Bright future in store
December 31, 2009In tough times like these, all you can do is look to the future with hope. Last year was one of disaster for Tyholland. After winning their first ever Monaghan senior football championship in the club's history in 2007, the good times looked set to roll but immediate relegation followed the next season through missing out on league safety in the SFL by a single point.
The senior team had gone through three different management teams in '08, but none of them could save Tyholland from dropping back down to the intermediate ranks after Declan Loughman had helped steer the club to a first IFC success.
"Our objective from the start of the 2009 season would have been to get straight back into senior football," explained Tyholland club chairman, Seamus McQuaid.
"We wanted to get back up after coming down and felt that we were well capable of doing so, seeing as we still had the majority of the team left over from that which won the intermediate championship in '07 and that would be the aim again in '09."
Tyrone pair Cathal McAnenly and Kevin Hughes were both brought in by the club to manage the senior squad. McAnely had been part Raymond Munroe's management team which led the Red Hand County to Ulster and All-Ireland minor championship glory the previous season and there was a real buzz of anticipation when they came south to bring some new ideas to the fray.
McQuaid, now coming into his third year as chairman of the club, was delighted with appointment of the Tyrone duo and was confident with everyone fit and available to them that the team could achieve promotion back to the top-flight status in the county.
A draw at home to Donaghmoyne, followed by convincing wins over Aghabog and Cremartin got Tyholland off to a decent start in their league campaign. However, defeats Drumhowan and Aughnamullen, before a resounding victory over Monaghan Harps, meant that McAnely's charges would still be need of points to make sure of a semi-final place before the intermediate championship kicked-off.
"We started off in the league with a draw and after that our campaign was kind of up and down, but we were still well in contention of a semi-final place before the championship started," said McQuaid.
"Our first game in the championship was against Aughamullen in the preliminary round and we got a good win against them and then we beat Corduff the next day out."
Tyholland seemed to be carrying good momentum with them into their quarter-final meeting with Rockcorry and were confident of making the last four as long as they could string together a win-worthy performance.
"We played Rockcorry in the quarter-final in what was a tough game that we should have won, but ended up drawing," said McQuaid.
"We had lost Gary McQuaid to a red card in that game and Shane Treanor also picked up a shoulder injury as well. Gary was out for the replay and we started Shane but he had to come off with a shoulder injury after ten minutes and both were huge losses to us for that game and we ended up losing to Rockcorry."
With that loss, Tyholland went into backdoor still minus McQuaid and Treanor and were foiled by Eire Og. The shock defeat sent McAnely's team crashing out of the championship and left their hopes of promotion solely resting on how they would finish off their league campaign.
"Once we had a few of our key players back, we knew that we had a decent chance of making sure we got to the semi-finals," said McQuaid. "We beat Drumhowan in Drumhowan, which was a great result and that virtually made sure that we would go through and play Monaghan Harps in the semi-final."
Against Harps in the semi-final, Tyholland fell victim to a 0-11 to 0-9 defeat at St Patrick's Park, where the intermediate champions had the scoring prowess of Nicholas Treanor and Dean Fanning to thank for edging out a determined effort from McAnely's side and booking themselves a place in the final against Drumhowan.
Veteran servants Cyril Ronaghan, Kevin McQuaid, Peadar Farrelly and Gregory Ronaghan had all featured prominently for Tyholland during 2009 and Seamus McQuaid hopes that they will continue to do so, as the club look to maintain their aim of leaping back into the senior ranks.
Peadar Farrelly perhaps deserves as much credit as any one for his efforts towards the club. As well as serving the senior team for over a decade now, the last three years have saw Farrelly act as juvenile secretary in the club, as well as Under 16 and minor coach, and in that time Tyholland have blossomed on the underage stage.
"We would consider 2009 as quite a successful year," he said.
"We completed at Under 12, 13, 14, 16 and minor level all in Division Three and Four which is not bad for a club in such a small area. Our Under 12s got to the semi-final, our Under 13s won the championship and our Under 16s won the championship and lost their league final by a point.
"Our minors also did very well too by reaching the championship final only to lose to a very strong Corduff side. I trained the Under 16s and minors this year and I have to say that they are a great bunch of lads, with a real will to learn. I think a lot of those players playing now will go onto to play for the club at senior level," Farrelly added.
The Under 16s claimed the club's first piece of silverware for 2009 in early September when they defeated Cremartin in an enthralling Division Three Championship final, which finished 1-9 to 1-7 in Tyholland's favour at Pearse Park, Ballybay.
The team, jointly managed by Darren Smith, Robbie Gallagher and Farrelly, captured the club's first Under 16 crown in seven-long years and Farrelly, who isn't one for singling out players, had a couple of words of praise for the Tyholland goalkeeper after the win
"Ryan Lee made a couple of fantastic saves to help us out," he said.
"In all honesty, the cup could have went to either team because you didn't know who was going to be in front at the final whistle. We were under pressure a lot of the time and when we went a point down in the second-half, I thought we were in trouble.
"But we showed a lot of character to rally again and score two or three points in the space of a few minutes which gave us a bit of breathing space midway through the second-half."
A week later the same team were out again in the League final against Rockcorry in Threemilehouse, and although they put up a brave fight they finished second best to a strong Rockcorry outfit.
That wasn't to be the end of Tyholland's underage crusade though, as a few weeks later their Under 13s defeated Fergal O'Hanlons to book a place into the Division Four final. The decider, played in Cremartin, turned out to be a total mis-match as Tyholland stormed to 3-12 to 0-4 victory over Blackhill to underline their dominance in the division.
The same week the club's promising minor crop took on Corduff in the Division Three Championship final and despite putting up a brave display against their double-chasing opponents they fell to a 3-11 to 1-7 defeat in Drumhowan.
After trailing by 1-6 to 0-3 at half-time, Tyholland had fought back bravely in the second-half with their substitute Mel Boyce coming off the bench to kick 1-1, but in the end Corduff just proved too strong.
Corduff (Div 3 MFC final v Corduff): R Lee, R McKenna, S Connolly, K Mooney, S McKenna, A Mackle, J McMahon (0-1), C McMahon, G Ward, N Askin, M McQuaid, A Askin (0-5), D Treanor. Subs used: M Boyce (1-1), S McQuaid, C McKenna.
Farrelly, as much as anyone else in the club, has been very proud of the efforts by all the juvenile players in the club this past season and sees a bright future on the horizon for Tyholland.
"There's a lot of work at juvenile level being done and a real improvement has been happening in the last 18 months," he said.
"We'll reap the benefits in years to come, I think, because a serious effort is being put in by everyone involved but it's only starting now."
After holding the position as juvenile secretary with the club for the past three years, Farrelly has decided to step down as he has a busy year ahead of him next season outside football, but he no doubt leaves the juvenile section of the club in a better state than he founded back in 2006.
Now the next step will undoubtedly be to nourish the talent that's there and make sure that in years to come they will be wearing the red and white of Tyholland on the club's brand new state-of-the-art facilities opened this year.
"We opened our new pitch back August and it is a brand new Prunty pitch with surrounding fence which would have cost in the region of 400,000 euro to build," said Seamus McQuaid.
"We opened our new facilities on the 16th of August and we had a festival on the weekend to celebrate the opening, with a Sports Day, and a seven-a-side competition which was vey successful.
"It was a great festival weekend for all involved with the club and we even raised 40,000 euro over the weekend to help go towards the finances of the club," he added
Through GAA grants and rigorous fundraising in the club, Tyholland now boast one of the top club grounds in Monaghan, where it is hoped that the club will see more success in years to come and with the current batch of players coming through the ranks, there can be little argument that it will. Tweet
