The once powerful Gaelic football force that was Bailieborough Shamrocks G.F.C. has now found itself banished from the vaunted halls of the premier grades to face the test of trying to reinvent itself as a power through the ranks of the intermediate zone. The town side won the Cavan SFC championship back in 1995, they subsequently went on to reach the Ulster Club SFC final. On that occasion they were on the verge of making history as being the first Cavan team to win an Ulster title but controversy raged around the final free which denied them victory by a meagre point. Their opponents on that occasion was Mullaghabawn from Armagh. Since then the club has had rather mixed fortunes during the subsequent decade. The loss of many of its top named players during that era, left the East Cavan town team looking to many of its younger players to fill the void. Emigration was also another factor which played heavily on the fortunes of the club as some of its more talented younger players took leave of absence to travel. The original haemorrhage of players was a slow process. Injury taking its toll on some, others, tried valiantly to keep the biological clock at bay but like all humans failed. The loss of players of the calibre of Aidan Connolly, Gerry Sheridan, Gary Miller, Micky Murtagh, Paul Coleman, Philip Clarke and more recently of the influential Adrian Lambe all took its toll. The recent retirement of the youthful and talented Andrew Coleman was also a blow to the club. Throughout this season, the club, had to soldier on without the services of the influential Charles Clarke, who was sidelined for most of the year with injury. The big powerful midfielder may have been the difference in acquiring the requisited number of points to help the club survive in the higher echelons of Cavan football. The team throughout the season was backboned by stalwarts of the 1995 era with Finbar Clarke, Roy Brennan and Philip Clarke, while the former Cavan County senior fooballers goalkeeper, Paul O'Dowd and nearing the end of the season, John Donnellan tried to stem the drop into the second division. Brian O'Callaghan was another player who tried to help but work commitments ruled him out at certain times. Bailieborough Shamrocks are a club with a proud tradition and will no doubt face this new challenge with a spirit of adventure and commitment. Proud holders of Cavan SFC titles from 1911, 1952, 1957, 1964 and 1995, not to mention a number 'that got away' coupled with seven senior league crowns speaks volumes of the tradition in the area. It has been backboned over the years by 'real' football people who will work in the direction of taking this bastion of football back to its rightful place in senior ranks. Rita Clarke, who served as Secretary to the club for six years stated: "While we are naturally disappointed and saddened at losing our place in Division 1, the club has the resilience and determination to make it back into the top flight. We do recognise that it will not be an easy task, as there is little difference between the first and second divisions. It would probably be recognised that there are about six to eight teams who could put up a creditable challenge for promotion from this division, so the task ahead of us is going to be difficult. We have a number of young players who will come into the side and have a good crop of young players who have shown promise in their respective grades at U-16 and minor grades over the past two years. "At the club we will endeavour to keep the mood upbeat and will not be daunted by any challenge." Rita also points out that the club faced a similar challenge back in late sixties and seventies where the Shamrocks saw a very lean period." During that period many players took the emigration boat while a number of others chose to play with neighbouring clubs. It was a struggle to keep going with at times little interest from players. But men such as Patsy Barry and his brother Gerry, John Finnegan and Enda Sheridan to name but a few made sure that the club would keep going and deserve great credit for doing so. We now face something similar and we have the personnel at committee level to repeat the feats of the past. "During the era the club had been relegated to the Intermediate grade they went on to win the Intermediate title in 1989 and launched themselves back into Division 1 and another golden era in the club's history commenced. "While I feel we have similar problems to most clubs, I think that we have lost a number of very talented young players to the 'emigration' bug. The attraction to travel has seen Brian Reilly, Padraig Brennan and the Kelleher brothers all take a leave of absence. These are players who could have made a difference to us staying in the top flight. We are hopeful that we will have them back in our playing ranks sometime next season. We are unfortunate also in the fact that one of the county's most talented youngsters, Killian Sheridan, who has proven himself to be a tremendous Gaelic talent is also a recognised burgeoning soccer starlet. Killian is a member of the Ireland Youth soccer teams and to this end looks set to make a career in this direction. "Even with the loss of so many of our young players, we have high hopes of some of other juvenile players making an impact this season. Great work has been done over the years by successive members at underage level. We have