A bridge in the Glen: The rise of Glenswilly

Glenswilly cobbled enough players together to get off the ground in 1982. Now, they field two teams at every grade. Their intermediate win 20 years ago was the bridge. Gerard McGrenra bagged 1-5 in the final. He spoke with Michael McMullan…

MANUS McFadden was bang on the money. Glenswilly needed a team of their own. It’s 1982. There hadn’t been a team since the forties and fifties.

They still had footballers. McFadden totted up the locals kicking ball in the colours of neighbouring St Eunan’s, Glenfin and Termon.

The numbers added up. A meeting was called, chaired by the late Eddie McDevitt. There it was. Glenswilly haven’t looked back since.

McFadden, despite only 17 years of age, became the player manager. A stipulation to setting down roots was having an u-16 team too. He rounded up the troops for that too.

“I remember seeing a picture of the team,” Gerard McGrenra recalls of a team needing 12 and 13-year-olds. They scoured the parish, looking for players, just to get to field a team.

Fast-forward to now and Glenswilly have blossomed. A 15-minute drive outside Letterkenny, they’ve benefited from families choosing a rural setting.

In recent years, they’ve been fielding two teams at every grade. At adult level, there is a third team on the go. If anyone wants football, it’s there for them.

While their ‘A’ underage teams are consistently winning games, the second team is at the other end of the scale. It’s tough going. Scorelines can be harsh. A balancing act, but no less important. It’s all about providing games.

The players in their own grade get first preference. Those from the age below fill out the team. Some are on the bench. They’ll get action but it’s not as important as game time for the oldest players. You never know what age a player might develop at.

“The way we look at it, we have 35 u-16s playing on a Wednesday night,” McGrenra points out. It’s the same with two teams at all ages.

In the short term, everyone can pull on the jersey and get out across the whitewash. The big picture is keeping the senior squad stocked.

Michael Murphy, the club’s most famous son, is putting plenty back. Despite helping Donegal’s latest crusade for Sam, he hosts regular meetings in his role coordinating the coaching plans.

“He has never forgotten where he came from,” McGrenra proudly points out.

An hour on the phone with McGrenra paints a picture of a vibrant rural club. Vibrant in every way. In Glenswilly, there is nothing else. Manus McFadden was so right.

“We have a 5k, it’s the most successful 5k in Donegal,” McGrenra adds of another dimension.

“We have had families come into the area and thought ‘I want to be part of this club’, they’ve become members of our club because of that.”

Gary McDaid was part of their ’05 intermediate winning group and has since steered them to senior success.

IN THE MIX…Glenswilly and Cloughneely in action during the 2005 intermediate final in O’Donnell Park

A glance across social media at the time, and he referred to them as the “Wee Club”. That was then.

“Gary used to say we were jammed between two superpowers, St Eunan’s and Glenties,” McGrenra points out. “The days of us being a wee club are gone.”

That’s why Manus McFadden’s vision was important. The same for the men of ’05. Progress needs time.

There was a Junior B title in 1984, a win over Naomh Columba’s third team. Founding member McFadden had moved to work Boston but was flown home for the final.

The club’s first underage success came in the form of an u-21 B Championship 10 years later.

Milford were one-point winners in the 2000 Junior final. It was Glenswilly’s only defeat of a season that secured league promotion from Division Four. McGrenra spits out the score instantly, unprompted. A kick in the teeth, but they were making all the right noises. Small steps, but steps nonetheless.

Another u-21 B success came 10 years later with a near miss at grade A against St Michael’s in the final 12 months later. Glenswilly beat Naomh Conaill in the quarter-final. Another indication they were on the climb, with that Naomh Conaill team feeding into a first senior success in 2005.

Glenswilly were now familiar with an upwards graph. It was progress built on underage, with Mick Murphy – Michael’s father – and Brendan Walsh key.

Quality coaching married with laying structural foundations. Part of it was the local national school entering a team in the local Letterkenny Invitational School League.

