The hopes of the club at the beginning of the year were dealt a very demoralising blow when we lost the services of two of Louth club football's outstanding forwards with Darren Clarke transferring to St Sylvester's in Dublin and Alan Doherty emigrating to live and work in Liverpool. Further cementing our difficulties was the loss of four players to Australia and Paul Malone's continued absence through study and work experience in London. We did start the senior league well with three victories over St Patrick's, Cooley and Kilkerley, but a heavy first round Championship defeat to Newtown Blues proved a crushing blow to our young team and with the loss of so many quality and experienced players we struggled for rest of Championship league series. We did however recover to beat Kilkerley and draw with Cooley, thus avoiding the relegation play-offs. However our team is very young and inexperienced and with the loss of so many quality players it was inevitable that we would struggle this year. Many of our young players were making their Championship debuts this year and the experience that they got will surely stand them in good stead for next season and the years ahead. It was a difficult year for Mattie McCabe in his first year as manager/coach and his selectors Davy McCoy and Barnie Carrie. However, Mattie and his selectors have gained the confidence and respect of the players and this will prove to be a good morale booster heading into the new season in 2009. Our under 21 team has made good progress in competition and proved a handful for any team in competition. Ken Rooney in particular, Sean Carroll and Gabriel McKenny did a great job with the U-21s who after being well beaten in first round with a depleted side, resurrected our chances in the competition before losing out in a quarter-final replay. Our thanks also to Alan Keenan, Brian Sharkey and Fergus Gough for their hard work with our junior team who weren't helped by the intermittent and fragmented nature of junior fixtures. This year has also seen the continued development of our impressive facilities in Pairc Mhuire, and now completed and ready for use in new season is our stand alone juvenile pitch for use solely for younger under age teams. This now brings to four the number of playing pitches in Pairc Mhuire, with our main pitch, full size training pitch, all weather pitch and new juvenile pitch. Also planning permission has been received for the upstairs part of our centre complex and we project that full development of upstairs will be complete by April 2009. We acknowledge the ongoing hard work and expertise of our dedicated development committee comprising Turlough McDonald, Paddy Callan, Ken McKever, Niall Doherty and John Clarke, without whose efforts the impressive and comprehensive facilities in Pairc Mhuire would not be in place. Last December the club held a banquet night for the Ardee parish representatives on Louth's victorious All Ireland 1957 team. Brian Carty RTE GAA commentator/celebrity was MC for the night. Award presentations to our 57 heroes were paintings of the River Dee in Ardee specially painted and commissioned by nationally well known local artist Padraigh Lynch. Padraig himself a lifelong St Mary's and Louth supporter speaking on the night brought us back to his growing up years in Ardee where most of our representatives on the 57 team were his school mates. In his very impressive and highly entertaining speech Padraig brought us on a journey down memory lane back to the Ardee of the 1940s and 50s. Padraig conveyed a sincere affection and admiration not only for the footballing exploits of our men of 57 but also of their great standing in our community and high sense of sportsmanship. In presenting the awards Brian Carty gave very informative and enjoyable account of each player's position and input into the team. Recipients of awards were captain, Dermot O'Brien RIP (presented to his son Ronan), Patsy Coleman, Kevin Beahan, Jim Roe, Barnie McCoy, Aidan Magennis (all St Mary's), and Ollie Reilly (Hunterstown Rovers). Each player spoke individually of their memories and thanked St Mary's for their beautiful awards. The death took place recently of Tom Joe Coleman, brother of Patsy, right half back on 1957 team. Tom Joe came up through the juvenile ranks and was an excellent under age player with Ardee. He graduated onto the Mary's senior team in the mid Sixties and like Patsy played right half back and in this position Tom Joe was on St Mary's victorious Senior Championship winning team in 1968 when our opponents in that final were St Fechins. Tom Joe also played half back in 1970 final when St Mary's were narrowly beaten by Newtown Blues. Soon after that Tom Joe threw in his lot with Nh Malachi and lived in Dundalk where his sons, David, Andrew and Stephen played major roles on recent Dundalk Gaels teams. Tom Joe, a very outgoing and likeable person was extremely popular in both Ardee, Dundalk and indeed throughout the county. The