some very talented players on the U21 team. Players of the calibre of Paul Sharkey, James Cooney, Geoffrey Martin and minor hopeful Patrick Bird who all hold the promise of a better future for the Shamrocks. What we need now is a bit of time to help them find their way and settle into winning ways with Shamrocks." Rita who is fired up the challenge ahead points out that: "We have great people at our club who will be positive in their approach to this present temporary setback. All those who have been involved in the club over its many years of existence have always believed in the youth of the area and this decade will be no different. People like Treasurer, Paddy McDonald, Chairman Fr. John Cooney, Secretary, Tony Gregory are vibrant in their approach to the club. We have had great commitment from people like John Finnegan, Shane Lynch, Joe Reilly and PRO Brian Keegan to mention but a few of them. The work that has been done at underage level, I feel, will begin showing benefits over the next two to three years. Oliver Tierney, Peadar Clerkin and Aidan King are just a few of the people who have worked tirelessly in the quest of providing an outlet for the youth of the area and a surplus of talent for the future of the Shamrocks." According to Rita: "With the winter break now upon us we will hold our annual general meeting and look at the challenge ahead and work out the best approach to take. There will be no stone left unturned to help steer the club back into the topflight of football within Cavan." Future development The positive attitude that prevails in the club is also evident with the club now looking to future development of its facilities at St. Ann's Park. Already they have had plans drawn-up for the improvement of their dressingroom facilities which when finished will make the Bailieboro venue one of the best in the county. Underage Round-up The year 2005 will go down as a quiet year in terms of silverware for the various underage teams in Bailieboro. Nevertheless, there were some encouraging signs that all the hard work put in by those coaching the teams are beginning to bear fruit. The youngsters in all grades certainly served up some stirring performances over the season. Pride of place must go to our under 14's who for the first time in the history of the club qualified for the final stages of the All-Ireland Feile competition which were held in Limerick this year. Their only loss was to the eventual beaten finalists was a tribute to the thorough preparation that went into the team. Unfortunately they failed to match this success in the " home " competitions as old rivals and eventual double champions Kingscourt Stars narrowly beat them in the semi- finals of both League and Championship . Players who excelled at this grade were Niall Kelly, Conor Tierney, Conor Gilsenan David Carolan and Chris Brady. At under 16 level hopes for the Championship were dealt a knockout blow due to the unavailability of county star Killian Sheridan (who played his own starring role in the Rep of Ireland's U-17 successful European Championship qualification in the Ukraine) However they showed their true potential earlier in the year when inspired by young Killian they reached the League Final where they were unfortunately beaten for the second year in a row by a superb Cavan Gaels team. There was also quality performances from Luke Sheridan, Sean Cooney, Fearghal Tackney and Alan O'Mara. This progress will only help bolster the confidence of these young players as they move up the grades to minor and U-21. Unfortunately the minors and under 12's bowed out early in their respective competitions albeit at the semi-final stages. Another encouraging sign was the performances of the school teams. Both U-14 and U-16 sides were crowned county champions in their respective grades. The teams from the school were backboned by Bailieboro players and captained by Shamrock players, Peter Clerkin and Damian O'Reilly. While most clubs view progress as silverware won, the Shamrock will have to look at the progress made at all the underage level over the past season and to this end they can quietly confident that the future is already beginning to look good. With the demise of the Senior Club to Division 2 and the Intermediate ranks the immediate future seems somewhat bleak but already the first signs of the steadfast work of the underage set up are promising. Already Martin Sharkey's charges from last year's minors have made an impact on the team, with promising performances by Geoff Martin, Paul Sharkey, Gary O'Reilly, Ollie Kelleher, Thomas Cooney, Damian Sheridan and Declan O'Reilly. This year's minor captain Paddy Bird has already made his senior championship debut. Paddy has shown great ability as a natural forward with deadly accuracy from both feet. John Scanlon, Calvin Daly, Luke Sheridan and Killian Sheridan have gained honours at county level as members of the back-to-back winning teams in both the Gerry Reilly and Fr Manning Cup competitions. With Killian already starring for the Cavan minors in this year's Ulster Championship. This conveyor belt of young talent which is now becoming available to the club will hopefully ignite the spark that was last lit when they club won three-in-a-row U-21 titles in 1992, 1993 and 1994. Assistant PRO Neal Scanlon is adamant that the club has the natural talent and commitment to produce the quality