The story of how one man brought Omagh Town back

BBC News

2 days ago

"It's literally my life now. I'm so passionate about it and I just want to see it work." Caolan McAleer can remember running around the St Julian's Road pitch at half-time of Omagh Town matches.As a kid, it was one of his first memories of playing football, and the excitement helped to kickstart a dream that led him to a career in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.He may not remember the Premier League clubs coming to the town in 1999, or even properly recall the club folding in 2005 when he was just 11 years of age, but he does know what was lost when the club ceased to exist.And that's why, 20 years on from when it first disappeared, he's on a mission to revive one of the forgotten stalwarts of Irish League football from the ground up.
'It was the glory days back then'
Omagh Town were founded in 1962, but their heyday came in the 1990s when they were challenging in cups, in the top half of the league and playing in the Intertoto Cup in Europe."We had the good days, the glory days back then," said former striker Andy Crawford."St Julian's was a fortress when we were going really well. We were a thriving team back then." While Gaelic football was the dominant sport in Tyrone, with St Julian's Road a stone's throw away from the imperious Healy Park ground that the county's four-time All-Ireland winners call home, Omagh Town played a key role in the community.Manchester United's treble winners, as well as Liverpool and Chelsea, all came to play the club in charity matches in the aftermath of the Omagh bomb in August 1998, in which 29 people were killed and hundreds more injured in one of the worst atrocities of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.The games were a show of the club helping the town to come together, but their financial issues continued into the start of the new millennium and Crawford, who joined Linfield a year before the club's eventual collapse, said "the cracks were starting to show" by the time of his departure.Relegation in the 2004-05 season, along with the closure of their social club, were pinned as the reasons for Omagh Town's demise as more than 60 years of history were gone in an instant. St Julian's Road lay derelict for years, and in 2020 it was turned into a public park where there still sits a small memorial to mark the visits of the Premier League teams in the aftermath of the bomb.
'Why can't we get back to the Premiership?'
But 20 years after Omagh Town were dissolved, the dreams of one man are sparking a revival. McAleer set up Omagh's youth teams last year and has now reintroduced the senior team back to the town.The 31-year-old was playing in Northern Ireland's top flight last season with Loughgall, but will now be lining out with Omagh Town in the third division of the Fermanagh and Western League in amateur football. It's like a real-life road to glory in Football Manager, with McAleer set to combine a player-manager role."My brain has a million of ideas all the time. In the last few years, I knew my playing career was going to come to an end," he says. "I thought I've done everything I wanted to do in football, so I felt now was the right time to get Omagh Town up and running."I'm still fresh and I can help the team on the pitch as well as off the pitch."
McAleer isn't backed by huge financiers to make his project a success. He is being supported by those in the town with interest growing as the club does likewise. But it's largely down to his hard work and passion that the club have reached this point with the potential for further growth. Based out of Youth Sport Omagh, a five-minute drive from the old St Julian's Road, it started with boys' and girls' youth teams, and the number of players has now more than doubled to 150. McAleer wanted the club to grow "organically" and the new season will see the first senior team added to the set up. "At the start I think a lot of people wondered if 'is this Caolan taking a big mad notion?'. But it's been great and it's nearly all been positive and we're getting more people on side when they realise what our goals are."We want to take Omagh Town to senior football, we don't want to play locally. I keep saying it - why can't we get back to the Premiership?"He admits it would be a "big task" to guide the club to the top flight but says he doesn't think it's unrealistic"."Why not give it a crack? I've taken the risk and thought I was going to go for it. "We're only a year in but we're producing a great youth set-up, the club is growing and we're in a good position."
Given the level of amateur football where Omagh Town will be starting off, McAleer admits recruiting players, a new process for him, has been a "hard sell".However, he has assembled a group of "young and exciting players", and he appreciates them for trusting him and following his vision.The pathway for youth is an important factor for McAleer, who had to drive 30 miles to Dungannon when he had outgrown youth football in Omagh, and then a further hour up the road to Belfast when he joined Linfield. His father was able to make the commitment to drive him, but he knows other players will have lost that same opportunity because they could not make the same journey. That's a large part of his long-term goal for the club."I want to make Omagh Town a club that is running well and one that is renowned for producing good, young talent. "I can see our youngest players playing for the first team in 10 years. "That excites me. I want these kids to want to play for Omagh Town, want the team to be the one where you want to be at. That's a big goal for me."
'There's pressure on to live up to history'
Midfielder Dylan Donnelly wasn't even born when the original Omagh Town folded, but he's heard all the stories. After being on the books of Ballinamallard United and Dergview, he's an example of a player who could be at a higher level but has bought into the project. "The club has a rich history and that almost puts a bit of pressure on us to live up to everyone that came before us."It's a pulling factor for anyone that comes here. It's a very exciting project and I'm buzzing to be part of it".He got the club's first competitive goal - in a narrow 2-1 cup defeat by Sion Swifts - and said it was "written in the stars" after being assisted by McAleer. "It was a really nice feeling, especially given the history between us. "He's been coaching me for as long as I can remember, since I was in primary school."McAleer said there was a "real buzz" for the club's first game, and he was "more nervous than I've been in any match"."It's probably because I've worked so hard to get it to this level and I wanted it to go well."I didn't want to get hammered, that was the big thing. We had loads of fans there and people coming to watch. We hadn't played together before, so we didn't know what to expect."
Crawford, who manages local club Killen, said the town had been "crying out" for senior football and McAleer has the foundations in place to succeed."He's doing a great job. He has the structure really well and the foundations are perfect."Hopefully he can progress through the leagues and get Omagh Town back on the market."McAleer added his goal for the first team "is to win the league" and start their journey up the leagues with promotion. Even after spending one rain-soaked training session with the first team, you get a real sense of what Omagh Town means to McAleer. His passion and enthusiasm for the project is infectious, and it's clear his youthful squad buy into that."Omagh Town means everything to me," he said."When you're passionate about something and you want to give it a proper crack, then there's no reason it can't work."