As one of the smallest clubs in the county, Annaghminnon Rovers are always under severe pressure numbers-wise. In 2010, however, the Stonetowm men gave a decent account of themselves, fielding two adult teams and making impressive strides at underage level. The long-term aim is to ensure a steady flow of players into the first team and, to their credit, the Rovers appear to have got their act together in this regard.

They might not collect silverware every year, but Annaghminnon Rovers are nonetheless worthy of tremendous respect within Louth GAA circles. For 52 years now, the club has flown the Association flag proudly despite an ongoing battle against the odds. Their very existence defies demographics, geography and mathematics. And with a renewed effort now going into fostering underage football in the club, the signs are encouraging that the Stonetown men will be here for many more years - and decades - to come!
There hasn't exactly been an influx of talent into the first team in recent seasons. This is largely down to the meagre numbers Annaghminnon have at their disposal.
In fairness, Stonetown is no metropolis. Still, the club has recognised that they've perhaps been guilty of neglecting their prospective juveniles, and therefore running the risk of losing them to neighbouring outfits. Thus, a new emphasis on underage development has been conceived.
For anyone involved with one of the Wee County's bigger and more successful clubs, it would be difficult to fathom the sheer scale of the difficulties facing Annaghminnon on an annual basis. There were just 35 children in the local Primary School in 2010 (that number has plummeted from 120) - and around half of these are girls. So where does the club get its playing resources from? That's the challenge. And they're facing it head-on, effectively starting from scratch in terms of underage development.
The club has fantastic facilities, with dressing-rooms and a referee's room and a club hall, where Bingo on a Wednesday night acts as one of the main sources of revenue. What they need now, is to attract more players to grace those facilities. And they're definitely moving in the right direction…
In 2010, Annaghminnon fielded junior and reserve adult teams as well as competing in the Og Sport and providing a handful of players to the various St Mochtas / Annaghminnon juvenile teams.
Annaghminnon's Youth Officer Stephen Finnegan believes the club can continue to make progress at underage level, particularly if everybody works together: "Only for the dedicated parents, we would find it very difficult. We can always rely on the parents to have kids there for training and for the Blitzes, and that's absolutely vital. I've been Youth Officer for three years now and only for the input of the parents we would just have to forget about it. So we have to thank them."
Training takes place every Tuesday night, accommodating U7s, U8s, U9s and U10s, working off a pool of about 20 youngsters. The session lasts for about an hour, working on basic skills and drills. In conjunction with Stephen, Sean Murray, Gerard Markey and Gerard Pepper are all instrumental in helping to nurture the underage talent in the club and the main aim is to ensure that the lads have a good time. "At that age, we just bring them in and make sure they enjoy their football," Stephen confirms. "We hosted six Blitzes in Stonetown this year and they were all great. We had one there with Na Piarsaigh, the Clans and the Fechins and everyone really enjoyed the day."
"Underage in the club has been neglected and that caught up with us," the Youth Officer continues. "We knew we were under pressure to start doing something with younger lads and at least we've made a start now. Og Sport Lu is brilliant. Only for them, we wouldn't be fit to do this. They put on a lot of games and the youngsters get great enjoyment out of it. It's a brilliant organisation and hopefully in the next 15 or 20 years their work will pay off and Louth will win a Leinster championship - and get to keep it this time!"
In 2010, Annaghminnon supplied Fergal Markey to the amalgamation with St Mochtas which won an U14 Division Three league title. The club also had four players on the U21 amalgamation team that got as far as the semi-final, and three players with the minor combo. They had no U16s this year but Stephen Finnegan is confident that players will now start to filter through more regularly, pointing out that some of the eight- and nine-year-olds he's working with at present have enough early promise to suggest they'll be excellent players in the coming years.
While the statistics concerning numbers in the parish are stark Stephen admits that "we have no-one to blame but ourselves. There are a handful of players in the Mochtas and Killanny at the moment who could have been with us if the correct set-up was there. Thankfully, we have started to rectify the situation. The fact is that if we didn't do something, we might as well have folded the club up."
At adult level, Annaghminnon fielded two teams in 2010, working off a squad of 36 or 37 players in total. "Like any other club, we've been hit by emigration," Stephen continues. "Ronan Byrne, who was our Player of the Year in 2009, went to Canada and that was a big blow. He was a great footballer but he lost his job and had to leave. Another lad went to America. Any club would miss those lads but when you take quality like that out of a small club like Annaghminnon, we're really going to feel it.
"We have a core of five or six really good players but it's hard to fill in the bones of the team after that. You also have fellas working late and lads who can't get time off work for training. For example, my brother Alan was club captain this year but he works as a carpenter and that means a lot of late nights and it's far from ideal. We also fielded in the Division 4C league and I had the honour of captaining that team, but it was a tough year."
In the JFC, Annaghminnon lost their opener to Sean McDermotts by 3-16 to 0-7, with the following personnel on duty: Shane Russell; Seamus Martin, Rory McClean, Alan Finnegan; Padraig Leegan, Martin
O'Hare, Thomas Martin; Niall Kelly, Aidan Kerr (0-1); Michael Brennan, David Marron (0-4), Tony Martin (0-1); Brian Doherty, Declan Lambe, Mark Brennan (0-1). Subs: Michael Smith for Doherty, Paul Kelly for Kelly, Niall Matthews for Lambe.
In the race for second spot in Group Two, they were pipped by St Kevins, 0-12 to 1-5. They battled gamely in that match and David Marron's penalty goal shortly after the restart had them well in contention, but it was the Seans who advanced to the quarter-final stage after a hard-fought contest. Annaghminnon, 2010 Louth JFC V St Kevins: Shane Russell; Michael Smith, Declan Lambe, Martin Woods; Seamus Martin, Thomas Martin, Alan Finnegan; Niall Kelly, Kevin McKeown; Mark Brennan, Tony Martin (0-2), Michael Brennan; David Marron (1-2), Aidan Kerr, Stephen Finnegan. Subs: David Kellett for Lambe, Niall Matthews for Finnegan.
Regarding the first team, Stephen notes: "We had a great year last year under Micheal McKeown but he got ill this year and Joey Callan came in for a while, but things just didn't go his way. We have a close-knit club and everybody knows each other. There's never any conflict in Annaghminnon. If you're there, you're there for life.
"From a personal point of view, I don't think the junior leagues are very well set up for the likes of Annaghminnon, John Mitchels or Westerns. There are a lot of teams there who realistically shouldn't be playing junior football and it's very hard to compete with them. When we won the JFC in 2000, there were only seven clubs involved and most of them were around the same level, so at least you had a chance.
"But it's gone the other way now and it's very hard for small clubs like ourselves to keep plugging away against bigger clubs.
"I know the counter-argument is that maybe there should be only one club in our parish instead of two, but we've been here for over 50 years now and we want to keep it going." Tweet

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