Reputed to be the oldest unit of the GAA in County Monaghan, Currin made an all-too rare appearance in the limelight last October when the club officially unveiled its new playing pitch and clubrooms. Long-serving club official John Boyle was suitably enamoured by the occasion. Kevin Carney reports We know that a lot of clubs have put a lot of money, time and effort into putting bricks and mortar together and then seeing things come apart at the seams on the playing side but we're confident that'll not be the case at Currin." Currin chairman John Boyle could never be accused of looking at the state of play down Scotshouse direction with rose-tinted glasses. In fact, he is the first to acknowledge that the opening of a spanking new 360,000 euro facilities doesn't mean that the future prosperity of any organisation is secure. But John is optimism personified. He earnestly believes that Currin's investment in their facilities can provide the launching pad for a revival of the club's fortunes as a whole and that the work carried out to date on the Coolnacarte site will inspire young and old in the area to engineer better times for the sons of St. Patrick. Scotshouse was en fete as GAA President Sean McCague officially opened Currin's new pitch and clubrooms on October 6th. And the weather stayed fine! In welcoming the guests, Chairman Boyle outlined the history of the development of the club's headquarters. Planning permission was first applied for back in 1993 with work being held up due to an appeal to An Board Pleanala by a local resident against the planning permission that had been granted for the development of sports facilities. Undeterred by this setback, the club persisted in forging ahead with their plans and were suitably rewarded when their planning permission was eventually given the green light after the appeal at national level had failed. While some adjustments had to be made to the plans, work proceeded unabated with the development of the pitch being tackled first. The erection of the clubrooms began in the latter end of 1994. It was a long, hard haul from there to October 2002 but the club duly achieved their goal eventually. The total cost of the project to date has amounted to 360,000 euros. Some of this cost has been met by way of a lottery grant from the Department of Sport, Tourism and Recreation. "Our application was given the okay by the department when Minister Jim McDaid was in place. Ironically we just received the first part of that grant the week after the official opening." In the course of his welcoming address, John had special words of praise for Fr. Pat McHugh who had first mooted the idea and all others who had contributed in numerous ways to bring the project to fruition. In addition to Fr. McHugh, the outgoing chairman thanked the members of the first field committee, Dermot Beattie, Brian McCabe, Padraig McCaffrey and Jim O'Connor who drew up the plans as well as all those who had given interest free loans to seal the purchase of the land initially. "An awful lot of people deserve credit for putting in place the facilities that are now there for all to enjoy. It has been a priority for the club for a long time to have such facilities put in place and now we hope that all our teams will benefit from them and reap success in whatever competitions they find themselves in in the coming years. "For the moment, the facilities in place will cater for all our needs and they've been roundly applauded by everyone who has seen them. But soon time in the short-term future, we hope to construct terracing," John enthuses. John says that Currin's resplendent facilities have already given everyone at the border club a massive boost. He feels that they've been particularly inspirational for the juvenile members of the club and he believes the club's premier team will benefit massively from having their own 'home' as the seasons come and go. "Before we had the development at Coolnacarte completed, our teams were literally on the road for their home and away matches. Over the years we used the pitches in Ballyhaise, Redhills, Killeevan, Smithboro, Aghabog and Clones. We were very thankful to all those clubs for their help but you can't beat having your own pitch and thankfully that's now the case. It's a pitch we can all be proud of." Indeed the good-sized crowd that attended the official opening and both the Tyrone and Monaghan players who performed on the day were fulsome in their praise for the Currin club venue. The pitch in particular came in for some especially rave reviews from the O'Neill County camp. "The Monaghan and Tyrone fellas that I was talking to on the day couldn't have had any more praise for the pitch. Even Eugene McKenna said that there was only one other club pitch in Ulster - one in Derry - that boasted as good a sod. "All the players I spoke to were just as happy with the pitch as well. Overall, we got tremendously positive feedback from everyone who was there for the official opening. It was a great day and hopefully it'll mark the start of better times to come for the club." GAA President Sean McCague was no less upbeat in his assessment of Currin's work in developing their facilities. "Currin is a small club but they have not allowed that to be a handicap, instead they have channelled it into a great community spirit that was so central to what has been achieved and the fruits that you see here today. "It has taken a lot of hard work. I called here to look at the work in progress some years back and I can only compliment all of those who have worked so diligently to bring this project to fruition." And now for some cups. "Our last success was in 1972 when we won the junior championship. That's a long time ago but I hope it's not as long again before we win a major title again. We have enough talent in the club to make an impression in the next few years but talent on its own isn't always enough. "One of our biggest problems in trying to get a winning team together is the fact that a lot of our players are based away from home. Most of them are students based at either the regional college in Letterkenny, Queens University, Coleraine, Athlone or at some of the colleges in Dublin.There are only about five or six of the players working locally and that makes the job of getting full turn outs at collective training very difficult. "We've also a very small catchment area too. We have one of the smallest parishes in the Diocese of Clogher and a major part of the parish is in county Fermanagh. "And while there are a good few houses being built in the area, the families living in them aren't as big as years ago so the numbers available to the club aren't necessarily increasing. But we have to make the best of what we have and that's what we've done over the years." Trained by local man Sean Carruthers in 2002, Currin's premier team had, what the former County Board PRO and now Currin chairman describes as a "decent enough run in the championship although we should have beaten Killeevan and later on with the backdoor system, Killanny." As for Currin's league campaign, well John admits that it was very disappointing. "We found it almost impossible to field the same line-up from one game to another. "We found it particularly difficult to field our best team for matches that were fixed for Wednesday evenings. Saturday evening matches are the only ones which really suit us but unfortunately there weren't too many of them for us during the year." Involved at the heart of club affairs since 1958, John insists that Currin aren't light years away from turning things around. He appreciates that things won't be a lot easier in the coming season with Clones and Monaghan Harps back in junior ranks. However with the likes of the Clerkin brothers, Ben and Dick, Niall Quigley, Paul and Aidan Rudden, Declan Smyth, Brian Duffy and Tommy Maguire, Currin appear to have the werewithall - on paper at least - to ruffle a few feathers in 2003. "We have the potential to at least make the top four in the league and if we got a good draw in the first round of the championship, we could surprise a few teams. "I think if the lads got one win in the championship, then they'd have a bit more self-belief and confidence and could maybe take it on from there. "Part of the problem in Currin is that we've no winning tradition in modern times but most of the panel that won the minor championship in 1998 - by beating Corduff - and who reached the league final the same year is still in place. "A lot of those same Corduff minor players featured for their club in their junior success in 2002. Our attitude should be, if they can do it, why can't we?" Words to the wise indeed. Tweet

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