In this week’s ‘My Club’ feature, Mayo senior footballer Tom Parsons tells us all about the Charlestown Sarsfields GAA club.

By John Harrington

The Charlestown Sarsfields Club was founded in 1888 had has a long and proud history.

They first won the Mayo Senior Championship in 1902, but had a long wait for their second which finally came in 2001. The same core group of players won the club’s third County Championship in 2009.

The club has a good track record of producing inter-county players of note, with the likes of John Casey, Aidan Higgins, David Tiernan, and Tom Parsons impressing in the Mayo colours in recent decades.

Located in north-east Mayo on the Sligo border, the club’s grounds, Fr. O’Hara Park, is one of the best appointed in the whole county.

Relegated from the senior club championship in 2011, they bounced straight back up the following year when they won the Mayo intermediate Championship and went on to win the Connacht intermediate title too.

For more information on the Charlestown Sarsfields club, visit their website https://charlestowngaa.com

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Q: Can you explain where exactly Charlestown is in Mayo, and what sort of pick the club would have?

**A: **They say Charlestown is the counter-point of the West of Ireland. It's half an hour from Sligo, it's half an hour from Castlebar, it's about 50 minutes from Galway and it's the closest town to Dublin. So it's the place to be!

Q: Can you remember your first involvement with the club?

**A: **Yeah, I suppose like many other clubs in Mayo there's no distractions from other sports. There's very little hurling and virtually no soccer or rugby, it's all Gaelic Football. I was Gaelic Football mad from the age of eight. I can recall all of my Saturday and Sunday summer blitzes back in the mid-nineties I'm afraid to say. I'm showing my age!

Q: Does your family have much involvement in the club? Any brothers who play?

**A: **Yeah. I've two brothers. Brendan and Aaron who have both represented Charlestown at senior level. Brendan finds himself now teaching in Glasgow and Aaron is currently in San Francisco enjoying his college years. They're two young guys, I'm the eldest. I've played with both of them at different stages. Partnered both of them at different stages in midfield. But the three of us are yet to grace the field together. I'm going to be on their backs over the next few years to get them out there before I retire!

Q: Coming up through the ranks, did you have much success with the club?

**A: **In 2001 the club won a senior county title and won a Connacht title for the first time in a long time. They were a very successful team and were competing for county titles, reaching the semi-final and final stage, for the next nine years.

When I came into the Charlestown senior panel at 18 we had lost two Finals in a row before we won a County title in 2009. And then that led to a home Connacht fixture final against Corofin who beat us well. In recent years we were relegated. That was in 2011, and in 2012 we came straight back up by winning the Intermediate County Final and Connacht title and marginally lost out in an All-Ireland semi-final.

So we've been relatively successful.

Q: Relegation in 2011 must have been a real kick in the tail considering the club had won the senior championship two years previously?

**A: **Yeah, it was. And I suppose a lot of that 2001 team was the same team in 2009. And we still have a few of them on the panel. Aidan Higgins is approaching 45 now and is still one of our key players.

Q: What position does he play now?

**A: **He's very versatile. He usually plays six or 11. But, yeah, a fantastic player. And he's never stretched a day in his life and has never been injured! He laughs at me stretching for two hours before training. You could argue whose body is younger at this stage. 45-year-old Aidan or 28-year-old Tom. I dunno!

Q: John Casey is a fellow club-man, presumably he was someone you would have looked up to as a young lad when he was playing for Mayo in the mid-nineties?

A: Yeah, John Casey in '96 and '97. As a kid he would have been a big hero of mine. Then into the noughties we had a few more famous players. Aidan Higgins and David 'Ginger' Tiernan who represented Mayo for a few years as well and was a fantastic player for Charlestown. Yeah, we've had some big characters in our club through the years.

Q: Tiernan would have been inspirational in 2009 when Charlestown won the County Title even though he was a relative veteran at that stage?

**A: **Yeah, Tiernan, for me growing up as a kid, David Tiernan was this awe-inspiring midfielder. And then in 2001 was the captain when Charlestown won the county title and Connacht title. Yeah, I could easily say he's one of the most impressive and motivational guys that I've ever played with.

And in 2009, 'Ginger' was coming into his mid-thirties and knew this was his last chance to win the County title. He kicked the winning point in the County Final in 2009 to give me that county medal that are very hard to get.