needed to take them back to the top: "With the ever increasing distractions of youth it is now more important than ever that this part of the club redoubles its efforts to ensure that the conveyor belt of talent is kept going through the age groups so that our club can once again stand proud and successful as they did in 1995 when they stood a mere second away from being the first Cavan club to win the Ulster Club Championship". Neal's sentiments echo that of former Secretary, Rita Clarke and with such a positive mood and outlook, clubs in Division 2 will know that the Shamrocks will mean business and will be approaching their sojourn in that division with serious intent. We can return It was the tenth anniversary of that historic Ulster club final appearance of 1995, but '05 turned out to be a bitterly disappointing experience for Bailieborough Shamrocks. The famed east Cavan club suffered relegation in both league and championship and are now faced with the challenge of major rebuilding both on and off the field of play. It's not exactly a valley of tears just yet, however, so club chairman Fr John Cooney is keeping the faith. Sometimes it's better to look forward than back. Bailieborough Shamrocks have had better years than the one they endured in 2005 and the east county outfit could be forgiven for erasing the whole experience from their collective memory bank. It was a difficult year for the first team. The side is clearly in a transitional stage and the raw recruits who donned the club's colours were unable to cope with the demands of senior championship or Division One football. Double relegation was their lot. Disappointing; but hardly a disaster. It'll be easier to rebuild from the relative calm of the lower grade and the experience of a year's senior football will do the younger players blooded in '05 no harm whatsoever. As long as they don't let their heads drop… It's not the end of the world. While the first team struggled, the Shamrocks enjoyed an encouraging year on other fronts. The U14s won the Feile competition and represented the Breffni County with distinction at the All-Ireland Feile championships in Limerick. The U16s contested a league final and Bailieboro are also producing decent sides at U8, U10 and U12 levels. The process of rebuilding a new adult team is already underway and will continue unabated in '06. Bailieborough can bounce back. Hope for the future exists. Away from the actual field of play, major plans are in the pipeline. For a number of years, the committee has been contemplating the construction of a new clubhouse at St Anne's Park. The wheels are grinding into motion for that particular project and work could commence as early as August or September of this year. The development will be made available to the community at large and should prove a major addition to a rapidly-growing town. It's not all doom and gloom, then. To the contrary, exciting times linger on the horizon for Bailieboro Shamrocks GFC. Chairman Fr John Cooney notes: "The underage is going well and we're hoping to get back up to senior level and Division One football very shortly. Hopefully the project at St Anne's Park will give us all a new lease of life." Fr John isn't too despondent over the fate that befell the club in '05 as he was aware from the outset that they faced a difficult year: "It wasn't the most exciting year and we're disappointed with how things went, but we were always facing a huge task to rebuild, having lost seven or eight of our main players through either injury or retirement. Those players served the club well for a decade or more and losing them all around the same time was a blow." It wasn't through lack of effort that Bailieboro slipped from the top table in '05. As Fr John confirms: "The management made great efforts to climb that hill but we were unable to retain our league or championship status. John Finnegan, who's a very committed clubman, took the team manager's job, and he had assistance from Joe Reilly, Finbarr Clarke, Shane Lynch and John Donnellan. They all put in huge effort but it just didn't work out. "In the end, we weren't able to cope, but we got a chance to look at some of the young talent coming through in the 18-20 age group and we're hoping they can put it together for Bailieborough in coming seasons." Given that there's nowhere to hide in senior football, are the Shamrocks now better positioned to rebuild than if they'd clung onto their senior standing? "Bailieborough have always had a lot of pride and we like to see ourselves in Division One, but maybe this year we can get on a bit of a winning run and that would give the players some enjoyment and rekindle their enthusiasm for the game. Having said that, I don't expect us to get anything easy in Division Two either, so we're going to have to work very hard. "We lost a few games early on in the year that we should have won, but we were short on experience and scoring power up front. A few wins at that stage would have set us up nicely but instead we went into the championship cold against a very useful Castlerahan side who beat us and went on to do well. Our local rivals Kingscourt also defeated us in the championship, and that sent us into the relegation zone." O'Raghallaigh Park in Kingscourt was the venue in late October as Bailieborough Shamrocks finally surrendered their long-held senior status when losing