Fermanagh Football & Hurling

[ExiledGael]

Not sure on Mark Little though his older brothers certainly did feature for St Comghall's.

[118cmal]

Just heard a rumour that Rory Gallagher, Mark Little, Shaun Doherty and Mattie Keenan have been omitted from the McKenna Cup squad.  Keenan is having an operation  Does anyone know why the others have been left out?  Strong management again by Malachy...?

[FermPundit]

Just heard a rumour that Rory Gallagher, Mark Little, Shaun Doherty and Mattie Keenan have been omitted from the McKenna Cup squad.  Keenan is having an operation  Does anyone know why the others have been left out?  Strong management again by Malachy...?

Yep, Rory didn't make the squad. I was a bit surprised but I suppose he hasn't played inter county football since 2005 and he probably isn't the player he once was. Two new additions to the squad are James Connolly and Ryan Carson from NTB. This will please a lot of people within the county. The hogan stand ran a story that Mark Little didn't make the squad as well. I would find this very hard to believe. The Fermanagh Herald only talked about the panel but didn't list all the players. Until I see his name missing from the finalised squad will I believe he hasn't been selected.

[keeping an eye on things]

Was reading the Hearld and saw in the 'Skea clubnotes a message congratulating Mark Little and Daniel Kille on making the panel for the McKenna cup

[FermPundit]

This has nothing to do with football but does anyone know why the Impartial Reporter hasn't been updated online for weeks?

[supersub]

anyone at the league final today? how'd it turn out?

[FermPundit]

anyone at the league final today? how'd it turn out?

SFL Divison one final.

Devenish 2-09 Newtownbutler 1-08.

They got the winning goal in the last minute.

Erne Cup Division one final

The game between Derrygonnelly 2 and Maguiresbridge ended in a draw

Derrygonnelly 2 1-11 Maguriesbridge 2-08

[FermPundit]

Erne Cup promotion/relegation play off

Lisnaskea 1-09 4-07 Belcoo

So relegation to division two for Lisnaskea Emmetts reserves. It rounds off what has truly been an awful year for Skea with the seniors being relegated as well. A bit of soul searching is required this winter. A big club like Lisnaskea shouldn't be playing division two football at any level.

[inisceithleann]

Erne Cup promotion/relegation play off

Lisnaskea 1-09 4-07 Belcoo

So relegation to division two for Lisnaskea Emmetts reserves. It rounds off what has truly been an awful year for Skea with the seniors being relegated as well. A bit of soul searching is required this winter. A big club like Lisnaskea shouldn't be playing division two football at any level.

Skea have been on the slide for years, big soccer town and big drinkers as well (what town or village is different). Typical of most town clubs around the country. They seemed to have a right bit underage success but it hasn't been brought through at all.

[keeping an eye on things]

Was reading through the Irish News there this morning and they are doing a daily feature on each counties 'club stars' from the championship and today it's Fermanaghs turn.  Very surprised by some of Michael Breslins selections! He has 5 Coa men on it and I no they won the junior championship and beat Augher in Ulster but don't think it's worthy of 5 selections, 2-3 maybe! Also 8 Donagh men on it and we all no the story with them this year but 5 would have probably been a more accurate reflection.  Can't believe the likes of Kevin Cassisy, Declan Cassidy, Rory Foy, haven't made it.  I no it's only a bit of craic but does anyone seriously agree with those selections?

[ExiledGael]

Noticed those alright yesterday. Picture of Gary Maguire was Fergal O'Reilly and the pic of Paul Ward was Shaun Doherty, I know we're minnows but they have all played for the county.
Anyway was surprised by the team, thought Erne Gaels would warrant a few more, especially Ryder at midfield. Couldn't argue with a lot of the others, Kevs Cassidy perhaps also unlucky. Wasn't a great year for a lot of clubs, Teemore missing a few big men in Owens and O'Reilly, Skea and the Gaels lacking much direction for a while now. Belcoo and Newtown also didn't do themselves much justice.

[Fermanaghandsam]

Taken from the Sunday Tribune

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The 2008 Sporting Year In Review I Was There - Kieran Shannon
Fermanagh v Armagh, Ulster Final, 20 July
They Erne'd it: Fermanagh players stand for the National Anthem in Clones before the county's first Ulster final since 1982

As far back as my schooldays one of my main wishes in life has been to go to an Ulster final with my father. Not just any Ulster final but one with Fermanagh playing. My father was 17 when he left the county for Belfast and over the years work would take him to live in Dublin, Dungarvan and finally Cork but he never forgot where he came from and we were never in any doubt either.

