It was an utterly fantastic year for Toome St Victor's, who at last achieved their prime objective of promotion to intermediate ranks by finishing top of the junior football league. To say it was a landmark season would be a patent exercise in understatement; leaving junior football behind for the first time in three decades represents an enormous achievement for Declan Loughman's well-drilled border brigade.

They've been threatening a breakthrough for the past few years; in 2011, Toome St Victor's finally delivered!
Even though Cremartin claimed a junior double to take the silverware in both league and championship and unlucky Clones lost both finals, the small print worked in Toome's favour. They would join Cremartin in intermediate football as they had topped the junior league. They had been wonderfully consistent in both junior competitions and Toome thoroughly deserve their place at the middle table.
Fifty years on from the JFC success of 1961, Toome's fruitful 2011 Monaghan junior league campaign began and ended with matches against Clones. Ironically, they won neither of those games but, in between, they produced some superb performances to finish top of the table with a grand total of 26 points from 16 outings - twelve wins, two draws and just two defeats. As league campaigns go, it was quite superb. While Toome lost their semi-final, the rules stipulate that in the event of a team winning the double (which Cremartin did), the side who finished top of the league will progress alongside them, so Toome clinched promotion while Clones - who'd been beaten in both the JFL and JFC finals -were left bitterly disappointed.
Toome opened their league programme way back on Sunday, March 20th with a 0-10 apiece draw with none other than Clones at St Victor's Park. They drew their second outing, too - 0-11 to 1-8 against Killeevan, also at home, on Saturday, April 16th.
Then came three successive wins: after a 1-12 to 2-5 success in Blackhill on Friday, April 22nd, Toome took both points from their visit to Clones on Wednesday, June 15th - 1-11 to 1-9 - and also thumped Aghabog in St Victor's Park, 3-12 to 1-6, three days later. Gavin Flanagan gave an exhibition of pace, power and finishing acumen that day, finishing with 1-7 in brackets after his name as Toome gave themselves a timely boost with the JFC just around the corner. The side that whacked Aghabog in the league was: Glen Murphy; Jason Murphy, Stephen McCooey, Darren Conlon; Francis Quinn (0-1), Stephen Lambe (1-0), Damien Wilson; Aidan McDonnell, Alan Lambe; Paul Kelly, Gary Wilson (1-2), Raymond Fee; Liam McCooey (0-2), Cormac Quinn, Gavin Flanagan (1-7). Subs: Breffni Morgan (0-1), PJ Kelly, Colin Wilson.
Unbeaten after five outings, Toome fell to their first defeat away to Oram on the first Wednesday in July, 3-8 to 1-10.
Cremartin also beat them - 1-17 to 2-4 in Shamrock Park on Wednesday, July 27th - but in between those two losses Toome enjoyed wins at the expense of Emyvale (1-13 to 2-6) at home and Killeevan (3-7 to 0-11) away.
They would win their last seven matches in the league, proving beyond any doubt that they were one of the premier junior teams in the county in 2011. There were four wins in August: 3-15 to 0-5 at home to Blackhill (Toome led this one by 1-11 to 0-2 at the break and Gavin Flanagan was the top scorer with 2-4, with Gary Wilson notching five points); 2-12 to 1-6 at home to Killanny; 0-12 to 1-7 away to Killanny; and 1-11 to 0-10 away to Emyvale on Wednesday, August 31st.
The earlier defeat to junior double-winners Cremartin was avenged at home on Sunday, September 4th - 0-13 to 0-8 - and Toome closed out their campaign with two more wins … 0-12 to 0-8 against Oram on Saturday, September 17th and 1-10 to 0-4 away to Aghabog 14 days later. In the Oram game, it was the visitors who started best but Gavin Flanagan gradually got on top in the engine room and points from Shane Moore, the impressive Stephen Lambe and Flanagan had them ahead for the first time, 0-3 to 0-2. Gary Wilson and Flanagan ensured the hosts of a 0-5 to 0-4 interval advantage and the following players took control after the resumption: Noel Gorman; Darren Conlon, Stephen McCooey, Jason Murphy; Francis Quinn, Alan Lambe, Aidan McDonald; Stephen Lambe (0-1), Cormac Quinn (0-1); Shane Moore (0-2), Colin Wilson, Tony McMahon; Liam McCooey, Gavin Flanagan (0-5), Gary Wilson (0-1). Sub: Niall Finnegan.
By finishing top of the table, the red-and-whites had home venue for their semi-final against Clones but were edged out by a couple of points on Sunday, October 16th: 0-8 to 0-6. Toome actually led this game by 0-6 to 0-2 at half time but were unable to sustain their performance in the second half, when they played against the elements
Despite losing that match, Toome still had a 50-50 chance of securing promotion, although their fate was out of their own hands. They needed Cremartin to beat Clones in the JFL final and the Shamrocks had looked impressive in blazing a path to the Ulster junior club final. Cremartin's participation in the provincial competition meant an agonising wait for Toome (and Clones) and the junior league final didn't take place until Sunday, November 20th in Emyvale - the last domestic fixture of the 2011 Monaghan club season and there couldn't have been more at stake...
Were there ever as many Toome clubmen at a Clones V Cremartin match? As it transpired, the outcome was never in doubt as the JFC winners tore into a 1-10 to 0-1 lead and won by 2-12 to 0-10. Toome had been promoted! Their year was a resounding success.
Having contested the 2009 JFC final and having lost both their championship matches in 2010 - against Sean McDermotts and Clones - Toome went into the 2011 JFC determined to prove their point. They opened their programme with a battling 0-9 to 0-6 victory over Killanny at Inniskeen on Saturday, June 11th, with former county goalkeeper Glen Murphy making a couple of important saves and Damien Wilson, Gavin Flanagan, Cormac Quinn and Gary Wilson bagging all the winners' scores between them.
Emyvale provided the opposition at the quarter-final stage in a repeat of the 2009 junior decider and it was the Emyvale men who again prevailed at Clontibret on Sunday, July 3rd - 2-9 to 1-11 in a really engrossing encounter. This match was played in splendid conditions and the winners led by six points at the three-quarters stage only for Toome to battle back with a Cormac Quinn goal and points from Shane Moore and Gavin Flanagan. The losers actually went ahead with a run of scores from Flanagan, Liam McCooey and Moore but Emyvale knocked over the last two points of the game.
Defeat consigned Toome to the back door, where they faced Aghabog in a do-or-die clash at Gavan Duffy Park on Saturday night, July 16th. St Victor's got off to a flyer with a first-minute point from Gary Wilson but they would manage just one more score from play over the hour in falling to a 3-6 to 1-8 defeat. With their championship dreams up in smoke, a lesser team might have imploded at this stage in the season but Toome - captained by Francis Quinn - redoubled their efforts in the junior league and kicked on to earn promotion in stunning fashion.
Captained by Hugo Connolly, Toome also qualified for an U14 Division Two football league final in 2011, beating Cremartin in the semi-final before losing to Clontibret by 2-8 to 1-8. In beating the likes of Corduff, Truagh, Magheracloone and Castleblayney, this crop of players proved that the future of Toome St Victor's GFC is every bit as exciting as the present! Tweet

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