On April 13 2014, Shane O\u2019Neill ran 26.2 miles around London town. It took him 3 hours, 39 minutes and 41 seconds. For anyone who has ever run a marathon, the various stages of mental and physical experience will be familiar; The High, The Forced Suppression, Doubt, Disillusion, Rock Bottom, Hope and Elation are a few of the typical emotions which combine with tremendous strain on a body in a character defining journey. In O\u2019Neill\u2019s case, it was a journey within a journey, one which began and continues with the beneficiaries of his efforts that spring Sunday – St Mary\u2019s GAA, Faughanvale.<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
Sundays meant one thing in the O\u2019Neill household. Football. And football, in turn, meant only one thing. Faughanvale meant everything to Se\u00e1n O\u2019Neill, and still does. For the captain of the first junior county championship winning team of 1975 – the triumph which was the sign post for future generations to follow \u2013 it was also a way of life passed to his son:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went to football as a family and that was it,\u201d says Shane. \u201cHe was the manager and I was there carrying water bottles for him, and kicking the balls back over the fence during the warm up,\u201d are his earliest memories of his father and those early years at the club ground stood square to Lough Foyle and framed by the Inishowen coastline.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t recall much talk about my father\u2019s team to be honest. A lot of them quit early after winning that championship. A new generation came in. You had the likes of John McGee, Eddie McDermott and Gary Quinn. They started again.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a theme which runs through the modern history of the club and you get an aching and acute sense of it when talking to Shane O\u2019Neill. Having coached at under 16 and minor level at \u2018A\u2019 grade in the county, and being as competitive as the rest, O\u2019Neill\u2019s focus is now on the next batch, the under 8\u2019s and 10\u2019s. There\u2019s a determination now that lasting structures will be put in place that will see the club fulfill somewhere near its full potential.<\/p>\n[aesop_image img=”http:\/\/derrygaa.ie\/features\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/19921.jpg” imgwidth=”800″ caption=”North Derry U14 Football Champions 1992″ align=”center” captionposition=”center” lightbox=”off”]\n
\u201cFootball has changed so much,\u201d explains O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re mostly working on kicking, which seems to go against everything that is going on in the game. I can see other teams at that level doing the same and it\u2019s great, because we have to get out of this cycle of short hand-passing. I\u2019m a firm believer in the benefits of a kick-passing style of play.<\/p>\n
And on the kids themselves; \u201cThey have no interest, or very little, in soccer.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a comment packed with meaning.<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
They were a cavalier, freewheeling, rough-edged gang of youngsters. Think River Pheonix and the posse in the coming-of-age iconic classic, \u2018Stand by Me\u2019. A gather-up of talented lads from mostly GAA backgrounds in Glack, Faughanvale, Limavady and Magilligan \u2013 they entered the Coleraine and District youth soccer league, doing only what they loved to do \u2013 kick ball.<\/p>\n[aesop_image img=”http:\/\/derrygaa.ie\/features\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Dale_Farm_Milk_Cup.png” align=”right” captionposition=”left” lightbox=”off”]\n
\u201cIf someone had asked me to play for top-of-the-hill Celtic, I\u2019d have went. I just loved playing,\u201d explains O\u2019Neill wholeheartedly.<\/p>\n
Their faces didn\u2019t exactly fit in around the playing pitches of Cullybackey, Ballymoney, Killowen and Castlerock, but the innocence was there and there was a toughness to them. After less than half a season, O\u2019Neill\u2019s performances began to sing, mainly through a ball striking ability that would be the envy of most intercounty footballers of today. He was just fourteen.<\/p>\n
When the league put together a select team to enter the Milk Cup, O\u2019Neill was an automatic choice. The stage was prepared and the journey began.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur first game was against Man United at Anderson Park. Harry Gregg \u2013 the great Man United goalkeeper \u2013 was our manager. It was the game I got selected at to play for Notts Forest. I had been playing soccer for only ten months at that stage,\u201d he laughs, reliving the moment. \u201cI still sit back and laugh at that yet.\u201d<\/p>\n[aesop_image img=”http:\/\/derrygaa.ie\/features\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Shane-RK.jpg” caption=”Two young Irish Nottingham Forest Recruits in the early 90’s.” align=”left” captionposition=”left” lightbox=”off”]\n
\u201cI played in the Milk Cup and then we went to Scotland with the Magilligan gang. Two weeks after, I went over for a week\u2019s trial to Forest and played a couple of games. I thought I was quite poor and hadn\u2019t got on well at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t expect to hear anything back but I got a phone call a week later saying I was going to get a letter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey asked me back for two weeks and I went. We played a few more games and at the end of that they offered me a five year contract.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in complete shock. At fourteen years of age I hadn\u2019t a bloody clue what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