As a kid I'd listen out for Fermanagh's league result as keenly as I would Cork's. I'd scan through the sports pages of The Fermanagh Herald that would come through the letterbox every week after Dad had devoured it and together we'd talk about the latest exploits of Peter McGinnity and Tommy Maguire and young Malachy O'Rourke. When my cousin Niall from Enniskillen would visit and play in our back garden, he'd be Fermanagh and I'd be Cork, but then when he'd head home and I'd be back to playing the neighbours all lining up to be either Dinny Allen and Cork or Jacko and Kerry, I'd have the hand up wanting to be some boy called McGinnity.

I don't know why I found it so easy to root for Fermanagh. Dad certainly didn't force it on me. He didn't force anything on me, football included, and through my teens, basketball would become my first love; football was a distant second with all its table-banging and shivering in the corner or on the line in the cold and the rain. But I always loved following football and Fermanagh was a part of that love affair.

Maybe it was out of sympathy for Dad. We'd go to the big games in Thurles, Limerick and Cork with our friends from Cork and Tipp, the pubs and the streets thronged to see Munster's finest, and every now and then one of the lads for a laugh would shout "C'mon Fermanagh!" "And it's a goal for Fermanagh!" And I'd watch Dad quietly laugh with them too, knowing there was an undercurrent there as well – Fermanagh don't do big days like this, Fermanagh will never do big days like this.

I always found there was a dignified humility about Fermanagh people, something my father personified. As much as I had grown up in Cork and was proud of the fact I was always somewhat discomfitted by that arrogant side to the Cork character and how fellas on barstools could dismiss the hurling argument of someone from Clare or Waterford with a quip like "Roll of Honour, boy", or as I witnessed first-hand, my own father with "Sure what would you know about hurling? You're from Fermanagh." There was something about Fermanagh folk I found more endearing. It wasn't that they were "nice" or "too nice" as Pat Spillane once told Brian D'Arcy, and humility wasn't quite the term for it either. It would take me years to define it.

For years too I regretted that my father and myself never got to the 1982 Ulster final. We still don't know why we didn't, just that we went to the Munster hurling final instead. I think and fear that perhaps Dad caved in to peer pressure, or more precisely, pressure from me, taken as I was by all the local hype that surrounded Cork-Waterford. That game was a non-event, and my abiding memory of the day is of Dad, with his ear to his little transistor, clenching his fist when he heard about McGinnity's wonder goal and then his quiet muttering on the way out of Semple Stadium, cursing that Fermanagh had lost, and for all I know, cursing that he wasn't even there.

His brother Joe had been in Clones and on the way down its famous hill, my cousin Niall noticed his father was crying. "What's wrong, Daddy?"

"I'll never see us win one now."

Joe was right. He had suffered a heart attack earlier that year, and in 1991, at 49 years of age, the heart finally gave in for good. A couple of years later my own father underwent a quadruple bypass while still in his mid-40s, and when Niall told me about what his dad had said to him in Clones it dawned on me that I wasn't going to have forever to go to an Ulster final with my dad.

Around this time last year I got a chance to do something about it. Malachy O'Rourke had been appointed county manager and as a reader of the Tribune, he knew I was also a sport psychology consultant. He also knew that my father was from Derrylin, just like himself. Would I come on board with the team? To do something special would require doing something different and having a performance coach with Fermanagh blood would be part of that.

As a rule because of my job as a journalist I don't work with inter-county teams participating in the senior hurling or football championships, but after sounding out both my father and my editor, I agreed. For one year I'd work with an inter-county team and get to bring my father to that Ulster final.

Fermanagh started the year in Division Three. It was a wildly-competitive division, with seven other dangerous, mid-ranking teams and the spectre of relegation and the Tommy Murphy Cup hovering in the background, but by mid-April we had secured promotion and were one of only two unbeaten teams in the country. Then, on the last Sunday of May, we saw off a fancied Monaghan side in the first round of the championship, my father by my side in Brewster Park. I'd told the players from the start that I was involved to bring my father to see an Ulster final so come championship, I wouldn't be in the dressing room with them on match day until we'd won that Ulster; I'd be with him instead.

Before any Ulster final though, there was the matter of Derry. Heading into Omagh, Derry were raging favourites to win Ulster and behind only Kerry and Dublin to win the All Ireland itself. But in the Fermanagh camp, the mood and the mindset was just right.

Derry would be an even greater test of our resolve and composure. In the past decade Fermanagh had played in nine major semi-finals and failed to win even one. So 10 days out from the game I showed all the boys a photograph of an inspirational figure from black history.

