Comments Off Steelstown Under 14s have a challenge game with Craigbane Friday night. All players should meet at the clubhouse at 6.20pm. Help with transport would be greatly appreciated. We welcome Dungiven for the first round of the Feile na nOg on Sunday morning at Thornhill. The seconds are travelling to Ardmore for their first round game Details of times will be sent on Teamer. Indoor training is back again next Tuesday from 7.00 until 8.30pm.
Comments Off U8′s come back this Saturday, 18th Feb at our clubhouse. We are taking part in the St Patrick’s Day parade this year and for the next few weeks we will be preparing props and banners. Meet at clubhouse from 10 – 11:30. We will have a resident artist to help coordinate our works of art. All welcome.
Outdoor football starts back at Leafair 3G pitch at 10 -11:30 on Sat 24th March. All players welcome, new and old.
Indoor football starts back fundamentals for P1 – P3 indoors on Wednesday nights at 5:30-6:15 from 22nd Feb. This is an 8 week course. We would encourage as many new players to come along as well as our regular players. We also need parents / adults to stay and help. This is really important as the more help we have, the more the children benefit. In April we hope to run child protection & foundation coaching. Getting involved in the fundamentals programme is a great way to develop your interest and to share the enjoyment of sport with your children. Any queries, please call Mark on 07789925204 or email mjrabbett@hotmail.com.
U10 training is now on at the Leafair pitch from 10am to 11.30am on Saturdays and all new boys and girls are very welcome. Please dress appropriately for outdoors.
Comments Off The Northern Ireland Blood Transfusion Service will be at the club tomorrow from 2-4pm and 5:15-8pm. We would encourage as many people to attend as possible, as their has been a shortage of blod supplies since Christmas.
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To comply with new legal requirements, all coaches or people who help out and are in contact with children need to complete and return AccessNI forms. These forms are attached. Some guidance notes are also included below from Mark Rabbett who is coordinating this.
See attached 2 documents, one is a actual form, one is the guide.
Mark has filled in the generic info (it’s important we all apply as underage coaches as this covers us all to coach from U6 – U18′s ). Please do not change what is already filled in in this part.
Once the forms are complete, the need to be returned to your head coach or to Mark Rabbett, Bernie McMonagle or Brid Moore, by 31/01/2012.
These forms apply to all coaches and also anyone who is in a support role that has contact with kids in the club. This could be helpers at the summer camp, fun day’s or even parents that help out with transport etc.
As you will see from the letter, it is now a requirement by law so please encourage any club memeber that may be in this position to complete a form and apply.
If anyone needs any help or to arrange collection of forms, please contact Mark on mjrabbett@hotmail.com or 07789925204
Guidance for Completing AccessNI Enhanced Disclosure Application Form
Comments Off The annual Christmas table quiz will take place at the clubhouse on Thursday 29th December at 7:30pm. Everybody is welcome to attend as usual for a bit of fun during Christmas week and an alternative to watching the Christmas TV! Any donations of biscuits, sweets etc for use as prizes on the night are greatly appreciated. For more information contact Brian O’Connor on 07856936617 
Comments Off The annual GOAL charity match on boxing day will take place at the club at 2pm. Everybody is welcome to come along for a bit of fun and get a side and a kickabout! As usual we will do a collection for GOAL at the event afterwards.
Earlier that morning the annual GOAL mile walk will take place from Sainsburys car park at 12noon. It wil progress along the quay and over the Peace Bridge and back to the car park. Everybody is welcome to attend.
Comments Off It’s 2005.
It’s a wet, miserable December night. The club had dominated the North Derry underage scene with minor and under 16 championship victories; and promotion to Intermediate status confirmed which direction we were headed. Yet 20 naive boys, believing their own bad press, were too scared to take the next step.
We sat in the choir room next to Steelstown chapel up in arms at the audacity of the club to suggest we were good enough to compete with the best. It was decided that the under 18 team would play in the All-County section in 2006 for the first time; but we were not happy and staging a feeble revolt.
“This group of players have never won a championship match together and you want us to step up a grade?”
