By Niall Gartland

THE hard work behind the scenes has paid off as Tattyreagh, St Patrick’s are now set to field a ladies team at adult level for the first time in their history.

It’s been well-documented that Tattyreagh have achieved glittering success in the last number of years with their men’s team, but at a meeting prior to Christmas, the club decided that the time was right to progress further by entering a ladies team at adult level as well.

Ladies secretary Nigel Mullan – who is also the club’s county delegate and the father of Peadar, the captain of the men’s team – is one of a whole host of people in the club who have put their shoulder to the wheel in bringing about this historic new venture (Terry McCance, Brian McAleer, Sarah Mullan, Luke and Sean Darcy are just some of the others).

He says that they’re set to field at Junior Championship level this year, but numbers are strong and a number of well-known Tattyreagh players who have had to find football elsewhere have transferred back to the club.

Mullan said: “Through the years we’ve had a number of girls who were always interested in playing football and have had to go to other clubs.

“Laura and Maria Harkin went to Drumragh, but Drumragh were very understanding and allowed them to transfer back to us. You also have Sinead McGinn, who played youth football for us but then transferred to Fintona, and she’s coming back this year as well. Clare Murray is another.

“We’re going to go into Junior level, it’s our first year and we’ll see how it goes. Hopefully it’ll be a boost to the club and it should give the young girls something to aspire to as they know they could be future senior players for Tattyreagh rather than having to move to other clubs.”

Tattyreagh was strongly associated with camogie for decades before Bridie McMenamin passed away in 2007. They’re still playing camogie at youth level and Mullin says there’s been a particularly big push for ladies football in Tattyreagh since 2014.

“We had a few underage teams through the years and we really kick-started things in 2014 by submitting u-12 and u-14 teams. Things have been building since then and this will be the first year of having a senior team.

“Mark Darcy is going to manage the team, he has expensive of training Dungannon senior ladies for a number of years.

“Training is going really well, we have 25 girls registered who are out training. For some of them, it’s their first time actually playing football, so that’s a real boost for the club as well.

“We have about 60 girls at youth level as well, so things are positive. I suppose in recent years there’s been people moving out of the town and building houses in the area, and we’ve also transformed our facilities since we got a grant in 2004.

“We also got a good sustainability grant recently and purchased another bit of land to the side of the pitch, and we have a community gym that everyone gravitates to.

“It’s great for the young ones to have a place to play and train, especially for all the associated mental health benefits.”