Rosa Parks was a housekeeper working in Montgomery, Alabama where blacks couldn't even sit across a bus aisle from a white person. They could sit in the middle rows alright – until the white section was full. Then they had to move to sit towards the back or stand, or, if there was no room, leave the bus. Once, the bus driver had demanded Parks get off and re-enter through the backdoor, but before Parks got close to re-entering through the backdoor, he drove off, leaving her walk five miles in the rain.

"Lads," I said, "does that remind you of anyone? That you can stay until someone else comes along and tells you to move aside? That you can win your preliminary round and your first round but come a certain point, come an Ulster semi-final, you're meant to feck off down or off the bus and come back in through the backdoor?

"Now on Saturday week there's another bus leaving from Omagh and people are going to expect us to just move aside. But no, we're staying on that bus and it's taking us all the way to Clones. Because we have that determination. We've endured long enough. We know it's time, that it's our time. And we have something else. When Rosa Parks wrote her autobiography she called it Quiet Strength. That, she said, was what she was armed with that day. Now I look around this room and that's what I see. Hugh Brady. Quiet strength. Shane Goan – quite strength. Tommy McElroy – quiet strength. Barry Owens. Quiet. Strength. Mark Murphy..." I could have named them all. And I could have named Brendan Shannon too. There. That's the term I was always searching for. Not "humility", not "nice", but quiet strength.

I watched that Derry game with my cousin Niall; my father, unaware that Ulster Council would move the game to a Saturday night, had long bought tickets to bring my mother to a concert and was tied to that commitment. But he got seeing the first half on the box, and then going to and during the gig, he was texting me furiously. "How is it now?" "How r we doing?"

"Still two down." "One up – Barry just on and scored goal." "Four up with 10 to go." And then something I had longed for years to say – "We're going to the Ulster final, Dad."

On 20 July that's precisely what we did. The weather was more glorious than it had ever been in my dreams – it must have been the only warm, sunny day of the year. And we were all there, just as I'd always pictured it – Dad, Niall, the cousins and aunts – having a drink in the courtyard of the Creighton Hotel on the foot of the famous hill. I can't say I was basking in the moment though. Funny, that's what I'd be telling the players – stay in the moment, stay loose, keep with the process and trust the outcome will take care of itself – but when you're away from the team, you're mostly thinking about outcome. On Thursday night at training our centre-back Ryan McCluskey broke his finger. How would he go? How would the game go? The sport psychologist was the one who needed the psychologist. Instead I had Dad but then that's all I needed, and as we walked up the hill, we smiled. This was it. This was what it was all about.

Once inside the ground I was relaxed but the first half itself was tense, about the only thing separating the sides a Finian Moriarty goal. A minute into the second half though, Ronan Clarke broke through for a goal and now we were eight down. Strange, but I actually still felt confident and a lot better than I had been two hours earlier. We had been well behind against Leitrim, Wexford and Derry as well and come back. That's what we did here. Marty thumped over a point from 50 yards. Then wee Eamonn Maguire pounced for a goal. And then though we hit wide after wide, we kept coming at Armagh in wave after wave with the kind of fury only the dispossessed can possess.

A minute into injury time and Fermanagh still down by a point Shane McDermott picked out Shaun Doherty with a wonderful floating pass to run onto and from 40 yards Shaun let fly. 'The Doc' had only been on the field five minutes and his previous attempt at goal had sailed well wide but this time the connection between boot and ball seemed just right. And for about 20 yards it just floated towards Paul Hearty's goal, and then it was as if it was willed the rest of the way and over the crossbar by the Fermanagh crowd in the terrace behind. Equaliser. Draw. Replay. After a lifetime of never seeing Fermanagh play in an Ulster final, we'd suddenly see them play two in a week.

The second one didn't go to plan. With 20 minutes there was only a point in it but then Barry Owens was carried off minutes after coming on and when he went, something of our quiet strength seemed to go with him. Maybe one wide too many had been kicked, maybe one battle too far had been fought, but whenever Steve McDonnell pounced to blast past Ronan Gallagher, even I knew it was over.

The following week, so was the whole season after the infamous widefest with Kildare. In the space of eight days Fermanagh had gone from darlings of the nation to the joke of the nation in the eyes of those cold, timid souls who'll never know neither victory nor defeat.