the 2005 Cavan SFC relegation play-off final to Ramor United on a scoreline of 1-8 to 0-4. The losers trailed by 1-4 to 0-3 at the end of a competitive opening half-hour but the level of their performance dipped drastically thereafter and they managed to add just one more point to their meager tally, departing senior fare with a whimper rather than a roar. It was a fitting end to a bitterly disappointing championship campaign. The result is that a club accustomed to challenging for senior honours will negotiate the unfamiliar territory of the IFC in 2006. It's their first time out of senior football since the intermediate title was claimed in 1989 and the erstwhile Breffni County kingpins have some serious rebuilding to do. The only consolation is that intermediate/Division Two might be more conducive to such a task than senior/Division One. The Shamrocks side that fielded in the ill-fated relegation play-off final was: Paul O'Dowd; Philip Sheridan, Philip Clarke, Declan Reilly; Kieran Galligan, Enda Sheridan, Finbarr Clarke; Jimmy Clarke, Ollie Kellegher; Paddy Bird (0-1), Kevin Kellegher, Michael Clinch; Pauric Brennan, Sean Reilly, Roy Brennan (0-2). Subs: Paul Cooney (0-1), John Donnellan, Brian O'Callaghan. Division One league standing was lost soon after, on Saturday November 12, when Bailieborough lost a must-win home game to Denn on a scoreline of 1-8 to 0-8. As had been the case for much of the 2005 season, Shamrocks fielded a very young and inexperienced team. They demonstrated great heart throughout and battled to the very final whistle. Ultimately, they were perhaps unfortunate not to get something from this game but the bottom line is that they were relegated to Division Two with no room for argument. Probably the best performance produced by Bailieborough Shamrocks in 2005 was their stunning defeat of Gowna in an all-county league Division One clash at St Anne's Park during the first weekend of October. Though they were enduring a torrid season, Shamrocks delivered a display that conjured up past glories to send the Gowna men packing, 1-9 to 1-7. The match was played in wet and heavy conditions and the modest attendance was treated to a wholehearted display from both sides. With wind advantage, Bailieborough started slowly but gradually got into their stride to compile a useful 1-7 to 0-4 interval cushion. Predictably, Gowna launched a second-half comeback but Bailieborough defending magnificently to claim a win that they can use as a launching pad in the months ahead. The side on duty was: Damien Carroll; Declan Reilly, Philip Clarke, Shane Dillon; Gary Reilly, Neil Donnellan, Sean Reilly; John Maguire, Finbarr Clarke; Oliver Kellegher, Roy Brennan, Brian O'Callaghan; Jimmy Clarke, Paul Sharkey, Pauric Brennan. Subs; Brian Reilly, Michael Clinch, Conor Galligan, Damien Sheridan, Paul Cooney Jnr There was a large attendance at the club's annual general meeting in December, and this was a decidedly positive and upbeat occasion despite the disappointments suffered on the field of play during the course of the year. Officers called for hard work and patience as the club strives to rebuild for the future. Off the field, there was exciting news with the announcement of a major fundraising drive to finance the impending erection of clubrooms at St Anne's Park. The following officers were elected for 2006: Chairman, Fr. John Cooney; Vice Chairman, John Rooney; Secretary, Pauric Sheridan; Asst Secretary, Rita Clarke; Treasurer: Paddy McDonald; P.R.O. Brian Keegan; Asst P.R.O. Neal Scanlon; Registrar Tony Gregory; Insurance Officer, Phillip McDonald; Irish Officer, Oliver Tierney; Reps to Co. Board, Benny Clarke and Rita Clarke; Executive Committee: Andy Gorman, Patsy Barry, Gerry Barry, Charles Clarke, Maureen Sullivan and Finbarr Clarke. Thus, the club is embarking on major rebuilding projects both on and off the field of play. Plans for the new dressing rooms/clubhouse were unanimously passed at the AGM and the club aims to raise 30% of the necessary funding locally. One hundred individuals are invited to contribute 500 euro per year for five years. Their names will be enrolled on a 'Scroll of Honour' in the new building. Regarding the proposed new clubhouse, the club chairman says: "Like every town in the north east, the population of Bailieborough has increased significantly in the past ten years. We want to offer young people something that they can belong to, so it's vital that we have better club facilities." The club is wholly committed to upgrading its facilities. Work on the pitch is ongoing. The surface has been reseeded and sanded and a new training pitch has been developed as well as a running track and lighting. "We hope to build four dressing-rooms with a referee's room, meeting and function room, a small gym and public toilets, which will be of use for gaelic football, camogie and athletics. We'll also make the facility available to various groups and organisations around the town. "It's our dream that this new development will happen. It could go a long way towards rekindling pride and spirit amongst players and club members. "Bailieborough had a very talented crop of players ten years ago, seven of whom were on the county team. It's difficult to replace players of that calibre but that's the task we're faced with and we have to address it." Tweet

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