With the passing years. Glenswilly became competitive and then they became successful. The roots had bedded.

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Glenswilly’s problem at the top end was often the age profile.

Their senior teams were either too old or too young without striking that balance clubs yearn, the conveyer belt they have now.

McGrenra was among a handful of the older hands with the u-21 group coming below them as they arrived into their quest for intermediate glory.

“When I was in my mid-20’s, there were only three of us,” he recalls.

There was a crop in their mid-30s but a promising underage team gave hope.

Glenswilly stayed up in Division Three before the county restructured the leagues, mixing teams from all divisions.

“We ended up in with St Eunan’s and Killybegs, that gave us a great lift,” he said of the change.

“We had a new pitch opening as well, so it was a big, big thing for us to be playing against senior teams.”

Running St Eunan’s to a point was the barometer they needed. It brought confidence and they just kept on beating at the door.

“Francie Martin came into the club in ‘04 and that was a big turning point,” he said.

Martin was from the neighbouring Glenfin. He took an a few training sessions during the 2004 season as Glenswilly went to the Intermediate semi-final, losing to St Naul’s. Another step.

“Everybody knew he was a great player and he was just a great fella,” McGrenra said. “He had a great way with him and he just fitted in so well. We just got the right man at the right time.”

By the following year, Martin jumped at the chance to step in as manager. The final piece of the jigsaw, alongside selectors Brendan Walsh, Eddie Crawford and Joe Devine who doubled up with a role coming in off the bench.

“Ask anybody in Glenswilly and everybody still has great time for him,” McGrenra added of Martin fitting into the camp.

There were new ideas. There were training sessions in the morning to suit working patterns. Animals needed tended, crops had to be saved the turf needed taken home.

Another variant was training based in Monaghan on occasions to meet a handful of their Dublin-based players halfway.

Of the starting team in 2005, the majority were on board when Glenswilly went on to win the Senior Championship. They just needed to get over the Intermediate bridge first.

In Neil Gallagher, Gary McFadden, Colin Kelly and Ciaran Bonner, they had players who lined out for Donegal seniors. Michael Murphy would follow and they’d Barry Molloy and Daniel Gallagher with u-21 county experience.

With a focus of climbing the leagues, that became more of a focus than the championship.

After beating Burt comfortably over two legs in the 2005 Intermediate first round, Glenswilly beat Downings in the quarter-final. A semi-final win over Naomh Ultan set up a final against Cloughaneely who needed a first round play-off to see off Bundoran.

Despite being a division above, Glenswilly went in as underdogs in some quarters against the Falcarragh side.

“Everybody had tipped them to win it, I don’t know why,” McGrenra explains. “They probably had more experience than us.”

It did no harm. It took away any pressure and focus. On the morning of the game, Martin assembled the squad for a team meeting. It’s the norm now, but novel back then.

While it focused the minds, it was relaxed environment before the cavalcade of cars headed the short spin in the road to O’Donnell Park. Martin, their perfect fit, knew which buttons to press.

Glenswilly and Cloughaneely were the standout teams. Provided they didn’t meet it was always going to be the final pairing.

McGrenra hit 1-5 on the day with his goal coming at a vital time after they shipped a sloppy goal before half time.

Ciaran Bonner hit two points with Neil Gallagher putting in a Trojan performance alongside him, even down to dropping back to fend off the late Cloughaneely fightback.

SHOULDER TO SHOULDER…Gerard McGrenra (14) and Barry Molloy celebrate at the final whistle of the 2005 intermediate final

“’Shaggy’ (Colin Kelly) played me through,” recalls McGrenra of his goal, like it was yesterday. His attention to detail is spot on.

The defence opened up and he did the rest, finishing the move. With the net not tied down and the ball going under, nobody realised it was actually a goal.

Glenswilly were 1-11 to 1-6 ahead as the final ticked deeper into the final quarter. As he ran out, Darren McGinley questioned McGrenra on his celebration, thinking he’d pulled the shot wide.