Q: What age were you in 2009?

A: I would have been 20.

Q: The core of that team would have been a lot older. So presumably you now found yourself playing with a bunch of guys you had looked up to from a distance as a young lad? What was that like?

**A: **Incredible, yeah. I would have been 13 when they won it in 2001 and success in clubs breeds success. I recall my age-group at 13, 14, 15 just really aspiring to play with Charlestown. Never did I think that the 'Ginger' Tiernan's and Aidan Higgins would be playing as long as they did into their early forties, but they did. But it was fantastic to play as a kid with your childhood hero in midfield and win a county title. That was something special, yeah.

Q: Had you won any underage titles with the club before that 2009 county senior title?

A: No, not really, not huge success underage in Charlestown. We've always managed to bring through two or three key players every year who might have represented Mayo in recent years. We would have had the likes of Richie Haran who played for Mayo, Gareth O'Donnell, Jack Reilly. So, yeah, we've had a lot of good players come through the years but no major huge success underage.

I suppose we find ourselves now in a transition period where a lot of that team who won a county title in '09 are gone. But Charlestown won the Leo Kenny Cup which is a Connacht competition two weeks which was played as the opener to the Mayo v Fermanagh game in front of 10 or 15 thousand people so that was a nice one to win.

Q: What age-group is that?

A: That's senior.

Q: That must be encouraging?

**A: **Yeah. We lost our first two group teams in the Championship so we'll be pushing to maintain our senior status this year rather than competing for a county title, unfortunately. We're in a transition period and club football in Mayo is very strong at the moment with Castlebars, Breaffys and Ballintubbers of this world. To break into that top tier of four or five teams is going to be difficult. They seem to have a rampant quantity of Mayo stars that have either played at the minor, U-21, or senior grade. It's definitely difficult for the smaller clubs to maybe get up there to be competing with those big teams.

Q: There's often a weight of responsibility on the shoulders of a county player like yourself when they play for a smaller club. People look to them to do the business on the field. Would you be conscious of that yourself?

**A: **Not necessarily. When I started playing for Charlestown and Mayo when I was 18/19 we had some huge characters in the dressing-room when we won that County title in '09. Guys like the Mulligan brothers, Richie Haran, 'Ginger' Tiernan, the Higgins brothers. They were huge characters.

Q: More so now though?

**A: **More so now in my later years, yeah, there would be, for sure. And it's hard, because so much of your time all year is taken with your commitments with Mayo. And it's hard to really spend that time to go on a development journey with your club so it can be difficult. Yeah, for sure, playing for Mayo and being the only Mayo representative on the club brings its challenges.

Q: You live in Dublin. Did a Dublin club ever try to recruit you? Did you ever consider it, because it's a long journey to and fro from Dublin to Mayo?

**A: **For sure there's been a few questions from clubs up here. But, no, I never considered it because I'm a big club man. I haven't always been playing for Mayo straight through, there were two years there when I was living and working in the UK in Cardiff. During that time I still flew home and played with my club.

I recall actually flying home nine weekends in a row to play intermediate championship with Charlestown and to help bring us back up to senior level. There's definitely a huge love for my club and I think you look at most county footballers and they all have that big love to play for their club. These are the guys you grow up with. Your best buddies. To be successful with them is something magic.

Q: Who would be Charlestown's biggest rivals?

**A: **Our main rivals down through the years would have been Ballaghaderreen, Andy Moran's club. They would have beat us in a County Final in 2008. Then the following year we didn't cross paths and we won it in 2009. In years gone past we would argue about who are the Kingpins of East Mayo. That rivalry still exists.

Q: They're an interesting border club because much of the town is in Roscommon yet they play their football in Mayo. Is Charlestown similar in so far as some of the parish is within the Sligo county bounds?

A: Charlestown is split. There's a stream that runs through Charlestown that divides it. The majority of the town is in Mayo, but there's a small bit in Sligo. As an area, similar to Ballaghaderreen, the whole town represents Charlestown in Mayo and has always done so. Yeah, for sure, there's been an encroachment of Sligo personnel into the area!

Q: Would there be a few Sligo flags flying in the town?

A: Not really. I take them down!

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