I’m ashamed to say that these were my own defeatist words. Stats-wise I was, of course, on the money but how pathetic and I’ve never forgot it. I hadn’t considered that, in that very room, we were joined by 6 players who would later represent the county in the same age bracket. I hadn’t considered that I was on-board a much more powerful ship than we were allowed to notice. And, thankfully, my ill-informed sentiments were not taken into account.
In fact, only Stephen Cleary and Neil Forester were vying for Steelstown to make the step up. It’s no coincidence that these men are our latest Derry senior representatives.
Spearheading the decision to push the club on to where it could be – to where it belonged – Paddy Cosgrove and Eddie Sweeney were joined by Michael Heffernan and Hugh McGrath. Michael, carrying that winning attitude that makes Kilkenny men oblivious to second best, must have been disgusted at our lack of ambition, our lack of faith. And Hugh, equipped with all the confidence we’re accustomed to see from County Down natives (for whatever reason), wouldn’t take no for an answer and proceeded to embarrass an outspoken Tony Ling questioning the new coach’s credentials. It’s no coincidence either that these men would later go on to chairman and senior management positions.
At the time, we clearly didn’t believe that we could be here in 5 years.
Good wee team; some lovely football. You’ll make loads of friends from the GAA; it’s great for the city.
Were we starting to be brainwashed by the naysayers that this was the extent of our potential? We’ll produce some nice stuff, make good connections – but we’ll never have it in us to cause a stir. Fortunately, there were plenty of people in the club who wouldn’t listen and would not be deterred and, acting immediately on the underage success of that previous season, these same people made a decision that Steelstown folklore is now indebted to.
I remember growing up, I was told that clubs are doing well if they bring through their 3 best minors each year – 4 at a push. I remember thinking, “oh bollocks” – not just because I was in no way better than the likes of Cleary, Ling, McKinney, but because I was thinking that the journey from Junior to Senior would take a lot longer than we’d like. But, being thrown in the deep-end and taught how to swim, the ’06 minor squad began to realise that they could hold their own on the other side of the Glenshane. And, eliminating championship favourites Magherafelt, Bellaghy and Kilrea – who had been dominating for 4 years – Steelstown were learning their lessons and now found that they could more than compete with this lot; but they could beat these teams.
Missing out on final success by 5 points – ironically to a North Derry side – we had come a long way from the group of scared whingers (sorry lads) that were throwing their toys from the pram just 9 months earlier. And sooner or later, those same players began to filter through to the senior services. In fact, of the 17 players that featured in that minor final at Celtic Park, 10 of them played in Dungiven against Newbridge 3 weeks ago.
Ten.
Outside that ten, Eoghan Heraghty, finds himself in an unenviable position battling for the number 1 jersey with one of the best in the county. Another, Dermot McBride, trawled the sidelines all year barking instructions and demanding more. And, of course, Brian Óg himself played that day – all 15 years of him – with what can only be described as a mammoth, colossal performance. On another occasion, you could maybe question the rest of us that we needed this guy – who was still at under 15 level at the time – to spring from the bench and boss the game, but such is the Brian Óg effect. To abide by his legacy is the best thing the club have done.
It would be easy to get ahead of ourselves and continue to celebrate the 2011 season but that’s not the intention of this article. Gaining promotion was and should be an important step – but, crucially, a step. Just like 2006 was leading somewhere, so too should this year. Put simply: sometimes, you need to work even harder. Sometimes, you need to aspire to something greater. And, sometimes, you just need to believe.
I’ve got 13 players to testify to that.
Conan writes for www.sc1sports.com a sports blog covering Injury, Psychology, Performance Analysis, Training Methods, Strength & Conditioning, Nutrition & Business.
Comments Off Congratulations to the reserve squad and manager Paul McMenamin after going through the league season undefeated and winning the league.
Comments Off The last day for purchasing merchandise or collecting club merchandise which has been previously ordered will be at the clubhouse this Saturday from 10am to 12pm.
Comments Off Label it favouritism, call it one-sided, and say it is partiality. Frankly, I’m not concerned one bit because, for once, I have never been more thrilled to be so biased in all my life.
I remember just 8 years ago taking to Celtic Park to help deliver the club’s first piece of silverware under the guidance of Steelstown stalwart, Andy Barr. Back then, an under 16 ‘B’ championship was as good a place as any to get the ball rolling. A few weeks later, the under 14’s clinched the North Derry ‘A’ title in emphatic fashion and, just ever so silently, a few daring whispers began to circulate.
