I WENT into first year at St Colman’s College thinking of myself as a fairly decent footballer and then as us lads milled about on the first day, exploring the corridors in our shiny new shoes, my friend spotted a young fella in our year from Tullylish.
He whispered to me in an almost reverential tone: ‘There’s James McCartan’.
“Who is James McCartan?” I asked myself. There was no Wikipedia then obviously but it didn’t take long for the penny to drop. ‘Wee James’ was the son of the great James senior who of course was one of the legends of the all-conquering Down teams of the 1960s. Genuine GAA royalty.
“So that’s what I’m up against?” I thought, realising that the bar from playing midfield in the primary school team had been raised by a fair few notches.
For reasons known only to my 11-year-old self, right then and there I decided that football wasn’t going to be for me at St Colman’s.
I hasten to add that the College didn’t miss out on a great footballing talent, but by second year any excuse possible to get out of going to PE was being trotted out. From then until I left with four Cs and a B I spent the hour that I should have been outside playing sports sitting in the study hall, not studying but counting down the minutes until the final bell would ring.
It dawned on me recently that my mis-spent youth was probably the reason that I still played Gaelic Football recreationally well into my 40s. I didn’t play enough when I was younger; when I actually could play a bit.
But sure that’s life: Je ne regrette rien (as I never learned in French class).
Anyway how wrong was I back in first year? Having a star like a James McCartan or a David Clifford in your midst represents an amazing opportunity, not an obstacle. A brilliant player like that will drag even a fairly ordinary supporting cast up along with them. Just get them the ball. What you need to do is get yourself in there and do your job on the team and McCartan or Clifford will do the rest. And the medals will come rolling in.
Now there were other excellent footballers in that first year intake – Gerry Reid and Kerry McVeigh were All-Ireland winners with Armagh and Down respectively to name but two - but James McCartan was a generational talent.
At school he had the ability to play up several levels and he was one of those exceptional individuals who had the attitude to go on and fulfil his potential on the inter-county stage on which he won All-Irelands with Down in 1991 and 1994.
But whether you are blessed with the talent and the work ethic he had or not, school football (or any extra-curricular activity for that matter) is a vitally important outlet for all young students.
I was at the D’Alton Cup final last week and was delighted to see St Colman’s beat a very talented St Pat’s Armagh team by a point in a thriller at Pairc Esler.
At corner-back for ‘the College’ was Cathair McCaul who once again proved the old adage that it’s not the size of the dog in the fight that matters – it’s the size of the fight in the dog. The picture of a 10-year-old Cathair tackling Ballyholland’s James O’Hanlon when Newry Bosco met the Harps in the U13 South Down division one final touched our hearts when it went viral in 2020. He had a terrific game in a battling defence that held out after Evan McIlvanna’s goal edged St Colman’s ahead in the second half.
“We put a lot of hard work in,” said delighted skipper Dallan McGeough after he’d accepted the D’Alton Cup on behalf of his jubilant team-mates.
“But it paid out!”
It sure did. The College were behind midway through the second half but they finished strongly to win by a point.
Their victory was down to the skill and attitude of a terrific bunch of players and also to the hard work and effort of their coaches Conor Gilmore, Ciaran Bagnall and Ronan McMahon who went above and beyond to train a squad of 50 lads which, I’m proud to say, included my son.
There were 44 training sessions and that’s not even including the running they did in terrible weather at Castlewellan Forest Park over the Christmas holidays.
As only the most committed and inspirational coaches do, Mr Gilmore and his colleagues gave their young disciples the opportunity to be the best version of themselves and to be a part of something special.
They got the players fit, organised and motivated and turned them into a winning unit and the cup was a bonus.
But what a bonus.
If you ever get a chance to walk the hallowed halls of St Colman’s (halls which I myself frequently wandered during unscheduled breaks from class on the way to the toilets for a smoke) you’ll see the unshakeable connection the Newry school has to the GAA.
It stretches back to when Michael Cusack taught English and Maths there before he even co-founded the Association in 1884.
Team photographs of the school’s many winning teams and famous players from the earliest days of the GAA adorn the walls and the D’Alton champions now get their place up there among them as part of St Colman’s rich sporting history.
They’ll be ‘up on the wall’ forever which is the ultimate sporting honour in the school just as it is at St Pat’s Maghera, or the Abbey, or the ‘Sem’, or St Jarlath’s in Tuam or St Michael’s in Enniskillen or whatever other GAA nursery you care to mention.
So well done to St Colman’s, to their players and their coaches on winning the D’Alton but the true value of last week’s victory is so much more than winning a cup.
Like their footballing predecessors did during their days at Violet Hill, the lads involved are learning something that takes some of us much longer to realise.
They’re finding out early in their journey how special it is to be part of something and how amazing the rewards can be if you give everything and commit fully to the cause.
Only the best of you gets you up on the wall.
