Local star plays part in Barca victory

Barcelona Gaels knocked Westmeath junior champions out of the Leinster championship on Saturday and playing a key role in the victory was local man, Seán Fagan, who has been working in the Spanish city for the past decade.

Fagan, a Ballynacargy footballer, came off the bench in the second half to score a point as the Catalans won by 1-10 to 0-10. Local knowledge fed into the victory and Fagan was well aware of the threat of Tommy McDaniel having played underage football with him for Westmeath in former years.

Saturday’s success wasn’t just about sport. The global strength of the GAA was at play and the welcome Barcelona received in Mullingar was greatly appreciated.

“We got great support from Westmeath, the St Loman’s GAA club and Kieran and Carole Clarke, and the staff at Clarke’s Bar,” said Fagan.

“I reached out to the Clarkes when I knew we were playing in Mullingar and their support was wonderful; people were very impressed with how they were treated after the game. There was food provided for everyone; it was great. The St Loman’s club helped with equipment as we couldn’t bring our own.”

Seán works with Deel, a HR and Finance company, and he and his colleagues are now looking forward to the Leinster JFC semi-final against Kildare’s Grangenovlin on Saturday week.

He said playing on the 3G pitch at Lakepoint Park was a major factor in Barcelona Gaels’ favour.

“We play 11-a-side games (a goalie and two-v-two all the way up) in Spain, on a rugby pitch, an all-weather surface. It gave us an advantage; we were used to the speed of the surface,” he explained.

The Barcelona side did have to adapt to the new playing rules this year, though, and Seán revealed that it was a challenge. They also did their homework on the Westmeath champions, who were pretty impressive winners of the Junior title in the Lake County.

“We looked at Ballinagore quite a bit and used local knowledge as much as we could. My brother, Gary, was a water boy for Barcelona Gaels; he played on Tommy McDaniel in the championship for Ballynacargy, so he knew the kind of quality player he was. We had a very good man-marker in Ciaran Cusack and he had a job to do on Tommy McDaniel, which he did very well. Our homework stood to us in that regard,” said Seán.

The Barcelona Gaels side is largely made up of Cork and Kerry players, with a few Dublin footballers included.

“We have a mixture of student English teachers and people who work in sales and finance. Five years ago, a lot of people would stay for a year and then leave, but we now have a lot of players who live in Barcelona,” explained Seán.

“Brian Keegan of St Joseph’s actually played with them when he was in Spain for a year, but at the moment Seán is the only Westmeath player on the team.”

They always felt they could make an impact in this year’s Leinster campaign.

“To be honest, we were confident we’d give Ballinagore a big test. Some of our players have played senior county football, so we knew we had experience in the team. We also knew Michael Ennis was doing his own research on us and in fairness, he was very complimentary after the game,” remarked Seán.

The Ballynacargy footballer will now be focusing on the next challenge, along with his Barcelona Gaels team mates.