In the same year, the club – still in its adolescence – found a new home in Páirc Bhríd and left the Templemore Sports Complex humbled in its trail. The proceeding 8 years could not have been scripted by even the most ambitious of visionaries as the senior men dusted off perennial defeats to Ardmore and began climbing the shaky ladder from Junior to Senior football.
Throw in further underage success; increasing county representatives; the inception and growth of the Ladies setup; a new clubhouse; and a thriving off-field structure, and it is genuinely hard to believe that, just less than a decade ago, Steelstown sat in a division below their local rivals, Colmcille, and struggled to muster numbers for excursions to Magilligan.
But year by year, the Brian Óg’s machine was gathering momentum. Championship heartbreaks to Glen in the 2005 Junior final, to Dungiven in the ’06 Minor final, to Castledawson in the 2010 Intermediate decider were mistaken as choking rather than inexperience. When the city side were once peering in the window, they began listening through the door before their taps became knocks, their knocks became bangs and the divide which separated Steelstown and elite football was smashed to pieces as the sleeping giant one day decided to wake up.
Having missed out in league playoffs before, there seemed to be an ill-informed, external consensus that the status quo would be easily preserved on Saturday past. However, as the Brian Óg’s 34 man squad warmed up, as the blue and gold colours trickled into Ó Cathain Park, and as Hugh McGrath and Raymond Tracey grew increasingly hoarse, it was clear that 2011 could well and truly be the year that Steelstown took that inevitable step to senior status.
Inevitable is a fitting word. Marty Dunne, in all his modesty, is easily intercounty material. If Brian Óg McAlary and Oisín Duffy are Derry-worthy, then so too is Tony Ling; and if beaten Newbridge man, Michael Bateson, is deserving of a starting berth in John Brennan’s side, then better, more talented half forwards like Aidan Cleary can also be considered county standard.
The starting 15 versus Newbridge averaged an age of just over 23. Current county panellist, Neil Forester, and Dan Jackson – both 21 – were introduced; Stephen Cleary, hogging newspaper headlines for 5 years now is still just 22; whilst full back, Tony Ling, was missing in action – all of whom are younger than the team’s average. With so many relative household names still in their early twenties, Steelstown’s young veterans have already been around the block enough times that they will eventually pose a threat to whomever they please.
Only Gary Cunningham, the team’s most senior player – he won’t mind me saying (I hope) – hasn’t come through the unstoppable conveyor belt of Steelstown’s youth system, yet he has been there since Day 1 of the club’s first Intermediate footsteps. Gone are the days of the city stereotype acquiring players from all over the country. Steelstown are moulding their own success at grassroots level through the development of some outrageously talented individuals that only serve to remind me every time I watch an underage session that my days in the team are well and truly numbered!
I didn’t want to write a piece about a team I’m involved with but when the entire club invaded Dungiven’s pitch with jubilee, with unison, how could I ignore the season’s biggest story? When an old-school full back, stricken by injury, can’t bear to watch the post-match scenes in sheer overwhelming shock, how could I not recognise the beauty of what had happened? When a loyal supporter informs me that he was keeping three different continents updated throughout the historic game, how could I not give my take on it?
Visit the club on a Saturday morning, attend one of its events, celebrate a club mass, come down when there is maintenance to be done, or speak to any supporter on their take on all-things-GAA, and soon anyone and everyone would recognise that there is much, much more to Steelstown than the 34 who were lucky enough to kit out against Newbridge – 19 talented substitutes make it easy to understand why the club topped each the senior, reserve and minor leagues this year. In its miniature lifespan, the club has transformed into a booming hybrid of football activity and has adopted a philosophy of making history, rather than reading it.
Without the foundations of a solid club, expect a downturn of on-field fortunes to follow at a drastic rate. But, in truth, Steelstown Brian Óg’s has always been a senior club – it has just taken until now for the team to catch up.
Conan also writes blogs for derrygaa.com and for SC1 sports. Check them out at http://sc1sports.com/ for more articles by Scone, Stephen, George and Ciaran.
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