By Michael Devlin

Situated a small rural townland near Seskinore, just outside Omagh, Tattyreagh St. Patrick’s had won nothing at senior level in the century that had passed since their formation in 1917.

As they greeted their 100th year, their woes were compounded at the end of the 2016 season with a fortnight from hell, losing a Tyrone Junior Championship final before surrendering pole position in the league a week later.

One would be hard-pressed not to feel sympathy for a club who were on course to clinch a triumphant and historic double, and thus promotion up to the Intermediate ranks, only to transpire with nothing in the end-up.

But every new year brings fresh hope, and so in early 2017 they went back to the grindstone, yet again, determined to finally put their name on a Championship roll of honour. Fast-forward to the present day, through tribulations of tragedy and tales of triumph, things couldn’t be more different.

Team captain Niall Keyes traces the beginning of their remarkable story back to the start of 2016, and the appointment of Stephen McHugh and Stephen Ferguson as senior team manager and coach respectively.

“We had a lot of young boys - James Darcy, Johnny Harkin, Eoghain Murray, Peadar Mullan - those boys were just coming in, all around 18 years of age,” says Keyes. “Some older players like Sean Gormley, Chris McCarroll and Darren Mullan were coming to the end of their career, and it gave them a real lift as well. It was a real good mix of youth and experience.”

McHugh was managing the Tyrone Under 16 squad at the time and was approached by the father of one of the players with the offer of taking the reins at Tattyreagh.

“I had just finished my Level Three Coaching course, and I said I’d give it a go,” says McHugh. “I went up and met them, but I told them if I was going to come on board, I’m going to have to have certain things in place. They said whatever I needed, they’d give, and they did. We’ve never had to want for anything.”

McHugh was a member of Brackaville Owen Roes club and had been involved in management teams of their own Junior Championship successes in 1999 and 2012. He took with him Stephen Ferguson as his coach, and together they set about shaping a strategy for a vibrant young Tatts’ side for the season ahead.

“Whenever you get somebody young and they don’t have their bad habits per se, you can shape them more easily than a seasoned campaigner who’s been doing it the same way for years. I had a couple of players who’d been there for years who listened and did the job for me. The older players changed to fit into the system we wanted to play.”

It was so nearly a perfect debut season for “the two Stevies”, but the defeats to Rock St Patrick’s and then Owen Roe O’Neills in the crunch championship and league deciders saw a dream double disappear up in smoke. The losses taught Tattyreagh many lessons however, and inspired them to put things right in 2017.

“Against Rock we didn’t show up, it’s as simple as that,” admits 29-year-old goalkeeper Keyes, the team’s custodian since the age of 15. “They were an experienced, dogged Championship side with seasoned campaigners like Ciaran Gourley who had been around the block. It was tough.

“It was the hangover from that final that led onto the next week against Owen Roes in the league. We just weren’t at the races and probably didn’t deserve to win either games.

“Given the fact that a lot of the players were 18 or 19, that was all learning for them. You learn from your mistakes and we went in the following year with that motivation. We took a couple of weeks off and went back quite early, knowing what we needed to do.

“It ended up galvanising the whole thing, it upped everybody’s commitment level. We were all doing three nights a week gym work minimum, everyone was doing two nights on their own. That hunger was there.”

And Tattyreagh did put things right in their Centenary Year. Victory over Clogher in the Junior Final in Carrickmore banished the pain of 12 months earlier and ended the long wait for Championship success. Unbridled emotion was there for all to see after the final whistle on Pairc Colmcille that day, but not just for what was achieved within the white lines of the football field.

The club was rocked by two deaths in the middle of the year. In June, Dominic Earley lost his life in a car crash on the Glengesh Road in Tempo, Fermanagh. An inter-county GAA statistician as well as devoted Tattyreagh clubman, Earley was on his way to meet fellow Cavan backroom team member Jimmy Higgins ahead of their side's Ulster semi-final with Monaghan the following weekend at Breffni Park. He was only 26.

“I remember Dom in underage, he was a few years younger than me, but we were on teams together and then again in adult football,” reminisces Keyes. “He came into the Stephen’s team to do stats, and some of the stuff he was doing was outstanding. He was constantly on his phone texting players telling us what job we had to do.

“He had experience with Fulham and West Brom, and then with Tyrone and Cavan. To be getting that level of expertise at Junior football was unheard of, some clubs in Senior Football weren’t getting that type of work done. He would have gone through analysis with us after training every Friday night.

“To lose him so tragically was so heart-breaking for us all. It was really tough to take, he was like a brother to us. In our changing room his picture is up on the wall. He’ll never be forgotten.

The memory of Earley’s passing was still raw when Tattyreagh lost another huge club figure, Pat Darcy, a month later. Darcy served as Tyrone county chairman from 2004 to 2009, an unprecedented period of success for the Red Hand County that yielded two All-Ireland football titles, an All-Ireland Minor title and a Lory Meagher Cup. He was described as a “a true Gael, a gentleman and a very good friend”.

“Pat was just an absolute stalwart of the GAA, never mind Tattyreagh,” says Keyes. “He never would never have missed training, you’d see him standing there in the suit, watching on. His grandchildren are part of the panel.” Only a few weeks ago, sadness met with the community once again following the passing of John Harkin. John’s young son Jason was invited to join the team in the changing room before their Intermediate quarter-final and led the team out onto the Athletic Grounds. He was also presented on the night with a new O’Neills ball, signed by all players and management .

