North Tyrone: A state of emergency?

These are tough times for many clubs in the north of Tyrone. Niall Gartland investigates and asks what can be done to improve the situation, but it isn’t all doom and gloom…

THE tables don’t lie. There are eight clubs that constitute what are commonly referred to as ‘North Tyrone’ and none of them line out in Division One of the All County Leagues.

Five presently ply their trade at Junior level – Strabane, Clann na nGael, Castlederg, Glenelly and Urney, the last of whom’s only points on the board came courtesy of a walkover against Brocagh earlier this month. On the field, they failed to register a single victory across the course of their Division Three campaign.

It’s not a particularly healthy state of affairs – and that’s not meant to diminish the efforts of hard-working volunteers who put just as much into their clubs as their counterparts from the middle or east of the county (not to mention the various success stories – Owen Roes have taken a giant leap forward in recent times while Aghyaran are knocking on the door of senior football)

We’ve spoken to two men for their take on the matter. Strabane Sigersons stalwart Aodhán Harkin has witnessed his team make the inexorable slide down from senior level to the bottom tier in the space of less than a decade.

It’s been a similar story at Urney – and it’s hard to gloss over the fact they finished dead last of all 48 teams in Tyrone this year at senior men’s level in the league. But by no means is it all negative and their PRO Desmond Roulstone points to what he describes as a ‘quiet revolution’ at underage level in the club as a cause for optimism.

But first, we’ll start with Aodhán. He believes that North Tyrone football is in a state of emergency and that the County Board must intervene, and fast.

“I’ve been saying it for a number of years – if East Tyrone was in the same position as North Tyrone in terms of football, there would be serious questions asked,” he said.

“No team in North Tyrone has consistently played senior football at any stage in the last 70 years. Strabane were a big force in the ’40s and won the Senior Championship in 1945 but then dwindled away. The strongest teams we have at present are Aghyaran and Owen Roes and to a lesser extent Naomh Eoghan, but none of them look like making an impression at senior level.

“If you took all the clubs in North Tyrone and put them together, we’d struggle to form a strong senior team and none of our teams are playing at Grade One at underage level.

“There’s a major job that needs to be done and I’m telling you now and I’ve written it in the past, that a task force urgently needs to be set up.”

Strabane failed to achieve promotion from Division Three via the league so their hopes now rest squarely on the potential of a successful Championship campaign – a big ask.

Harkin said: “There’s no doubt that Strabane’s in a total rebuilding process. We’ve lost a hell of a lot of really established players – Danny McBride, Warner Mullan, Rory Gormley’s gone to the States. We’re operating with a really young team and we’re really struggling. Unless something unforeseen happens in the Junior Championship, I think Strabane are going to be playing Junior football for the next couple of seasons.

“We have a half-decent minor team but we’re expecting the majority of them who are eligible to play at senior level and that’s a big problem as senior and minor football has criss-crossed with each other all year. Take the schedule at the moment, we’ve Wednesday and Sunday night matches and the reserve championship in the middle of it, it’s far too much to expect of young lads.”

Local secondary school Holy Cross College reached the Markey Cup final earlier this year, narrowly losing out in an entertaining final against St Malachy’s Castlewellan. Spearheaded by their management team of Finbar O’Neill, Kyle Morrison and Ryan O’Neill, their run to the final was a positive news story. Harkin isn’t quite so convinced, however.

“Let’s not be fooling ourselves. Holy Cross got to the Markey Cup final and that’s all well and good, but a school with a population of 1,500 should be playing at the highest levels of colleges football in Ulster – I want to see them playing in the MacRory Cup,” he continued.

“I don’t want to be too critical of Holy Cross but if you look at the feeder clubs in North Tyrone, the likes of Aghyaran, a lot of their pupils are going to Omagh CBS.”

Nor does Harkin use Strabane’s status as a relatively deprived town stretching back generations as an excuse for their current woes.

“The area I reside in, known as the head of the town, has the unenviable tag of being the most deprived Super Output area in the north. There’s 890 Super Outputs and the East Ward in Strabane ranks number one.

“But to me, that plays no part in terms of where the club is at present. There just seems to be a lot of problems, and there’s also a struggle with other sports in the town.

“We’ve Strabane Athletic soccer team, Strabane cricket club – the Gaels in Tyrone might laugh but cricket is very popular in Strabane and that’s amongst the catholic community. Strabane Rugby club is making big in-roads and they have a lot of youngsters involved which you wouldn’t have seen in the past.”

And while nothing is set in stone and the overall outlook might improve, Aodhán also fears that more clubs in North Tyrone will be forced into amalgamating in future years.

