It seems that there is no end to Cooley Kickhams' pain. In 2007, the men from Fr McEvoy Park once more came agonisingly close to capturing the Joe Ward Cup but, yet again, they had to give second best to their deadly rivals St Patricks on county final day. Knowing that they were the second-best team in the '07 SFC offered no consolation to the Kickhams as their peninsula rivals celebrated a third senior championship triumph in five years. One could forgive Cooley Kickhams for losing all hope. Each year, they pick themselves back up for another tilt at the elusive Joe Ward Cup, only to be kicked back down in the most cruel and frustrating manner. Though they lit the 2007 SFC up with some scintillating football, ultimately it was another Groundhog Day scenario as they stumbled at the final hurdle again. Witnessing their fiercest rivals take possession of the Wee County's most coveted silverware served to rub salt in the wounds. Cooley have been forcefed more bitter pills than any team deserves in recent seasons and it is no surprise that their half of the peninsula is blanketed in a cloud of dark despair as a result. The contrast in emotions being felt on the Cooley peninsula could not be more pronounced. Cloud Nine for the Pats; the doldrums for Cooley. Of course, Cooley did retain the Cardinal O'Donnell Cup with a replay final victory over Naomh Malachi on Sunday December 2 to bring their spectacular Division One league haul to three titles in four years. This is a truly stunning achievement but it's no secret that the Joe Ward Cup is the one all Kickhams players and supporters want most. The Cooley famine now stretches back 17 years. The Kickhams have kept the trophy cabinet well stocked with numerous Cardinal O'Donnell Cup and ACC (Sheelan) Cup successes in that time - as well as a host of underage triumphs - but it's the 'big one' that they desperately crave. Sometimes, they seem fated to perpetually miss out but, somehow, the players have to find the resilience and self-belief to start all over again. It won't be easy but - on the positive side - they know that IF and WHEN they finally do garner another senior championship, it would spark the party of all parties in the Green & Gold terrain of Louth's most scenic region. Cooley Kickhams were the most consistent senior club in Louth in 2007. They won more games that anybody else in the league and championship combined, taking their customary place at the top of the Division One table (which earned a Cardinal O'Donnell Cup final berth against the year's surprise packets Naomh Malachi) and winning all but two of their SFC outings. Regretfully, both defeats in the senior knockout were inflicted by St Patricks - the final itself and the opening Group B fixture. Apart from that, Cooley's championship record was superb and their form would have been enough to scoop the top prize many other years. However, the Pats appear to have the Indian sign over their neighbours in major matches and Cooley will have to negotiate a psychological barrier to turn this around. Otherwise, this highly-gifted team could become the Jimmy White of Louth football! Cooley could offer many excuses as to why they missed out in 2007. From the unsettling effects of the Sean O'Neill suspension saga - was he or wasn't he? - to their lack of luck on county final day (although they didn't play to their full potential, they could still have won with even the slightest rub of the green) but excuses are futile and teams must accept that their fate is very much in their own hands in any 60-minute match. Bottom line: Cooley had a great chance to take the spoils but failed to perform when it mattered most. The woodwork that denied them thrice never moved - improved accuracy is the best way to avoid hitting posts! The 2007 Louth senior football championship final was played at Dowdallshill on Sunday September 23 and Karl White's seventh minute penalty helped the Pats to a narrow 1-9 to 0-9 success. That score gave the winners a 1-6 to 0-6 interval cushion and Cooley never managed to get back on terms. Twice, they closed within two points and Brian White's routine free in injury time could have narrowed the margin to one, but the normally reliable place-kicker picked the worst possible time to record an uncharacteristic miss. Cooley also hit the post three times, including a rasping drive which shaved the outside of the goal frame when an equalising goal looked inevitable. They never got the breaks but St Patricks always seemed to have a bit more big-match acumen. At the same venue five months earlier, it was a similar outcome as the peninsula pair also clashed in the opening round in Group B. On that occasion, the Pats enjoyed a 0-11 to 0-7 victory on Saturday April 21, setting down an early marker for the year and refusing to allow Cooley a psychological boost. It had been the same when the sides met three times at the semi-final stage in 2006, when they clashed in the 2004 decider; and when they paired off in the 2003 semi-final. Not to be put off by their opening-round defeat, Cooley bounced back in considerable style with a thumping 3-11 to 0-4 win over Naomh Malachi (who would emerge from the group and run Mattock all the way in their quarter-final) followed by another crushing victory at Kilkerley's expense at Louth village - 1-15 to 0-2. This was more like the real Cooley, the team that threatens to blow everybody in Louth away every year but then misfires