Harps’ Ladies in fine tune
TITLES Kingscourt Harps and Cootehill Harps both eye up respective doubles
Kevin Carney
Ladies soccer in Ireland may have arrived in the fast line via the B-roads but it’s motoring now. And in County Cavan, the speed of development of the game is fast catching up with the rest of the country.
Ireland’s qualification for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup has got the lads and the lassies nationwide talking. In GAA-mad Cavan, the buzz is almost palpable with the faithful at Kingscourt Harps AFC and Cootehill Harps AFC aping their national heroes by making huge strides of late on the playing fields.
Liverpool star Leanne Kiernan is expected to be one of the country’s key players at the forthcoming World Cup. Long-time Kingscourt Harps’ mentor Paul Brennan can remember when she first lit up the domestic soccer scene:
“We are going back to around 2014 when she togged out for the last time for Kingscourt,” Brennan recalls. Even then, she showed herself to be an exceptional talent.
“I remember my first sighting of her in the Dublin Women's Soccer League. She was already training and playing with the boys in Kingscourt Harps at 11 years old. I knew she was mad to play competitively alongside the boys and we gave her every chance we could.
“I remember the first time she came to training in Kingscourt. We had a little drill with two players facing each other. Leanne approached the other player with the ball at her feet, dropped her shoulder and did a step over and a Zinedine Zidane turn and all the girls just stopped and started shouting ‘sign her up’! She went onto score over 25 goals a season on the boys team from there on.”
Wasn't sustainable
Brennan and Kingscourt Harps go back a long way. He remembers the club playing in the Dublin Senior Women’s League as far back as 2009/2010 alongside such big hitters as Shelbourne and St. Pat’s.
“We held our own despite going in at the deep end. We won a Winter Shield in our first year. I remember we won the league the following year as well. We were in it three years but the logistics of going to Dublin for Monday night football, flying up the road for a 7pm kick off, just wasn’t sustainable.
“Then in 2013, the North East Football League (NEFL) was set up. We had Leanne (Kiernan) on board at that time and we won the Shield in our second year.
“Unfortunately, by 2014 the NEFL finished up due to an inadequate number of teams, but it was revived in 2019 and a womens division was back up and running.”
Last season (2020-21) was the first season of the newly-reformed NEFL womens senior division, split on a regional basis into northern and southern divisions. It was then that Brennan and his squad of 26 players (drawn from Monaghan, Carrick, Dundalk and Clonsilla) first met up with the fledgling Cootehill Harps crew. It was love at first sight!
“As we’ve gotten to know the girls in Cootehill well and their management too over the last couple of years and they’re great to have on board and we get on great with them. We help each other,” Brennan gushes.
“Cootehill were in our group in that first season along with Dundalk-based teams Quay Celtic and Bellurgan and Dundalk FC as well. It was brillant to get to play at Oriel Park.
“Our girls did really well. We finished second in our group and beat the winners of the south division, Balrath (Navan), in the semi-final and Balbriggan in the league final.
“The following week we had the Cup final against Bellurgan and we beat them to win the double. On November 6th next, we play Bellurgan in this year’s Cup final. We claimed this year’s league title a couple of weeks ago so we’ll be hoping to make it a back-to-back NEFL Premier Division/Cup double in a week or so.”
Pathway
Brennan and co. have served to inspire their neighbours down the road, Cootehill Harps AFC.
Cootehill’s ladies senior section only got up and running a couple of seasons ago with Cootehill locals Johnny Sherlock and Hugh Birt the dynamos behind the move.
The duo’s brainchild complemented the work put in by Pa Langan at the Harps 18 months previously in establishing underage girls teams at the club.
“The idea behind setting up a ladies section was to provide a pathway for the young girls to progress and play at an adult level,” Cootehill PRO Rachel Sherlock explains.
“We needed to build on the conveyor belt of talent that was coming through at underage level. There hadn’t been any teams beyond under 16 so it was a no-brainer that a senior ladies side was needed.
“One of our players, Maggie Hessin, was the early driving force behind getting the ladies together, via Facebook, and very soon the numbers expressing an interest just grew and grew. The ladies team formally got up and running in November 2020 and we haven’t looked back since.”
Undefeated
And the well of talent available to the Sherlock/Birt management team?
“There’s a panel of 20 there at the present time, including a hardy group of about 12 girls who have been with us since the very start.
“We’re lucky that our location allows us to enter teams in the Monaghan underage league which is fantastic for us. Our senior captain is Emma O’Hart is from Rockcorry and we also have players from Cootehill town, of course, plus Cavan town, Clones, Killeevan and the various parishes around Cootehill.
“The girls train twice a week and have a match at the weekend. A lot of the girls had been playing Gaelic – and still do – when they joined us so they had good co-ordination and basic ball skills.
“The two lads (Johnny and Hugh) have their coaching badges and they’ve done massive work over the last couple of years working on the players’ first touch and short passing game especially. The girls love it.”
Cootehill’s finest have already won this year’s NEFL Division One title, clinching it three weeks ago with a win over Albion Rovers (Drogheda) by a handsome 6-1. It was Cootehill ladies’ first piece of silverware since they came together just less than two years ago, having gone through the competition undefeated.
Like their sisters-in-arms in Kingscourt, the Cootehill version of the Harps are setting their sights on a double now: “We are hopeful of winning the Cup to go along with this year’s league,” says Cootehill’s hard working officer.
“We scored 68 goals in the league and conceded just seven. We were head and shoulders above the rest of the teams, apart from Albion Rovers and Toro United and really showed our character after being relegated from the premier league last year where we were up against the top sides in the region.
“But we found our feet this year in Division One and and we know what to expect when we get back into the Premier (League).
“The girls can’t wait to get back among the big teams. They’ve no fear of playing in the top flight. And we’ve a lot of youth coming through to strengthen the senior panel in the next few years. In the last four games we played a lot of our under 17s and they weren’t out of place.”
High in confidence
As word filters through of the likely emergence of girls soccer in Ballyhaise, Rachel is very much looking forward to the talent in County Cavan making a splash at regional level:
“The NEFL is setting up a representative team and all of our girls have been selected for the inaugural panel which is a big feather in their caps.
“The girls’ morale is great, confidence is high and winning trophies definitely whets the appetite for more.
“Getting promoted to the premier league for next April is a big thing for the players and the management.
“The spine of our team is very experienced and there’s strength and skill there and youth up front with loads of pace. We’re now at a stage when we’re able to compete with the likes of very successful and well established clubs like Kingscourt, so we believe we’re getting there.”
With such a mutual appreciation society in place, one wonders who can stop the Harps’ alliance?