very large turnout at his funeral was testament to this. All at Ardee St Mary's convey sincere sympathy to all Tom Joe's family and friends. St Mary's also extend sincere sympathy to any player/committee person/member or supporter who lost a loved one during the year. On the fund raising side we held a very successful race night in Fairgreen Bar in April. Our sincere thanks to all who contributed to its success in particular to Mickie and Noel Rooney. Our main fund raising venture this year was our involvement in the Ferdia Club's car draw and this proved to be a huge success for us and for all the other three local clubs involved. This new and innovative draw pooling the resources of four local clubs into one fund raising drive proved to be extremely popular and successful. Thanks all on the executive draw committee and of course to our own reps. Paddy Lennon, Sean Carroll and Ken Rooney for their great work also to all sellers and of course to sponsor John McCabe for his sponsorship generosity and overall input into draw. One of the main successes enjoyed by St Marys this season came when the club claimed the U-16 A Championship title with a 3-8 to 1-12 victory over St Brides. The Ardee club's underage setup showed that there is plenty of talent coming through with a hugely impressive performance in arguably the best game of football of any of the finals played this year. In the end it was St Mary's who claimed the Dermot O'Brien Cup with two goals in as many minutes before the break from Emmet Leavy and Dean McCarren proving crucial to their victory in the end. The real star of the show for the Ardee outfit, however, was Padraig Clarke - brother of inter-county star, Darren. He gave a real captain's performance on the day by torturing the Brides defence time and time again with his mazy runs and even showing his versatility late on when dropping back into a sweeper role to help his side out at a time they were coming under enormous pressure. It was the Knockbridge outfit who were by far the quickest out of the traps with Michael Keane's point on two minutes being followed up by a Padraig Marry effort on four minutes that had to be pushed over the crossbar by goalkeeper Padraig Malone. Cathal McKenna then put them three points ahead on 11 minutes before St Mary's finally clicked into life with two points inside a minute from Clarke and Bryan Moran to leave just the minimum separating the sides after a quarter of an hour. Ken Rooney's side then bizaarely found themselves in front on 17 minutes. Wayne Matthews' ball out of defence was brilliantly won by Clarke who left Aidan McNally for dead before passing across the face of goal to McCarren who drilled a shot high to the top left hand corner to make it 1-2 to 0-3. Within seconds St Brides were back in front, however, as Keane's free from out on the left was floated in behind the Mary's defence with Kevin Hearty on hand to hammer to the net from close range. Clarke and McKenna then exchanged points at either end before the game dramatically swung in the Ardee outfit's favour with two minutes to go before half-time when Emmet Leavy cut in from the right before drilling to the net. Then right on the half hour mark McCarren had his name on the scoresheet for a second time when he collected a quickly taken free kick before beating full back Ricky McKeown and squeezing a shot past Allan Meegan at his near post to leave it 3-3 to 1-4 at the break. McKenna pulled a point back from a free within 38 seconds of the restart but two points in quick succession from Clarke quickly cancelled them out before Keane cut the deficit back to five points on 35 minutes. Robert McCabe then fired over five minutes later to give his side a six point advantage but it would prove to be their last score for some 10 minutes as the Brides launched an attempted comeback. Firstly McKenna fired over a 13 metre free after having a goal chance blocked down before Patrick O'Reilly had a shot brilliantly saved by the legs of goalkeeper Malone after Hearty had slipped him in with an inch-perfect pass. Keane and substitute Aidan Morris then both added points to cut the deficit back to three but two points inside a minute from James McMullen and a stunning score from Clarke from long range left the Mary's sitting pretty at 3-8 to 1-9 with nine minutes remaining. St Brides were not willing to give in without a fight, however, and three points in-a-row from Keane in the closing period helped cut the deficit to two, but St Mary's held out for a deserved victory. Scorers; St Mary's - Dean McCarren (2-0), Padraig Clarke (0-5, 1f), Emmet Leavy (1-0), James McMullen, Bryan Moran, Robert McCabe (0-1 each). St Mary's: Padraig Malone; Poa Lambe, David McArdle, Adam Byrne; David Rooney, Wayne Matthews, Barry Faulkner; James McMullen, Emmet Leavy; Andrew Mahony, Bryan Moran, Cathal Corrigan; Robert McCabe, Dean McCarren, Padraig Clarke. Sub used: Padraig Healy. Tweet

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