when you-know-who are in the opposition corner. A place in the knockout stage was assured one Sean O'Mahonys were beaten in the fourth round (1-9 to 0-7) and Cooley ended Glyde's championship hopes when securing a hard-fought 1-9 to 1-7 victory in their ultimate Group B outing - a commendable result as Gary Thornton's men didn't have a lot to play on the last weekend of August. With the group stage out of the way, there were six teams left standing in the 2007 Louth SFC. The Brides and the Pats went straight through to the semi-finals, while Cooley, Newtown Blues, Mattock Rangers and Naomh Malachi clinched quarter-final berths. Cooley got a really difficult draw as they were paired with Newtown Blues at Pairc Mhuire on Saturday September 1 but they produced the performance of the year to prevail with five points to spare, 1-12 to 1-7. That quarter-final was a fractious affair in which Cooley almost managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. But they turned things around dramatically between the fourth and tenth minutes of injury time!!! The Blues were down to 13 men after the dismissals of Breen Phillips and Colm Judge, while the peninsula outfit lost Sean O'Neill for his part in the Phillips incident - a moment that would have lasting repercussions on Cooley's year. Cooley trailed by 0-6 to 0-2 after 25 minutes but landed seven successive scores to lead by 0-9 to 0-6 with just over five minutes of normal time left. Blues' first score of the second half was a 57th-minute goal from substitute Brian Kermode and, following a fracas, they had the audacity to move ahead in the 64th minute. But nobody was leaving Pairc Mhuire and Cooley ran off 1-3 without reply to book passage to the last four. John Kane (2) and Conor McGuinness got the points before Brian White confirmed the win with a late, late goal. Seven days later, they returned to the Ardee venue to eliminate St Brides in comprehensive fashion, advancing on a commanding 3-11 to 1-7 scoreline. Cooley's form in the knockout stage of the Joe Ward Cup was highly impressive and they went into the county final with lots of momentum generated. Though Pats had taken bragging rights in all the recent key meetings between the teams, they was a feeling in the air that 2007 was destined to be Cooley's year. They were men on a mission and here was chance to wipe away years of hurt with one big performance. Sadly, the performance never materialised. Perhaps they got too fired up on the day; maybe the team was unsettled by the Sean O'Neill controversy. But regardless of the hows, whys, ifs and buts, the history books will show that Cooley Kickhams did not win the 2007 Louth senior football championship in 2007. And that's how high they set their sights around McEvoy Park these days. There's no consolation. It's all or nothing. Second best is no better than last. No cigar but Cooley challenged on all fronts again It was another extremely busy year across the board for Cooley Kickhams but, yet again, the 'big one' eluded them. Despite contesting a second county final in four years, the first team failed marginally to bring the Joe Ward back to Fr McEvoy Park for the first time since 1990. It's a frustrating wait but former chairman Adrian Sheelan insists that Cooley have a lot to be proud of. It's a well-known statistic that Cooley have failed to capture the Louth SFC since 1990. However, while that uncanny famine continued in 2007, it must be said in mitigation that the Kickhams are by far and away the most consistent club in the Wee County these days and that nobody else has captured as much silverware at all levels over the past five years. The first team are perennial SFC challengers and they are always in the shake-up for the other two senior County Board trophies (normally winning at least one of them). The year gone by was no different as they progressed to the county decider, retained the Cardinal O'Donnell Cup with a final replay win over surprise packets Naomh Malachi, and surrendered the subsidiary league for the first time since its name was changed from the ACC to the Paddy Sheelan Cup. Incidentally, Paddy Sheelan was a great Cooley clubman (who starred in the 1940s) and father of current committee member and former chairman Adrian Sheelan, who feels the Kickhams are heading in the right direction. Adrian points to the success the club has recently had at minor level, their awesome consistency on all three senior competitions, the superb coaching, outstanding facilities and general success across the board in 2007 including ladies football, camogie and reserve team football. "It was a very busy year but, unfortunately, trophy-wise, the highlights were winning the Cardinal O'Donnell Cup and the junior 2A championship," he reflects. "The one we really wanted was the senior championship but we've now gone 17 years without winning it. We've had pretty good success in recent years, often contesting two or three of the senior finals, but we need to win a Joe Ward. "We won back-to-back minors in 2005 and 2006 and we've been in four successive Cardinal O'Donnell Cup finals, winning three. We won three subsidiary leagues in a row but surrendered that to the Blues this year. In the championship, we're always in the shake-up but can't get across the line. We've lost two finals, six semi-finals and a quarter-final in the last nine years." The consistency is staggering. "We're very consistent but on the day we're