Cavan must address alarming decade long underage collapse

It was the lad on the sax who cracked me up. I was in Castleblayney for the Corn na nÓg Cup final and the St Patrick’s College ultras were out in force.

At half-time, at the back of the stand, one guy took on the role of General. “All St Pat’s boys to the back of the goals,” he gruffly commanded – and, to my surprise, his recruits obeyed and quick-stepped their way to the hill behind the goals.

The half a dozen supporters’ buses added colour; there were bodhráns and chants and, as I said, a one-man brass section, which is something I hadn’t seen before. I can only imagine the excitement and craic of getting a day out of class to attend a match like this.

As a former student, I must say it was nice to see that football retains such passion in the school, which was always the nursery for the game in this county. In the stand, there were many familiar faces – parents, yes, but also football people from around the various clubs who took the opportunity to watch a Cavan team in an Ulster final. And, thankfully, win it.

Of course, this is “only” U14.5 football but, considering county football doesn’t start properly until at least U16, which is a development grade, it’s fair top say that this is the highest standard of football for this age group in the province and bodes well for the future.

It was especially heartening to see such a large crowd and such colour because, in my time in the school (1996 to 2002), football was at a low ebb. For some reason, our teams never came near winning a title, if we’re honest – and that was an era when there were some brilliant footballers, with students regularly selected for Irish U17 teams to play Australia, let alone county squads.

Memory chooses what it likes. I recall a Corn na nÓg quarter-final in 1998 in which St Pat’s led by nine or 10 points at half-time against Omagh CBS but got a man sent off and somehow lost it, leaking a bad goal near the end to come up short by a point. A familiar tale, a Cavan side finding a way to lose. There were tears on the bus home.

Those lads were my classmates and, gun to the head, I’m sure I could still name the starting team. And I can remember brief flashes from the game vividly; Alan Coyle, RIP, the best underage footballer most people of my vintage have ever seen, scored something like 3-5. His Cavan Gaels clubmate Sean Reilly scored four points. Terry Hyland was a man among boys in the defence… But still, we lost. That was the story back then; the corridors were lined with photos of winning teams and they were all in black and white, artefacts from the glory days.

So, truly, the last 14 years has been something special – the school has won 10 major Ulster schools titles, including the MacRory Cup in 2015 and three Corn na nÓg titles.

To put that in context, from 1980 to 2001 inclusive, St Pat’s didn’t win any of the main titles in Ulster. A Rannafast Cup was mined against the head in 2002 and that was it then until a first-ever Dalton Cup (U13.5) crown in 2010, under the captaincy of Drumlane’s Ryan Connolly.

That group went on to glorious success, culminating in that MacRory triumph, led by joint-captains Cian McManus (Teemore Shamrocks) and Pierce Smith (Crosserlough).

When I started, there were, I think, about 580 boys in the school, including approximately 100 boarders. The roll has swollen since to over 800, with a new school building and facilities replacing the decrepit old school we knew and loved. Unusually, and hearteningly, with the new, it appears the old order – that special place football holds - has been restored.

A piece by Damien Donohoe on these pages recently highlighted the decline in standards in schools in Cavan generally but St Pat’s was to some extent exempt from that criticism given that the school continues to put a major emphasis on football.

Of course, in Cullies, there are natural advantages; geographically, St Pat’s is situated in the heart of the county, drawing from all corners, and it is the only all-boys school in the county. But these are just excuses and, while other Cavan schools have won titles in the lowest divisions in recent seasons – St Aidan’s in Cootehill, St Mogue’s in Bawnboy and Bailieborough Community School to name a few – for the most part, the top two of the five tiers has no Cavan representation outside of the old diocesan seminary.

The hope is that in 2025, this will be addressed and the county board, part of whose remit is to cover schools, will arrest the slide. In the meantime, St Pat’s continues to fly the flag.

Like Cavan generally, there was the sense of a fallen footballing empire around St Pat’s but a new tradition, drawing on the old, has been created. And pedigree is important in football; note that two of the sons of the iconic 1997 Ulster Championship-winning team played on the winning side in this final last Wednesday.

And it goes deeper than that. In this match, Cian Fitzpatrick came on a sub for St Pat’s; his grandfather, Conall Fitzpatrick from Drumlane, actually played on the first-ever St Pat’s team to win this competition, 74 years ago.

The hand of history, guiding a new generation in a different world. Isn’t there something comforting about that all the same?