In 2005 Seamus Conlon received the Club Official of the Year award for an unprecedented second time. The Aughnamullen man is unlikely to rest on his laurels though. Kevin Carney reports. It's not often things are reckoned to be sweeter second time around but for Aughnamullen stalwart Seamus Conlon, being afforded the Club Official of the Year for the second time took the biscuit. He professes to being genuinely suprised whe he was declared the 2005 winner at the county board's annual presentation night. Seamus felt pretty sure that the award would go elsewhere, partly because no other person in Monaghan had received such an accolade on the double. A winner way back in the eighties, not long after the awards system was inaugurated, Seamus moves with the speed of an attacking half-back to deflect the kudos that comes with such an acknowledgement of one's contribution to the GAA. "I feel it's more of a recognition of what the club tried to do in 2005," Seamus explains. "The award is for all those people in the club who put in such hard work in getting things done as regards the development work that was carried on," he adds. Fact is though, the world and his mother know that Seamus was the fulcrum of Aughnamullen's tremendously ambitious development of its facilities over the course of 2004/05. It's just as well that football is "a way of life" for him. Just as well for Aughnamullen Sarsfields and Monaghan GAA that Seamus's passion for the native game has, if anything, intensified over the years. Truth is, there ain't too many selfless Gaels like our man Conlon about these days. His mission? "Just to see an active, vibrant club with the right infrastructure in place and the foundations there to allow some success to be achieved," Seamus replies. He's unprepared to divulge just what batteries he's on and his quip that the self-same batteries are low and that he's operating with the support of jump leads at the best of times is typical of his self-deprecating humour. Seamus says that Aughnamullen is well got with members running on long-lasting batteries. There's always room for an even greater division of labour though and, in that respect, he'd like to see more players contributing on the administration front. "I think every club official would tell you that it's harder now to get people to become involved at committee level whereas maybe twenty or thirty years ago, players practically ran the club or there was at least a big participation by players at committee level." And the reason for the dilution of player participation? "Maybe players feel that they contribute enough time and effort in terms of training and matches and there's no doubt that it is a more professional approach nowadays. "It's important though that players' involvement in a club is integrated instead of running parallel with the club and that committee members and players aren't working totally independent of each other." Would Seamus agree that Gaelic games isn't quite the same priority with players these days as it once was? "There's no doubt there's more distractions now for players. "With the advent of the Celtic Tiger, a lot of people's focus is on getting good, well paid jobs, paying back mortgages and there's certainly a whole different lifestyle now. "Maybe some players believe that administration affairs are best done by older members or simply people who aren't players." Seamus has given a lifetime of service to his club and the GAA, serving Aughnamullen as a player with distinction before enhancing matters at the Sarsfields via his numerous official roles. Over the years he has regretted what he has seen as a progressively more "serious" side to Gaelic games participation. In short, he feels that some of the craic has gone out of things. "The fun element seems to have gone a bit from a player's point of view," Seamus opines. "Things are very competitive at every level and the pressure to deliver trophies is something you find at every grade. "I don't think it'll be any different in the future though. "You can see that from just watching the juvenile games and the way some parents and coaches get very agitated. But it's a pity that football has got so serious." That said, there's a serious serious side to Seamus as well. When it comes to putting his shoulder to the wheel for at least the past couple of decades in the serious business of giving leadership to the club, holding the purse strings, the raising of funds and the overall nurturing of a feel-good factor about the Sarsfields, Seamus has been as serious as anyone. He's glad that his beloved club has come a long way in terms of the estalishing top notch facilities, encompassing a new social centre to the value of some three-quarters of a million euros. "Getting the centre up and running has been a big boost to the club and to the community," Seamus enthuses. "It has pulled the community together and has been a focal point for the people of the parish since it opened a couple of years ago." With lottery funding, a couple of car draws, poker classics to supplement the youth employment schemes and the elbow and mental grease supplied by stalwarts like Seamus, Aughnamullen's social centre has become a reality and a success and plans afoot to install a fitness suite and gym will leave the south county crew the envy of most clubs in the county. Seamus's great hope is that success on the playing field will soon be achieved, thus complementing the dividend reaped by the club from its fund-raising expertise. 2007 will mark the Sarsfields' seventh successive year competing in the junior ranks and men like Seamus are desperate to see the club scale the heights. "We got to two junior finals in 2001 and 2005 and losing them knocked the stuffing out of a lot of lads and it definitely took its toll on the whole club. "Each time we lost a final, a fair few of the lads dropped out of things and they had to be replaced and we had to go about building the team again. "Fellas got disillusioned with losing and the club, as a whole, has found it difficult to get the habit of failure out of our system." The outgoing Chairman (2006 was his fifth consecutive year in the post, second time around) sports a winning background as a player and he'd dearly love to see a winning mentality develop once more in Aughnamullen. Seamus featured on the IFC-winning teams of 1972, '73 and '78 but expresses the hope that the work being done at juvenile level in recent years will bear fruit sooner rather than later. "There are some fairly strong juvenile teams coming through right now at the club with a fair bit of success at division three and division four levels. "If they can keep progressing we could be looking at success at division one level in the next few years. "I feel there's a good enough future ahead for those players if they can be nurtured up through the ranks to senior level." Seamus pays tribute to the coaches at the club who have invested a lot of energy and time into taking charge of the various teams and he expresses the hope that with the onset of the County Development Plan, the anticipated rise in the local population will increase the harvest of players available to the club coaches. "Luckily we've never been under pressure down the years in terms of the numbers game," Seamus tells us. "Because of the creameries and the local factories, there's always been a good deal of employment so we haven't lost too many fellas to Dublin or elsewhere. "I'm not so sure whether there'll be much of a population increase over the next few years but there should be some and that can only be a good thing for the club." Reflecting on the past year's innings, Seamus says it was disappointing that the club's premier team gain promotion to the intermediate ranks. He personally felt at the start of the season that Aughnamullen were capable of doing the needful either at championship or league level. "We reached the semi-final of the championship but didn't perform on the day against Drumhowan. " I think it was more disappointing that we didn't qualify for the league semi-finals though." And the short-term outlook? "It might take the introduction of a few of the better lads coming through to make the difference. "We've lost out at the final stages a few years now and we definitely need to do something in the coming year to pick up morale. "At the end of the day though it's down to the players." One wonders has the success of neighbours Latton been a help or a hindrance towards generating a degree of ambition and belief in Aughnamullen's finest? "It should be an incentive for the lads because a good few of them would have went to school with the Latton lads. All credit to Latton but we have to look to ourselves to achieve something," says Seamus whose father Jim featured on Latton's SFC winning side of 1939 as did his uncle Patsy. With crystal ball in hand, Seamus says Aughnamullen have the ability to leap back into intermediate ranks if the right attitude is forthcoming from the players and "a bit of luck. " "I'd be optimistic," says Seamus. "If you were't optimistic, you'd be better off having nothing to do with it." Tweet

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