Much has been written and made of the life of young sports stars seemingly coasting down the highway toward professionalism. It’s seldom a smooth road and O\u2019Neill\u2019s experience conforms to that of many others.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery Friday evening I would fly over and they\u2019d pick me up and put me in digs. We\u2019d play a game Saturday, train, and then play a game Sunday. I\u2019d fly home again Sunday night. That went on until I was sixteen and left school.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went everywhere with Forest: AJAX, Marseille, PSV \u2013 really good standards of tournaments. Meanwhile, I was still playing for Faughanvale back at home when I got a chance. I shouldn\u2019t have been as I wasn\u2019t allowed! You\u2019re not going to give up your club though.\u201d<\/p>\n
The soccer verses Gaelic football tussle was one which threatened to define O\u2019Neill. It didn\u2019t, and it hasn\u2019t, but his experiences have stood to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing in England playing soccer was brilliant at the time. I wouldn\u2019t change it but ever since I\u2019ve heard a lot of stories of what goes on behind closed doors. It\u2019s a lonely life for a young fella being away from home. Forest were very good to me, don\u2019t get me wrong, but it\u2019s a hard, hard slog,\u201d he concludes.<\/p>\n[aesop_image img=”http:\/\/derrygaa.ie\/features\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Forest-Youths-19942.jpg” imgwidth=”800″ caption=”Shane O’Neill (third from right, front row) – part of the successful Nottingham Forest Youth team of 1994″ align=”center” captionposition=”center” lightbox=”off”]\n
Offered a five-year contract, two as a school boy, one apprentice and two professional, O\u2019Neill went with the flow where his natural talent and infectious enthusiasm for playing football \u2013 any football \u2013 took him.<\/p>\n
Holland, France and England may have been on the tour map but Clones or Croke Park weren\u2019t to be. Having got through to the final 30 after Derry minor trials in 1994 as a 15-year-old, the reality of commitments to the professional game were about to hit home.<\/p>\n
Recalling the All-Ireland minor final of 1995 \u2013 the team of Enda Muldoon, Johnny McBride, Joe Cassidy and Adrian McGuckin, who had accounted for a Galway team featuring Padraig Joyce and Michael Donnellan in the semi-final, and lost the final narrowly to Westmeath following controversial goals allowed and disallowed (in Derry\u2019s case) \u2013 Chris Brown spoke to the Gaelic Life\u2019s Ronan Scott in November 2011 and contrasted his All-Ireland winning team of 2002 with the class of \u201995:<\/p>\n
\u201cThey [the 95 team] weren\u2019t the finished article,\u201d said Brown. \u201cMuldoon was an ideal centre half forward, but there was a boy, O\u2019Neill, who was playing with Nottingham Forest and he was the other midfielder that I needed. I actually went to see him, he was from Faughanvale, when he was home for the summer but he was contractually bound.”<\/p>\n[aesop_image img=”http:\/\/derrygaa.ie\/features\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/chris-brown.jpg” caption=”Chris Brown” align=”right” captionposition=”right” lightbox=”off”]\n
Shane takes up the story:<\/p>\n
\u201cChris actually spoke to my da, who then spoke to Forest to ask them to release me from my contract for the summer. They point blank refused.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was shown that quote he had said and I have it framed in my house,\u201d he says emotionally, before continuing, \u201cI have only one regret in my life. It\u2019s that I never got to play Derry minors. I have repeatedly told any of the lads we\u2019ve coached at u16 and minor level this past few years that you only get one chance in your life to do this and you should take it if you\u2019re able.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could be sitting with an All-Ireland medal and that grates me.\u201d<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
If marathon running tests every fibre of a person\u2019s being, then the ability of O\u2019Neill\u2019s legs, and knees, to withstand the examination is remarkable. Three operations on the left knee, one on the right, \u2018banjaxed\u2019 the would-be soccer star. It happens. He\u2019s not the first and he won\u2019t be the last, but it hurt.<\/p>\n[aesop_image img=”http:\/\/derrygaa.ie\/features\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Shane-London-2014.jpg” caption=”London Marathon, 2014″ align=”left” captionposition=”left” lightbox=”off”]\n
After all that he had given up, after all that he had been through \u2013 the act of being initially rejected for Northern Ireland U15s having played future international (29 caps) and Rangers star, Danny Griffin, ‘off the park’ in a trial game, rejected because \u2018his name didn\u2019t fit\u2019, retrying shortly afterwards following \u2018advice\u2019 from Forest scouts and being then selected; sticking at it through all the lonely weekends and time away from friends; watching longingly as his club mates played for Derry minors in 1996, his final year \u2013 it was over.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not going to tell a lie, I went AWOL for six months,\u201d he says candidly and honestly. \u201cI fell out of love with, well, everything. I was in a bad place,\u201d he admits.<\/p>\n
This was rock bottom and there was only one place left to go.<\/p>\n
Derek McFeely had represented Faughanvale and Derry at senior level and understood young players. He was also manager of the Faughanvale senior team in 1998.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Derek McFeely had asked us to jump in the Foyle, we\u2019d have jumped in the Foyle. He was like the pied piper and had also been pivotal in our youth development. With Paul Bradley and Kevin Bryson, they got young lads believing in themselves. They got me believing again,\u201d O\u2019Neill declares.<\/p>\n