For Keyes, the tragedies only emboldened the club to succeed, and they were not forgotten in victory. A picture of Earley was held aloft amongst the jubilation of the Junior final aftermath, and the team visited their graves immediately after the game with the trophy, which has since fittingly been renamed - ‘The Pat Darcy Cup’.

“The community looks to us whenever they need a lift,” says Keyes. “Whenever tragedy strikes, it’s us that the community kind of depends on, and that’s a massive burden on the shoulders of some really young men, but guys just thrive on it. For me that’s what the GAA is all about. It gives people something to talk about and look forward to.”

Into the Intermediate ranks this season and Tattyreagh were keeping their feet on the ground, with McHugh and Ferguson setting out their initial aspiration for the year as Division Two survival. They took to the higher grade like a duck to water however with four wins on the bounce before taking their eye off the ball somewhat, and several defeats followed. Niall Keyes recalls it was then time the team took stock and got back to basics.

“The momentum from 2017 carried us in, but we had a couple of defeats that brought us down to earth, and it was a turning point. We looked at ourselves and said, “we need to put the work in again”.

“We really knuckled down again, did the extra work, and that started to make the difference in the last five minutes of games.

“Survival was all we talked about. Getting the points on the boards and taking every game after as it comes. After the first four wins, those eight points would have been enough to keep you up and you’re into bonus territory after that. We were geared towards the Championship, it’s what we’d planned for.”

They progressed through the rounds of the 2018 Tyrone Intermediate Championship to set up a semi-final encounter with much-fancied Gortin side, but after going in at halftime four points in arrears, many would have though the end was in sight for Stephen McHugh’s plucky challengers.

However a stirring second half performance characterised by hunger in defence, dominance in midfield and patience in attack saw them fight their way back to win by a point. Johnny Harkin popped up in the 65th minute to thump over the winner from 50 metres, a monstrous score that was the very definition of courage and confidence.

“You’re standing watching it, and it’s like one of those moments in life where everything seems to come to a standstill, you don’t see anything else,” recalls McHugh. “Then - bang! - over the bar, what a feeling that was! You’d thought we’d won the Championship then and there.”

Niall Keyes believes the score came from a higher place. “There were times where you’d feel Dom was with you. I maintain that the winning point from big Johnny, that Dom was pushing it as it was going.”

Suddenly Tattyreagh were now just 60 minutes away from competing in senior football in 2019, and Augher St Macartans stood in their way. Again, the odds were heavily stacked against them, but that didn’t stop them before.

The game was nip-and-tuck, as they all had been, and again Tattyreagh found themselves battling tooth and nail to stay on terms. With five minutes remaining though they hit the net for a second time when James Darcy finished a fine team move, putting them 2-11 to 2-7 in front.

They saw out the game 2-12 to 2-09, and the passionate Tattyreagh players, management and supporters simply could not withhold their joy. A historic Intermediate title and promotion to senior football had been secured, something which Niall Keyes simply calls “a fairy-tale”.

“When the final whistle went up, you don’t really know what to do. There was a lot of older men who had worked so hard for the club for many years, and you look at them and they are ecstatic. Someone said to me a few days ago, “I never thought I’d see my wee club in Division One”. That’s the legacy that you’re leaving, so to see those boys enjoying that and seeing it in their lifetime, it’s unreal.”

“It was like a fairy-tale. Don’t get me wrong, you always had belief in yourselves, but never in your wildest dreams did you think you’d win back-to-back promotions. You see some teams do it in other counties, but it’s so competitive in Tyrone you never ever think it was possible to do. The final whistle went, and you didn’t know what to do. I just dropped to me knees, thinking ‘is this real?’ It was hard to take in.”

For McHugh and Ferguson, the feeling was just as surreal. As two men who had come from in from outside the club, the passion and pride they felt for Tattyreagh was as authentic as the next dyed-in-the-wool clubman.

“It did not sink into me until the Wednesday after the game, what we had achieved. It was something momentous,” says McHugh. “You had people coming up and shaking your hand, men who had never seen this in their lives, and people from other clubs congratulating you.

“The buzz is going about, and you don’t really realise, “what have I actually done here?”, and you sit back a few days later and you start to reflect on it all.

“If you don’t buy into your team, and they don’t see it as real, you’ll not get the respect that you need. If they’re going to commit to me, then I have to commit to them. It’s not false, you make it the real thing. You feel it, you love it, you respect, you turn around and you give them what they give you.

“There’s no-one more passionate than Stephen Ferguson. He’s on the field that match motivating the players you’d think he was playing! They respect that, and they give it back to him.

“When you stand at the side of a field and you feel there’s an injustice against you, you feel it as much as them. You get a good score, you feel as jubilant as them. At the end of the day, we’re a complete band of brothers, one unit all together.

“Tattyreagh is a wee club in the middle of nowhere, and everything revolves around the club. I’ve seen it all when we’re out training, there are Irish dancing classes, youth clubs, couch-to-5K programmes, all the different initiatives the club puts on.”

The incredible Tattyreagh journey continues with an Ulster Intermediate semi-final against Antrim champions St. Enda’s, managed by former county manager Frank Fitzsimons.

At this stage in last year’s Junior competition, they fell to Donegal’s Naomh Colmcille, a game Keyes admits they “threw away”.

“We never showed up that night and we kind of feel as players that we let ourselves down. For us it was one that got away, and we don’t have any intention of letting that happen again.

“There’s serious focus this week on the task at hand. To think that Tattyreagh could be in an Ulster final at Intermediate level come Saturday night is just outstanding. We have no intention of the fairytale ending soon.”