For the first time ever, St Fechins fielded an adult hurling team in 2003. This represents the latest step in an ongoing evolutionary process that has seen the small ball code become an increasingly important part of what the Fechins are all about. Mark Stephenson speaks to Gerry Robinson about the genesis of Louth's fifth senior hurling team. History was made at Drogheda on Thursday July 24th 2003 when St Fechins played in the Louth SHC for the first time. Unfortunately for the fledgling Termonfeckin outfit, their relative youth and inexperience (all their players were 20 or younger!) showed and they were well beaten by Wolfe Tones, 5-29 to 1-4. That historic Fechins/Wolfe Tones clash at the Gaelic Grounds was a championship semi-final and the Tones went into the game on a high having already beaten defending champions Pearse Og in a preliminary round match. It was a true baptism of fire for the newcomers. The championship debutants got off to a bad start and trailed by 2-12 to 0-3 at the interval. During that first half they lost their most influential player - centre back Fergal McNally. There was no way back into it from there and a few harsh lessons were learned. But it's all part of the learning process and it's great to have another new adult hurling side in the Wee County, bringing the total number of senior clubs in Louth up to five, less than five years after Knockbridge HC was born. The Fechins have not arrived overnight. The seeds for Louth's youngest adult hurling team were sown back in 1997 when Mark Stephenson and Tom Ryan introduced underage hurling to Termonfeckin and the hurling wing of the club has snowballed since then. Mark notes: "We started with an U12 team in May 1997 and this year we had everything from U8 level right up to a senior league team." Mark is at pains to stress that this is not a new club but part of the existing one. St Fechins hurling club and St Fechins football club are one and the same! Some reports in the Wee County newspapers during the year suggested that we had a brand new club operating under the Termonfeckin name on our hands, but this is wholly inaccurate. The hurling team is part and parcel of St Fechins GAA club, providing members with another outlet and offering an added dimension to gaelic games in the area. "We're one club, playing under the St Fechins banner," Mark confirms. Mark himself has a strong background in sport in general (he teaches at St Josephs, where he was renowned for his successful association with athletics before becoming heavily involved in promoting the ancient game). He hurled with Wolfe Tones and has been living in the Termonfeckin area since 1985. In many ways, starting up a St Fechins hurling team just seemed like the obvious thing to do. On the back of his phenomenal achievement in developing the spectacular Pairc Naomh Fechin in Beaulieu, club chairman John Savage could quite accurately be described as a visionary. Wanting to forge another identity for the Fechins, John gave Mark Stephenson and Tom Ryan the go-ahead to get cracking with the induction of hurling into the club in mid-1997. They started out with 60 lads that fateful first night in May of '97 and the youngsters of Termonfeckin took to the game instantly: as the gospel spread, it wasn't uncommon to see up to 120 kids turning up at the pitch at 6.30 on a Thursday night. More coaching was introduced on a yearly basis; more teams were added; a summer camp was started up in 1998. From there, the whole thing has mushroomed. There have been a number of landmarks along the way, the most significant of which was posted in 2003 when the club fielded an adult hurling team for the first time and also made their bow in the Louth senior hurling championship. An inglorious debut it may have been result-wise, but the Fechins stickmen are clearly moving in the right direction. Amazingly, of the 60 players that attended that very first training session over six year ago, 40 are still involved with the club and as many as eight are currently on the Fechins first team! The first breakthrough of note was made around three years ago. A bunch of great young hurlers began to come through at national school level around about 1998-2000. They came close to capturing the Cumann Na mBunscol crown in 1999 and actually managed to win it outright the following year. "This was a huge success for us as it put Termonfeckin hurling on the map," notes Mark. It is hoped that the nucleus of that team will go on to serve the Fechins well at senior level in the not-too-distant future. John Byrne started the summer camp in 1998 and there were 120 lads involved that year. The number has since been whittled down to a more manageable 70/80 ... still a very impressive figure. "There's a tremendous interest in the summer camp. It's ingrained on people's minds and we get an unbelievable turnout every year. At this stage, it's one of the big summer events in Termonfeckin. "With the wonderful new facilities we have here and the superb playing surface which facilitates good hurling, lads are very keen to hurl for the Fechins. It's a massive attraction. With no disrespect to any other club, if I was a young man wanting to hurl in the Drogheda area and I looked