losing big games that we should be winning. Last year's championship semi-final against the Pats is a case in point. We led the first two games by six points and the third match by five but got caught because of schoolboy errors." Perhaps the pressure caused by the burden of expectation plays a part? "They shouldn't be under pressure. I believe that the minors of the past two years are good enough to play senior football and I was hoping to see six of them play senior in 2007 but it didn't happen. If we could get everybody on one boat rowing in the one direction, we'd be hard to stop. "We've consistently been more good than bad but we failed to deal with the two county finals in 2004 and 2007. Fellas got too sucked into the hullabaloo of the county final and didn't play football. '04 was this team's first final, so there was an excuse, but I genuinely thought they would deal with it this year. But the Pats have five or six county players and they were the difference. They're a good team and they can play football. They beat us for the first time in the championship in '99 and have had the upper hand ever since." Cooley haven't exactly enjoyed the rub of the green, though. "You make your own luck," Adrian counters. "We haven't done enough with the ball when it counts. I've no doubt that we have the players to win championships. When I came into the chair [for five years] in 1999, I expected them to win senior championships but it never happened. "Gerry Farrell, who's still the driving force, had done the work with those lads at underage level and I knew the talent was there. We're still strong at juvenile level, winning an All-Ireland Feile in 2006, so there's another batch coming through and we have five or six lads on the current Louth U21 team. The likes of Brian Donnelly, Richard Brennan, Keith White, Patrick Sheelan and Conor Rafferty have won championships from U14 level through to minor. If we had six or seven of those lads in the first team, we could win a senior championship." As a player, Adrian featured on a team that once went five or six years without winning a championship match before coming good, so he knows all about the expectation levels in the peninsula. "Cooley people expect championships," he notes. "And a huge effort is put in every year. Gary Thornton and his backroom left no stone unturned in 2006 and 2007 and the same went for Pete McGrath before that. If we'd won one, we could have won three or four. That's how it worked out for the Pats. "Our facilities are excellent. We opened a new extension to our complex in January 2006, which includes a 300 square metre function room, where we held our dinner dance with 240 people seated for the meal. The function room is fully equipped to deal with dinner dances and table quizzes. There's also a bar/social club, gym, sauna, changing rooms and stand. A lot goes on in the complex - badminton, camogie, youth club activities, ladies football etc. "We also have a club shop, which does a good trade selling jerseys, club tops and hoodies etc. We have a pre-school playgroup with over 30 kids, which is a good way of introducing kids to the club at a very young age. Cooley will always be their first club! "Our ladies have been very successful over the years and we won our first ever Louth camogie championship in 2007 under Ann Callan. Everything is ultimately geared towards success in the SFC and that will come. I have no doubt about it. We have nine championships and we just can't seem to get into double figures. There's a fine line between success and failure. In 1990, we stole it against Young Irelands in the first round and went on to retain the championship, so we need a break. "We have an excellent development committee, which was chaired by current club chairman Peter McCarthy for two years. The McCarthy family has a great GAA tradition and Peter and his two brothers - Martin and Harry - have 14 SFCs between them." For a rural club, Cooley has tremendous support. They had 280 people at last year's AGM and have managed to build an extension to the tune of two million euro. The club owns two pitches and hopes to acquire land for a third, which could be up and running by next Spring. They hosted the very popular international minor tournament from 1995 until 2002 and a Cooley man - Peter Larkin - has also devised the very popular Sports Tracker innovation. The club is coaching players aged six to ten on Saturday mornings and has sent ten members to coaching seminars in Croke Park, which will benefit the next generation enormously. A massive amount of time and money is being spent on underage development, with 1989 captain John McDonald doing unbelievable work around the schools. Sean Thornton and former county player Leo McGuigan are also extremely active with underage nurturing, while the input of people like development committee chairman Derek Malone, vice chairman Nicholas Rafferty, ladies managers Mark Treanor and Turlough McCarthy - not to mention the club's array of intercounty talent at all levels - should never be underestimated. "We will win a senior championship," Adrian concludes. "All we have to do is get everybody together working in the same direction. We have the same aim every year and it'll be the same again in 2008. Families in the peninsula are steeped in the GAA. There's too much tradition here for this famine to go on much longer." Tweet

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