St. Loman"s celebrate 25 years of underage success

Since its inception, St. Loman"s GAA has had one of the leading underage clubs in the county, and on March 6, they will be celebrating 25 years of underage football, honouring the first underage committee and team, who played in the Under 12 final in Cusack Park on April 22, 1984.Twenty-five years on, St. Loman"s have had outstanding success at all levels of underage football, but to reach such a high level of success, it has been a long and bumpy road over the years for the club that started out as an institutional team.In the beginning, St. Loman"s drew most of its players from the St. Loman"s workforce, but when the last recession hit in the eighties, cutbacks were rife in the Health Board, which in turn meant that good footballers were scarce on the ground.The level of football fell drastically from a team with senior status, descending down the ranks to junior, to struggling junior.Club officials were faced with the dilemma - either they could disband, or branch out into underage football, and in 1982, St. Loman"s chose the latter option.Liam Martin recalls how it all started:'We were lucky enough because we had a few housing estates around that had an up and coming young population. Mullingar Shamrocks were the only other town team, but they couldn"t cater for all the kids in Mullingar,' he says.'There were lots of kids that weren"t getting to kick football.'So St. Loman"s began the journey of creating a club that could accommodate all children, but found they met with some resistance in their bid to set up underage.However, after lobbying the County Board for two years, the town boundary barrier was lifted, which meant kids from all over Mullingar and its surrounds, could join St. Loman"s Club.St. Loman"s fielded their first Under 12 team in 1984 with enormous success. The team of Joe Matthews, Mickey Kelly, Tony Plunkett, Mervyn Mahoney, Mark Garry, Jimbo Baker, Niall Cleary, Kenny Lyons, the Alan Colgan, Rodney Martin, Robbie Kenny, Padraigh Jackson, Stan Matthews, Kenny Colgan, Jack Kiernan, with Eddie Reynolds and Derek Barry playing as subs, met Mullingar Shamrocks in the final - the Club"s biggest rivals.This fledgling team from St. Loman"s had overcome other longer established teams such as Castletown-Finea, St. Pauls, Delvin, Athlone and Rochfortbridge to reach the final, as well as overcoming a championship suspension, which was later thrown out.'Shamrocks had fought us all along because they felt there was no room for two underage teams in the town. But here we were playing Shamrocks in the final,' recalls Liam Davitt.The game drew huge crowds to Cusack Park that day, April 22, 1984, and terrific football was played on both sides, with Shamrocks finally beating Loman"s narrowly, by just three points - the final score 2.2 - 5pts.This defeat did not deter the Club however, but spurred them on even more. St. Loman"s Underage continued to grow, and became a template for other clubs to learn from. With new-found confidence, Loman"s began winning championships at all ages, making them the number one club in Mullingar.St. Loman"s needed facilities however, and this was something they were short on.'We had no pitch and no facilities,' says Liam Martin, who said the Club were more like squatters than anything else, borrowing the hospital pitch on the Delvin road for training.'And you couldn"t even depend on that because it was a free-for-all at one stage, with anyone who wanted to kick football having a go.'So the Club turned their attention to procuring their own pitch.'We started something called the 1500 club,' explains Liam Davitt, 'Which was a contribution from the 1500 members of the midland Health Board, so we could raise money for new facilities.'We got into negotiations with the Health Board, who decided to sell the pitch to us after some negotiations,' he continued.It was the early nineties when the St. Loman"s Club received a necessary stroke of luck, as work began on the Mullingar bypass.'We now had our pitch but the bypass contractors ran short of filler,' explained Liam Martin, 'And we had two elevated hills behind the pitch which was full of the filler they needed.'So we negotiated with them, and in exchange for the filler, we got a brand spanking new full length GAA pitch,' he remembers fondly.'That was a very lucky break for us.'Club officials then went on to apply for lotto funding to build a clubhouse, which they received in due course, opening the new facilities in 1999.And their attention for providing good club facilities for their players continues to this day.A recently installed all-weather prunte pitch, an upgraded main pitch plus new flood lighting, along with plans for an all-weather 3G pitch to be built this year, means St. Loman"s have been earmarked for a regional centre of excellence award.Success continues on the field for the St. Loman"s Underage, which have won three feis cups, with last year being their best year in some time.'We won the Under 14, Under 16, the Feile and the Under 21, so we are hoping that we"ve laid the basis for success in the future,' added Liam.And let"s not forget the girls!'We started underage girls football about six years ago,' says Joe Maleady, 'And we"ve winning the junior championship, the regional championship and three senior championships in a row,' says Joe Maleady.'It took us quite a while to get established,' he continued, 'And it was a long hard battle, but we got there in the end!'And if you would like to get involved, St. Loman"s will be holding their Underage Open Day on Saturday, March 7, with all 30 underage coaches there for children who want to join up.