I had gotten to know both, very, very well. I had gotten to see up close the intelligence and geniality of Malachy O'Rourke and his selectors; the humility and fortitude of Marty McGrath and Barry Owens; the moral courage of Ryan Keenan; the steadying influence and indefatigable spirit of Ronan Gallagher, Ryan McCluskey, Liam McBarron; the blooming of Tommy McElroy and Damien Kelly; the warmth and camaraderie of the whole group. It was the privilege of a lifetime and as often as I myself have found those wides against Armagh and Kildare the most pronounced image of Fermanagh's season, I've checked myself in recent months and tried to recall all the good times we had together. The group, the cousins, and especially my dad and our drive back down to Cork the Monday after that drawn Ulster final and the chat and the hope that carried us there.

"Hey, the Doc did it! It was the Doc that did it!"

"Francie can't handle Barry, sure he can't, Kieran?"

"We'll take them the next day."

I won't be involved with Fermanagh next year. This writing gig hardly allows it and really, family life doesn't either. This past year the whole Ulster thing had become an obsession, and a couple of months ago my own father reminded me that instead of all that travelling up north trying to get something for him, I had to remember I was a father myself to wee Aimee.

The day after Malachy informed the players I wouldn't be around for 2009 Ronan Gallagher called to thank me for my contribution and to say that he and the boys would be doing all they could to get my father to another Ulster final. And I know they will. I hope it's in Ronan's playing days and I pray to God it's in Dad's lifetime, but I know for a fact it'll happen in mine. And when it does, I'll walk up that hill in Clones and by my side in some form or another will be my father, the pair of us armed with quiet strength.
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I found it a good article, it brought back all the memories from the Summer, lets hope next year will be even better!!!!!!

[ExiledGael]

Seen that advertised F&S and meant to get the tribune.
Cheers for posting it. We'll get there some day.

[FermPundit]

Seen that advertised F&S and meant to get the tribune.
Cheers for posting it. We'll get there some day.

I hope you're right Exiled. I feel sick thinking about the Ulster final. I just hope last Summer's disappointment will drive the players on to the holy grail next year.

[ExiledGael]

Another end of year Fermanagh piece, this one from Hoganstand. Apologies if you've all seen it but it's worth posting.

