The Ballaghaderreen senior footballers pictured with the family of the late John O'Mahony. The team wore a commemorative jersey to honour Johnno’s legacy in the club when they beat Knockmore in the first round of the championship.
By John Harrington
Ballaghaderreen have been the surprise packets to date in the Mayo senior football championship.
Few fancied them to get out of a tough looking group but instead they’re topping it after two impressive wins over well regarded Knockmore and Belmullet teams with a final group tie against Claremorris to come.
Central to their fine form has been Shairoze Akram who has been hugely influential at both ends of the pitch thanks to his athleticism and smooth handling skills.
The former Mayo U-21 All-Ireland winner is just 27 but already in his 11th season of senior club football and very much one of the leaders in what’s an increasingly youthful Ballagh team.
“In the last couple of years we've struggled and haven't gotten out of the group and only two years ago we were in a relegation semi-final so getting two wins on the board has been really important for us especially as not a lot of people were expecting us to win those games,” Akram told GAA.ie. “But we as a group believed we could win them and that's the way it has gone.
“It’s hard not to enjoy football when you're winning. When you're losing it can be hard to take but thankfully now the results are going our way.
“The team is developing nicely and there's a good few young lads coming through. A few lads have joined us out of the minors in the past couple of years. Callum Coleman is playing corner-forward this year and it's first year playing senior football.
“Matthew Connor was involved with the panel last year but didn't play senior championship until this year.
“Those two guys have really stepped up for us this year and we've also had a good few guys come home who were in Australia or Dubai so our panel is only getting stronger all the time. Hopefully we can keep the momentum going now.”
Shairoze Akram has been in great form for the Ballaghaderreen footballers this year.
Ballagh’ got their championship campaign off to a flier with a really hard-fought one-point win over Knockmore.
Trailing by three points at half-time, they showed tremendous grit to claw back that deficit and then find a way to beat their fancied opponents.
That day Ballaghaderreen wore commemorative jersies to honour one of the town’s most famous sons, former Mayo, Galway, and Leitrim manager John O’Mahony, and Akram admits doing his memory proud was an added source of motivation.
“Johnno would have been in and out with us over a number of years,” says Akram of O’Mahony who passed away in July.
“He came in and helped Paul McHugh quite a bit. The year we got to the county final in 2019 he was involved with us as well.
“To be honest, he was a man who stayed on the outskirts a bit when he was involved, but when he spoke everyone listened. Everyone had an awful lot of respect for him.
“Even us having the commemorative jersies the day against Knockmore, I think there was a little bit something different about that occasion and guys performed and we thankfully got the win for him to mark it.”
Akram is living in Dublin where he works as an Administrative Officer in the Houses of the Oireachtas, but he has never been tempted to transfer away from his home club.
He feels a debt of loyalty to the community as a whole, not just the GAA club, for being so supportive to him and his family in so many ways since he moved there from Pakistan as a four-year-old.
Having felt first-hand the inclusive power of sport and he’s always keen to pass it on in whatever way he can.
Last March he visited Kinaffe National School near Swinford which in the space of two years has been transformed from a six-pupil, one-teacher school to one with 53 students and seven staff after the enrolment of students from refugee families now living in Mayo.
Thanks to the rising number of pupils they were able to field a football team for the first time in years in 2024 and their jersies were supplied by GRG-Sports, the sportswear company that Akram established along with Tom Parsons and Cian Hanley back in 2018.
The school subsequently invited Akram to visit and share his experience of Ireland with the students, and he was given a hero’s welcome when he arrived.
“It was a brilliant experience visiting the school. I went in and it was if they had seen a superstar even though I'm nothing famous or nothing big. But to them I was something out of this world. All of them were really excited and had pictures drawn and hung up of me.
“It was very special and touching, to be honest. There were a lot of personalities in there and hearing some of the stories of where the kids had come from, it was tough.
“Hopefully now they can get a good run at life here in Mayo and Ireland. There's no barriers in sport so the more we utilise Gaelic football and all other sports, it can be really benificial to get people included into areas and knitted into communities, especially in rural areas.
“That school would have been struggling for numbers before whereas bringing these kids to the school and providing buses that collect and drop them off is great and hopefully it will give them a good future.
“In time I'm sure they'll only add to the Irish community and economy and the other bits and pieces that go with it.
“When we first came to Ireland people were very good to me. I've mentioned a number of people who really supported me so anything I can do to help others in that same situation I'm all for it.
“If you help one person it can make a huge difference to them. I'm a huge example of that myself, so if I can do it for even one other person I'll try my best to make that effort and do it for other people.”