“Thirty years or so ago you had Aughabrack and Donemana and they amalgamated to form Clann na nGael, and the same happened recently with Newtownstewart and Dregish. You’ve effectively lost two clubs. It’s hard not to be pessimistic. Urney are in great difficulties, the only two points they got in the league this year was when Brocagh were unable to field. They’re doing their best at underage level with young lads and girls but amalgamations have happened before and the way things are going, it could happen again.”

It isn’t all doom and gloom. From the outside looking in, it was hard not to be taken aback by Urney’s struggles at adult level this year – it wasn’t that long ago they were mixing it with the big boys in Division One, and now they’re getting trimmed right, left and centre in the Junior ranks. There’s no quibbling that it’s been a desperately disappointing season in that respect, but you know, it isn’t the full story either.

You have the fact that so many of their players were simply unable to participate in Friday night fixtures due to work commitments (Urney is historically a big recruiting ground for the Irish Army).

Then there’s their commendable progress at underage level. It wasn’t very long ago that St Columba’s struggled to field at youth level but shoulders were placed to the wheel and that wheel has started to turn.

Club PRO Desmond Roulstone helps coach the Urney Minor team that goes in search of Grade Four Championship honours this Saturday against Naomh Bríd. He acknowledges with a sense of stoicism that it’s been a troublesome season for their flagship senior team.

“I think there’s a sense of acceptance in the club that we are where we are, there’s no recriminations or finger-pointing,” he said.

“We saw this coming a couple of years ago and we’ve tried to get active with our underage teams, that’s the only way we could go about fixing things.

“We’re also a victim of circumstances you could say. We have a few Irish soldiers who are either abroad or in the Curragh and they aren’t available as Friday night football doesn’t suit those guys. You do feel for the guys who are available and who are putting in the hard yards, I’ve seen them training and they’re certainly putting in the effort.

“We’ve also lost Johnny [Lafferty] and he’s a huge miss. Even at 37 or 38 years of age, Johnny can still cause opposition teams a lot of problems because it takes two men to mark him. We also lost our captain Adrian Maxwell to a broken wrist and he’s still in a cast and he’s another big miss.”

Peek under the bonnet, however, and there’s reason for Urney to feel positive about the future. Campa Urnaí, now in its third year, has been a rip-roaring success, and Dessie takes up the tale:

“From what I remember, Urney always used to come at the end of the Tyrone Summer Camp when people were getting tired, and bear in mind we’re on the border as well and it’s difficult to persuade Donegal people to come to a Tyrone camp.

“We figured out that if we’re to heal the club and fix it, we need to do it ourselves, we can’t be looking to Garvaghey to do it for us.

“We needed to take the bull by the horns and three years ago we decided to run our own camp. The first year we’d 140 Urney kids at it, last year was around 150 and this year we’ve 187.

“We have boys and girls teams at every age group and we have a lot of lads who you’d know as senior players here, the likes of Stephen Lafferty, Chris Bogle and Fergal McNulty here who are now involved in the youth coaching.

“Those guys are helping bring through the u-6s, u-8s, the u-10s, I’m helping out with Steven Mayse too, and our numbers are good for the size of the club and the area.

“We’ve two coaches in the Primary Schools as well, St Teresa’s in the Glebe and St Columba’s in Clady. We can’t get enough coaches really, we’re getting the numbers and now we need the coaches.”

Saturday is a big day for the club as they take on Naomh Bríd for a Minor Championship title. It bodes well for the future and just as importantly, is a positive development in an otherwise difficult season.

Roulstone, who coaches the team with Ryan O’Neill, said: “Hopefully it’s evidence of green shoots of recovery and we’re trying to be as positive as possible in the club. A lot of our lads are only 16 and we’re hoping whatever happens on Saturday they can step up to Grade Three next year.”

He also disagrees with Aodhán Harkin’s assessment that Holy Cross College are underperforming. Dessie says you have to be realistic when it comes to schools football, but offers his own solution for improving the fortunes of North Tyrone football in general.

“Ryan’s also in with Holy Cross and he’s working hard with them and he’s not the only one putting in a lot of effort. I’ve seen a few Markey Cup games, and alright, it’s not the MacRory but it’s still enjoyable to watch.

“Look at the big MacRory Cup schools in Tyrone and they’re grammar schools. Holy Cross isn’t and a lot of lads move on after GCSE level. They don’t have the same numbers so it’s unlikely that you’ll ever see MacRory Cup football at Holy Cross.

“I can see where Aodhán’s coming from in relation to North Tyrone football in general, but I think it’ll take something radical to completely change things for the better.

“If it was down to me, I’d do something like they do in Kerry. You could have a North Tyrone team entering the Senior Championship, where you take the best of the best from the likes of ourselves, Owen Roes, Aghyaran, Glenelly etc and see how they can do against the very top clubs, but I don’t know if the county board is ready for something like that.”