“I jumped up celebrating and there was no noise. If you can imagine the delay of 30 seconds and then the big cheer from the crowd,” McGrenra continued.

“I told him it went in and through the net, he then realised (it was a goal) when he saw the umpire going for the flag.”

It was the helping hand they needed and Glenswilly were champions, with McGrenra putting the icing on the cake with his final point of the game.

They had tasted it at underage but this was the real thing. Glenswilly had pulled up a seat at the top table. Senior football beckoned.

Speaking to the Donegal News after the game, manager Martin said their success was built on “pure determination”.

McGrenra can still see the comments from Tom Comack in his column the following week.

Glenswilly could have a big say in senior football and their players would leave a stamp on the county team. They just needed to keep their feet on the ground. Prophetic words.

“I thought that article was very true,” McGrenra said. “Winning that intermediate got people back to the club.

“A few players that hadn’t played or had walked away, fellas that was in their mid-20s that probably should have been playing in that team.”

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Within two years, Glenswilly were in a senior final, losing to St Eunan’s who lost the previous two deciders and went on to win three in-a-row. A semi-final defeat against Naomh Conaill in 2009 that still sticks in Glenswilly throats.

“We threw it away, thinking we were over the line,” McGrenra recalls. “We were three up with five minutes to go and ended up losing eight points, or something like that. We thought we were in a final.”

It was 2011 before Glenswilly eventually got their hands on the cup. They added titles in 2013 and 2016 with a final defeat to St Eunan’s sandwiched in the middle. Once a league team, Glenswilly were now a championship team.

“We’d hammer teams by a point,” McGrenra said of their growing ability to stare teams down as a game headed for the finish line.

Another factor was their run to the 2005 Ulster Intermediate final on the back of their Donegal breakthrough.

It ended in a narrow defeat at the hands of Monaghan side Inniskeen who went on win the All-Ireland, leaving Glenswilly wondering at what might have been.

By that stage, Michael Murphy and Kealan McFadden, u-16 players too young to play in the Donegal Championship, were eligible for the Ulster campaign and part of the next batch to filter into the longer term plans.

“I knew he was going to be good, but I never really thought he was going to be that good,” McGrenra said of Murphy, having already played alongside his father.

Murphy junior was an almost permanent fixture as the wee lad at the front of the team photographs. Someday Kealan McFadden, younger brother of Gary, would be there too.

During the 2005 season, they’d be involved in training sessions and helping out with the water. A bedding in process for them and a fresh impetus for everyone else.

“We always do that in Glenswilly. We bring four or five young players that aren’t just eligible to play, we still do it to this day,” McGrenra points out.

“We bring them into the set-up just to be part of training and it builds numbers as well and it keeps the quality of training up. Michael and ‘Savi’ (Kealan McFadden) were the same, they couldn’t wait to get on the team.”

McGrenra has been looking after a group who have progressed to the minor grade. You need two hands to count how many are involved with the senior ranks, with Gary McDaid again at the helm.

Michael Murphy junior juggled playing with managing the minors and still steers what direction the club’s underage needs to take.

They’ll hope the Dr Maguire Cup can make another return to Foxhall but McGrenra sees beyond that. The club is everything. More than playing.

“When they were 14,” he said of the current minor crop, “I explained to the parents that if these young fellas keep playing football until their minors, they were never going to have any bother with them.

“The club is going to look after them from then on. They’re going to have a way of living, they’re going to have training, they’re going to have games. They’re going to have a life, they’re going to have friends.

“The GAA probably doesn’t get enough credit for what it really does.”

The same credit can be placed at the door of the men Manus McFadden rounded up for the 1982 meeting that changed an entire parish.

It gave them a torch that has been passed on and passed on. The men of 2005 were the men in the middle. They were the bridge in the Glen. And they keep on giving. Time is precious but putting it back into the next generation has been their greatest legacy.

Glenswilly, once the Wee Club. Not any longer.