Loyal son of Fermanagh
29 December 2008

"I'd be happy to sit on the bench for the next five years if it meant we were to win the Ulster title" - Shaun Doherty.
Shaun Doherty is the player whose injury-time point in last July's Ulster SFC final secured a glorious draw for rank outsiders Fermanagh in their duel with Armagh.
If he never kicks a ball in anger again for the Ernesiders, the Kinawley native will be remembered for that mother and father of cool, calm levelling points.
Doherty played admittedly cameo roles in Fermanagh's 2008 championship odyssey but try taking the honour of it all from his county's unlikely hero.
At the outset of 2008, most pundits viewed Fermanagh as the only one among the so-called 'outsiders' who had the artillery to spring a surprise in the Ulster SFC.
And by dint of their promotion-winning exploits in division three, the end of Spring ignited a run of bets on the Ernesiders to finally end their championship hoodoo.
Even defeat in the league final failed to dim the expectations of Fermanagh's proud, passionate and partisan supporters.
Indeed, by the time the only team never to have landed the Anglo Celt Cup ended Monaghan's provincial championship aspirations, turf accountants began to look to their laurels.
Fermanagh's gritty victory at home to Monaghan was eyed as a litmus test of the county's development under new boss Malachy O'Rourke and things were set to get even better.
Would-be hero provincial final hero Shaun Doherty says victory over the Oriel men kick-started a season which proved that "we're getting closer and closer to where we want to go."
"We didn't win the Ulster title but getting to the final was a very positive experience for the county; after all it was 26 years since we had reached that stage before" Doherty explains.
"Getting to the finals is what you need to be at if you want to get the sort of experience needed to eventual crack it. It was Armagh's cuteness and know-how that got them through."
Fermanagh didn't crack the code in '08, of course, but they laid down a marker and opened a few more eyes, least of all that of an orange and white hue.
"I think Armagh were a bit stunned in the first game (of the final) by the freshness of our approach, our fitness and the intensity of our tackling.
"Credit to them though for obviously studying a video of the match, learning some lessons from the (drawn) game and coming back with a new plan for the replay."
And their plan exactly?
"I think in the replay they decided to concentrate on stopping our lads running through and had a man-marking policy in place whereas in the drawn they tended to mark space before tackling the man in possession.
"In the replay, they went one-on-one which left us with hardly a second on the ball and prevented us from putting the ball into the danger area in front of goal when we wanted.
"There was always pressure put on the man on the ball and on him when he was about to kick it with Aidan O'Rourke covering in front of their full-back line."
Armagh's master plan which ultimately worked the oracle and helped eke out their 1-11 to 0-8 victory (following their 2-8 to 1-11 draw) contrasted starkly with Fermanagh's folly.
Dire consequences in front of goal in the replay conspired to haul the Ernesiders kicking and screaming into the All-Ireland SFC qualifiers but don't expect Doherty to point fingers:
"Our shooting let us down and it was a pity for the lads up front but we made mistakes all over the place and not just in defence," the Kinawley clubman advises.
"We trained all year and a lot of shooting practice was included in our training with endless shots being taken and the lads were full time taking free-kicks.
"But there's just no replicating the atmosphere and conditions of an Ulster final and I think, to a certain extent, nerves played a part in the misses.
"After the drawn game, we genuinely felt we could go one better but kicking seven or eight wides undermined our confidence and things started slipping away from us.
"But there was much more to our defeat than just our shooting because at times we didn't lay off the ball as quickly as we should have and we didn't take responsibility at other times.
"We have very good players on the team, good marksman but unfortunately we didn't strike while the iron was hot the first day and we paid the price for that.
"I definitely feel that if there had been another two or three minutes played at the end of the first game we would have won it.
"They were cuter and sharper to the ball in the replay and maybe the notion that Armagh don't lose replays enter our psyche and that counted against us too."
And yet months after the grave disappointment of being so near and yet so far away, Shaun at least has a golden memory to cling to and which he describes as a "dream."
History will detail how, in the third minute of injury time during the first game of the final, our man Doherty hit an equaliser which was sucked over the bar by the Fermanagh fans.
Malachy O'Rourke showed his football nous by introducing, firstly, Shane Lyons to full-back and then relocating Shane McDermott to the half-back line.
O'Rourke also sent in super-sub Doherty in the 64th minute which, above all else, proved to be the manager's most judicious decision.
Doherty got the ball in his paws in hte 73rd minute, looked up, eyed the goalposts and executed the most sublime, perfect kick which sent the ball high between the uprights.
It was a score that fairly franked a draw for the Fermanagh men and brought to a climax a run which saw them fight back from an eight point deficit to earn the draw.
Understandably, Fermanagh's hero has a vivid memory of the day he sent half of the 34,000-plus crowd into delirium and left the other half gobsmacked:
"It was a dream score for me and obviously it meant a hell of a lot to the county and the supporters there in Clones that day," the 24-year old attacker explains.
"It was great in the first place to come off the bench, even for the last few minutes, but to knock over the leveller was amazing and unforgettable.
"It was a chance that I was determined to make the most of because too often in the past I would have passed the buck and not gone for the score myself.
"I remember getting the ball in a similar situation two years agon in the semi-final against Armagh and I should have tried my luck but I tried to fist it over Francie Bellew's head to Ciaran O'Reilly but it didn't come off.
"When I got the ball this time around, I went on auto pilot and passing it never entered my head, never came into the equation, because I thought of that incident two years ago.
"Funnily, I had been in Clones with the team two weeks before that having a training session and I popped over a point from almost the same position.
"Converting that chance in the final and being responsible for getting the team a second bite of the cherry when the whole day doubly sweet for me."
Doherty oozes confidence in the ability of Fermanagh to land that first Ulster title - the Holy Grail - sooner rather than later. "If we don't win it in 2009, we'll win it shortly afterwards."
He says there's no way are the Ernesiders going to commit themselves to four evenings per week sessions for up to nine months of the year "just to have a go at winning it."
"We're up to speed with every other county in terms of being looked after, in terms of our commitment and work rate on and off the pitch so why wouldn't we win it (Anglo Celt Cup)?
"There's no way any county could be hungrier than us and being the first side to win the Anglo Celt Cup is a huge motivating factor for the current squad.
"Everyone of the 37 or so lads on the panel believe we can win the Ulster title 'cause all the ingredients are there; the self-belief, the talent, the back-up, everything.
"I'm sure Malachy (O'Rourke) will unearth another couple of players over the course of the club championship which will strengthen the panel for 2009.
"We're getting closer and closer to making just that bit of distance that will get us past the winning post. We're within touching distance of breaking our duck."
And a more consistent run on the team in the coming year for one Shaun Doherty perhaps?
"Hopefully but I've no argument with Malachy about the decisions and selections he made in 2008.
"He's a Fermanagh man with the county at heart and he has shown good faith in us all and me too and he said I'd get my chance and I did and I was glad to be able to contribute something to the cause.
"I'd be happy to sit on the bench though for the next five years if it meant we were to win the Ulster title.
"If there's a man fitter than me, a better footballer than me I'd be happy to be see him take his place on the team and then be ready to come in if needed."
Behold a loyal son of Fermanagh.