Now a coach and mentor in his own right, Shane regards the job as being ‘90% all about man management’. His philosophies are clearly, and understandably, a result of lessons learned and places visited, particularly post Nottingham Forest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI eventually got my head back in the GAA and played part-time soccer. We then won the intermediate championship in 1998 and 1999. We had a real good mix of younger and older players. It kick started my life again to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
Faughanvale have always had talented footballers. In Shane O\u2019Neill\u2019s own time prior to, or at the start of, his professional soccer journey, the club contested two F\u00e9ile and county u14 finals. On each occasion, Ballinderry Shamrocks stood in their path. O\u2019Neill admits there was something missing and it was something which was still missing when the double intermediate winners looked to the new millennium:<\/p>\n
\u201cAt 20 I was the oldest player in our half back line. We were going well but to be honest we just didn\u2019t have enough players to keep it going, to take the next step up to senior level.<\/p>\n
\u201cSoccer had a bit to do with it. We had Tony Gray, Adrian Creane, myself and then Joe (Gray) all playing soccer as well. We had Noel Finn, Steven Mulvenna \u2013 real classy footballers but we didn\u2019t have the commitment as a group. There\u2019s no point in saying otherwise, that was the reason.<\/p>\n[aesop_image img=”http:\/\/derrygaa.ie\/features\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Carlin-Duffy-2015.jpg” imgwidth=”800″ caption=”O’Neill’s minors were Carlin Duffy Cup winners 2015″ align=”center” captionposition=”left” lightbox=”off”]\n
\u201cMy da took a team into the first division in the early 90\u2019s, who perhaps didn\u2019t have half the talent we had, and they finished fourth. But they had heart and they had the desire to do it,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill has closely studied the current and recent kingpins of Derry football, Ballinderry and Slaughtneil.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just have it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not a raw talent and it\u2019s not magic, according to the Faughanvale man – it\u2019s more closely associated with belief in who they are and a total commitment to the cause.<\/p>\n
By way of example, O\u2019Neill vividly recalls an under-14 county final defeat at the hands of the Shamrocks:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe counted it out one day. I think there was twelve of that Ballinderry team that beat us who went on to win All-Ireland medals,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n
\u201cMyself, as captain, and John McGee as manager went into their changing rooms afterwards. I remember John saying to them how he admired their togetherness and dedication. \u2018How do you keep it going year after year\u2019, he asked them? They had won so much.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Ballinderry manager turned around on his own and said \u2018John, I have nothing to do with it. If any of these lads miss training, the rest of them are down knocking their doors to find out why.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how it was; it\u2019s just a way of life for them with no distractions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe trained as hard as any but there were always four or five whose commitment was border-line.\u201d<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s junior final will come and go and O\u2019Neill regards it as important, of course. However, with his experiences and his knowledge of the game earned in the trenches, it\u2019s the longer term which now counts.<\/p>\n[aesop_image img=”http:\/\/derrygaa.ie\/features\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/2015-COVER-JUNIOR-HIGH-RES-20151007-201926217.jpg” align=”left” captionposition=”left” lightbox=”off”]\n
\u201cJoe (Gray) has stripped it all back to basics now and has done a fantastic job. The lads are young, they\u2019re fit and they\u2019re hungry. It\u2019s a mix of mostly younger lads with four or five older heads. Our average age in the semi-final was 21 I think. We\u2019re back to where we need to be to start again,\u201d maintains O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n
The club have come full circle, have excellent administration in place, are eager to progress, and are seeking direction from past experiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cPaul Bradley and John McGee started our current youth programme,\u201d explains O\u2019Neill, now also a key part of the organisation. \u201cMany of the boys who are playing now just came out of minors last year and there\u2019s nine or ten of them playing on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cNext year is about learning for them in Intermediate. I do believe that in three or four years\u2019 time we will get out of Intermediate and into senior but we need to be patient along the way.<\/p>\n[aesop_image img=”http:\/\/derrygaa.ie\/features\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Shane-Family-e1444314386252.jpg” caption=”Shane with dad, Se\u00e1n, and kids Cate and Finn.” align=”right” captionposition=”right” lightbox=”off”]\n
\u201cSometimes when lads get out of U16s, they\u2019re growing into young men and they think they know everything and can\u2019t be talked to. It can be a problem. The recent signs are good though. The younger lads are working well with Joe and are training in the gym twelve months of the year. They really need the guidance of the older boys to help them through the next few years though.\u201d<\/p>\n
He is reflective, knowledgeable and now clear-headed.<\/p>\n
My father has a quote, remarks O\u2019Neill; \u2018when you stop learning, give up.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On April 13 2014, Shane O\u2019Neill ran 26.2 miles around London town. It took him 3 hours, 39 minutes and 41 seconds. For anyone who has ever run a marathon, the various stages of mental and physical experience will be familiar; The High, The Forced Suppression, Doubt, Disillusion, Rock Bottom, Hope and Elation are a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\t\n