around the clubs and the facilities and weighed up my options, I'd definitely join the Fechins. "Gradually people in the area are developing a great interest in the game. If you were in a pub in Termonfeckin now people would be able to tell you how Waterford lost the Munster final this year ... an interest like that was unheard of in the past." Phenomenal progress has already been made. What are the current objectives? "Our first objective is to stabilise our challenge at senior level. We got hammered by the Tones in the championship but they also thumped us in our first U14 game and four years later our minor team actually beat them, so we can take encouragement from that sort of improvement. "Over the next four or five years we hope to get competitive at senior level. It'll take a lot of hard work but we have the players coming through and we have the enthusiasm, so I'm confident we'll get there. We have lads on the various county underage teams [minor, U16 and U14] and getting that representation at intercounty level will also benefit the players long term." As well as Mark (who looks after the U12 and national school sides), a strong team of adults has nurtured the incredible development of the ancient code in the Louth's newest hurling stronghold. Men like Tom Ryan (senior and minor team manager), Gerry Hynes (U14 manager), Donal Lynch (who takes the U8s, U9s and U10s), Liam Galavan, John Joe Connealy and Sean Matthews have served the club above and beyond the call of duty, while a host of others are also doing Trojan work. Tom and Mark are also jointly in charge of the U16s, while John Rohan looks after the kids from the age of six up. And even more volunteers are waiting in the wings, hoping to get involved. Mark reveals: "There are lads playing for the first team who, despite their youth, are already involved in coaching juveniles. There's a superb spirit in the club - everyone's lending a hand and each and every member of the club is doing their bit..." Even though a number of St Fechins players are dual performers, no distinction whatsoever is made between the footballers and hurlers. They're all St Fechins players. End of story! The overall playing strength of the club is in the region of 150 members, with a lot of overlapping between the two codes. Everything is co-ordinated in a smooth and efficient manner. "In terms of the development of hurling in St Fechins, we're bang on course at the moment," says Mark. "We set ourselves a target of playing ten senior matches in 2003 and we surpassed that, so everything is going according to plan. "As things worked out, we found ourselves with nine players who no longer qualified for minor hurling. The choice we were faced with was to let them go or to field a senior team ... it wasn't a difficult choice to make. We knew they'd take a few thumpings but it was either that or give them no hurling at all - or let them go to Wolfe Tones! "And we never intended to be a nursery for another club. We took these lads from never having held a hurl and nurtured them right through the ranks and it would have been a great irony if they'd ended up playing with the opposition. Naturally we couldn't let that happen, so we took the bull by the horns. "With the wonderful facilities we have at Beaulieu, we're hoping to attract a few more players. St Fechins has a lot to offer now, with the facilities and teams at all levels in both codes as well as ladies football. It's an attractive club to join at the moment. If we could entice some older, more experienced hurlers into the club, we could become a strong senior side literally over the course of a winter." The senior hurlers' first game was a challenge against Wolfe Tones, followed by another challenge against Carrickmacross. Their first official league game was also against the Tones - a 1-12 to 0-2 defeat. Their best league performance of the year came against defending county champions Pearse Og, a match that ended in a narrow defeat, 3-9 to 2-7. "It was a game we had every chance of winning but the lads probably didn't realise they could win it," Mark recalls. "The game was played on our own pitch - a big, wide open pitch suitable for a fast ground style of hurling, which is what we try to play." After a few more challenges in and around the Dublin area, Fechins made their SH championship debut: "Losing Fergal McNally, our centre back and our oldest player - at 20! - was a big blow. Fergal was carried off before half time and that left a huge hole in the team, which Tones exploited to the full. On the day, their sheer physical size completely overwhelmed us." That was certainly a heavy defeat but the Fechins took it on the chin and regrouped to complete a full programme of fixtures, with games right through into October. All in all, it was a very significant year in the continuous development of hurling in Termonfeckin. "Every year has been significant since we started back in '97," Mark continues. "We've managed to bring it to a new level each season and it's all been very encouraging so far. The next step is to become competitive at senior level and hopefully we'll achieve that inside the next three years." Tweet

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