Glyde Rangers have been an emerging force in Louth football for a dozen years and more. In 2008, the Tallanstown men demonstrated further coming-of-age by winning the Division Two title and blazing to the semi-final stage of the Joe Ward Cup. Centre forward Gerrard Sheridan believes it was a satisfactory year for the mid-county club. Apart from the slight blip that was '07, Glyde have been gathering a head of steam for years. The Tallanstown outfit have left their junior days well and truly behind them and have established themselves as genuine senior contenders, regularly ruffling feathers in the business end of the premier grade. Having reached the Cardinal O'Donnell Cup final in 2006, Glyde experienced a mini wobble the following year when they required a relegation play-off victory over Sean O'Mahonys to preserve their senior status and surrendered their Division One standing. Normal service was resumed in '08, however. At the first attempt, Glyde recovered their top-flight league status by storming to an outright Division Two success, garnering some welcome silverware into the bargain. In the championship, having lost just once in the group stage, they recorded a stunning quarter-final victory over perennial challengers Cooley Kickhams before losing narrowly to Mattock Rangers at the penultimate hurdle. All in all, a decent year's work and a return that left team stalwart Gerrard Sheridan feeling reasonably content: "I'm happy enough," the pivot man confirms. "We achieved a few of the goals we had set out at the start of the year, so we'll settle for that." When a team gets to the latter stages of the SFC, though, do you get greedy? Do you then set your sights on bigger targets? "Of course you do. When there were four teams left, we wanted to win it. I don't know if that's greed or just ambition, but it's certainly at the back of your mind. When you come out of the group, and then when you get to a semi-final, you want to keep going" Glyde finished third of the six teams in Group One of the senior championship, with six points from a possible ten, accumulate through two victories, two draws and just a single group-stage defeat. This form sent them through to the knockout stage in pretty good condition. They opened their programme with May Day victory over Dundalk Gaels at Cluskey Park but lost to holders St Pats at the Clans ten days later. Following successive draws with Sean O'Mahonys at the same venue and Mattock at Ardee, Glyde booked their place in the last six with a thrilling 1-11 to 0-13 defeat of Naomh Mairtin in a winner-takes-all last-round encounter in Dromiskin on August 24. Seven days later, at Dowdallshill, the Tallanstown terrors set the 2008 SFC alight with a magnificent 2-8 to 0-8 quarter-final defeat of Cooley. With St Patricks crashing out the same weekend, the Joe Ward Cup race was now wide open. On September 14, Glyde returned to the Ardee halfway house to again do battle with Mattock. They had been the only team to take a point off their fellow Rangers thus far in the competition, but on this occasion the Collon side prevailed by three points, 0-11 to 0-8. Would Gerrard agree that the quarter-final win was perceived as a bolt from the blue around the county, even though Glyde had only lost once prior to then? "Maybe the way the groups are, a lot of people don't show as much interest in the group games and only really come out to watch matches from the quarter-final stage on. Whether people noticed or not, we had been moving nicely. Nobody expected much off us, and that probably helped in a way. "We hadn't been to a quarter-final in a while and we had been beaten the last time we were there, so it was a boost to get over that psychological barrier, especially against a team like Cooley. We always knew we were capable of beating the bigger teams and we thought we were in with a real chance once we knocked Cooley out." What was the reason for the semi-final defeat? "I think it's fair to say we didn't perform as well as we can on the day. Maybe there were a bit of nerves around the team and that held us back. Collon are a good team, in fairness, and it was a bad day for football, but the bottom line is that we didn't do ourselves justice. We didn't perform on the day and that's the main reason we lost." It's a protracted, drawn-out season before the SFC gets down to real business - is the senior championship season too long and dragged-out? "It's almost like two championships because you have the first few rounds in May and June and then you have a break for the Leinster championship. But once you get to the latter stages it flies by. We played three or four weeks in a row and the games were coming thick and fast. Perhaps it's not ideal to be playing those games on top of one another but, at the same time, nobody minds playing games and that's why we're here, doing all the hard work over the winter. Once you're playing competitive matches, that's what everybody wants and the more big games, the better." After slipping out of championship contention, Glyde resumed their Division Two programme with further wins over O'Raghallaighs, Dreadnots and Sean McDermotts to take the league title with 18 points from eleven games, three more than Na Piarsaigh and Clan na Gael. How vital was it to rebound straight back up to Division One? "It was very important. Even though the standard of football in Division Two isn't too bad and we had some difficult matches during the year, Division One is where everybody wants to be. "When you play in Division One, you are guaranteed eleven matches against the top teams in the county. Every game is a big challenge and that is only going to improve you and stand you in good stead for the championship. We feel we are a Division One team. We were disappointed to get relegated but that was a one-off and one of our main aims was to bounce back up. Division Two was a very tough league to win, but we're happy with how it turned out." Gerrard has been part of the Glyde set-up for twelve seasons now and he was very impressed by the contribution of Mickey McConville as manager in '08: "He had a great reputation before he came down to us and he really brought Glyde Rangers on to a new level. He has a very professional approach and a good tactical brain. He's a good motivator and his input was evident in the performance against Cooley. We were very pleased to have him in Tallanstown." The target for 2009? "Staying in Division One will always be tough, especially if you lose a few games early in the year, so we'll have to be on our guard in the league. In the senior football championship, going on last year, we'd have to be looking to win it. That's the obvious next step. You have to set your sights on getting out of the group first and foremost, but once you get that far it's only three big games. If we got less than a semi-final, we'd be disappointed. Expectations in the club and the village will be a bit higher now and you always look to go a bit further than the previous year. A final would be a massive achievement for Glyde Rangers" Those ambitions show how far football in Tallanstown has advanced in just over a decade: "It's twelve years since we won the 1996 JFC and we've been on an upward curve ever since. We've had some great players and managers over the years and they have brought us on a long way. Our target now is to stay up where we are. I was a sub in '96 and started regularly on the team in 1997. Quite a few of the current team would have come through intermediate football together and we would have learned together. We've been lucky to have a good bunch of lads here and long may that continue," concludes the former county minor and U21 player - a man who will be key to Glyde's hopes once more in the season ahead. Tweet

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