994 All-Ireland winner with Down who now lives in Portglenone) chat a lot about what’s going on.

“We don’t take any one team together but they’re very much steeped in football and we try to make sure the right things are done.

“Strength and conditioning is such a big part of Gaelic games now and we’ve enlisted a lad to come and look after that.

“We’ve a good relationship with the primary school, we’ve men and women popping in and out to help with camogie and football. John McKeever has a great relationship with the school’s principal, Eugene Mullan. We know that’s the audience that we need to cater for, we get them out to the pitch and if we do our jobs right, we know they’ll keep coming back.

“Every so often you get a team that wins a title and that adds a bit of spark as well and it really helps get traction from the primary school. As a club we recognise that the relationship with the primary school is key, we’ve recognised it as a precious thing.”

Young and old will descend upon Corrigan Park this Sunday afternoon in the hope that the club will win their first ever Senior Championship title. There’s no disguising the sense of excitement that has enveloped the club.

Doherty said: “It’s very exciting getting to the senior final. 2009 was the last time and we have been in five semi-finals and were worried were we ever going to get there.

“Now that we have, there’s a real buzz but it’s a huge challenge coming up against Cargin, they’re a really polished outfit and know how to win games. There’s a lot of bunting up and it’s great for everyone. We’ll see how it goes but it’s a special time, especially for the children in the club, they’ll remember this and hopefully be inspired.”