FLASHBACK: Reliving Crossmolina's journey to eternal All-Ireland glory

This Friday, at 5 pm, The Mayo News will release our video documentary on the historic moment when Crossmolina Deel Rovers became the first Mayo club to win the All-Ireland Senior Club title.

Here, we dip our toes into the story of that incredible journey. Be sure to keep an eye on www.mayonews.ie to watch the documentary.

Twenty-five years ago Crossmolina Deel Rovers were the first Mayo club to win the All-Ireland senior title 

The humility and fondness with which former players and coaches remember their historic triumph, speaks volumes. Then Deel Rovers manager Tommy Jordan simply says: “We did it for our club. That was the big thing.”

They let their actions speaks on the pitch, especially on the great day out in Croke Park when they defeated Nemo Rangers to win the All-Ireland club title.

The photo of a certain Ciarán McDonald, just a heartbeat after the final whistle, holding the ball high up in the sky, has its place secured in every book on Mayo sports history. 

However, there is so much more to this story. A rural community in the West of Ireland stood together, their football team's results were the local currency for chats at shops, in the streets, in pubs, at social gatherings.

After many years of build-up, exhilarating wins and frustrating setbacks, Crossmolina finally climbed onto the throne of club football on April 17, 2001. 

The team managed to hold back a late comeback from an illustrious Nemo Rangers team from Cork, to lift the Andy Merrigan Cup.

Garrymore, Castlebar, Knockmore and Ballina Stephenites had tried before them, but all had stumbled at the final hurdle.

To commemorate this monumental achievement from 25 years ago, The Mayo News has interviewed players, coaches and supporters to create an emotional documentary that will take viewers on an extraordinary journey.

“For us, football was the centre of everything we did. We played football until it was dark and then started the next day,” says Michael Moyles, legendary midfielder/attacker for Crossmolina during their heyday in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

On growing up in Crossmolina, Moyles says: “It was a quiet town, but we made our own fun.”

Then corner-back Stephen Rochford remembers, “It was kerbs you were playing, when there was only two of you there. Once you got numbers up, there was one in goal and you were playing into at as two versus two or whatever the numbers were.”

Success started slowly to build after the arrival of a new teacher to the National School. His name was John Cosgrove.

He fostered the love for football and competitiveness into successive groups of boys, the core of which would end up lifting the Andy Merrigan Cup on the pitch of Croke Park, while the Hogan stand was in complete rebuild at the time.

Up until the 1950s, the town Crossmolina had all too familiar problems with emigration up until a new ESB power plant was built in Bellacorick, points out Liam Moffatt, who played full-froward for the history-making Deel Rovers side.

“That brought employment - and with that you had more people working, a demand for housing, a demand for education, facilities were developed. Work came first, people came second - and the Deel Rovers benefitted from that.”

The team had fantastic footballers in every area of the pitch. “The ingredients were there, we just had to mix them,” quips manager Tommy Jordan.

Described by his players as a gentleman and people-manager, another of the backroom team is the source of many anecdotes: Jarlath Cunningham was brought in to help with the coaching side of things. He had little experience with coaching football: “I have two left legs. I would've been on the bench in Castlebar for years, never bothered me,” he admits. 

But Cunningham brought energy and fresh coaching ideas that helped further foster the competitiveness within the team, bring in more discipline, and get them ready for battle. 

He also brought in wearing club tracksuits, which was new for club teams at the time. “We used to train with rugby balls, and when we brought them into Croke Park, we got some funny looks,” Cunningham jokes. 

But the Deel Rovers were certainly on a mission in the years 1999-2001. The upcoming documentary will follow their journey through the years, and recall the best stories around it. 

It shouldn't be forgotten that the match was due to be played on St Patrick's Day, like every other club final back then, but an outbreak of foot and mouth disease prevented that from happening. That's why the big final went ahead a month later, on Easter Monday.

Crossmolina were up against a formidable force in Nemo Rangers, and it was a frantic finish, as the Deel Rovers were only up by a point with seconds to go.

The kick-out that turned too short and a hop ball made for a dramatic last scene of play. The rest is history.

If you want to relive this magnificent story of Mayo sporting success, and also hear from captain Tom Nallen and Michael Moyles' sister Mary, and learn why her mother had to tape all the matches back then, keep an eye on The Mayo News website this Friday afternoon, April 17.