Community spirit at the heart of Knockmore and Belmullet’s evolution

There are two burning questions ahead of the Mayo senior football championship final in James Stephens Park, Ballina, tomorrow (Sunday), writes John Melvin.

They are: will Belmullet’s amazing run of giant-killing acts will finally come to an end or can the defending champions Knockmore repeat what they did in 1997 when they retained the Moclair Cup by beating Kiltimagh?

No and yes, and yes and no, are respectively the four possible answers to both those very difficult questions and I have a feeling that going into this final as underdogs – yet again – could very well suit Belmullet, who just seem to thrive when they are written-off and find more when the gas meter is gone into the red as both Breaffy and Westport discovered when they met the men from Erris in the knockout stages of the championship.

It is as if this Belmullet football team embodies the community spirit that has kept the north Mayo town afloat in the bad times, when emigration was the only ticket to survival for so many young men (and women) in the area.

Now that wounds which once divided the Erris community following the long saga over the Corrib Gas development have mostly healed, Belmullet’s new prosperity is very much reflected in a team which is ambitious, confident, focused, determined and proud, and has very much the support of the community behind them.

And the support is not just coming from the Erris region itself.

Belmullet supporter

As I tried to get through the traffic which crawled out of Ballina following the semi-final, I had time to roll down my window and speak with an oncoming driver.

You knew he was a Belmullet supporter from the broad smile on his face. He was on his own.

“You might be best to turn your car and go back around the other way to get out of Ballina as the traffic is mad down near where the traffic lights are. There is a long queue back to James Stepehen Park,” I told him before asking where he was heading.

“To Dublin,” he beamed, and such was the joy written in the lines of the face of this middle-aged man, he would have gladly have driven to Outer Mongolia and back as he had the treasured memories of a remarkable semi-final performance by his team to keep him company.

That journey was from Dublin to Ballina but for many Belmullet families the long haul to Dublin and back on the same day for an All-Ireland final is often at least 50 or 60 miles more than most Mayo supporters have to endure.

I think in particular of men like travelling companions the late Eddie Cuffe and Ian McAndrew, two men who were always good company to run into at various venues around the country at Mayo games.

I think of those Belmullet families who made this journey on a regular basis and whose return home very late at night, made all the longer by another Mayo defeat. The point, I suppose, I’m really trying to make is that Belmullet people have to work that bit harder, have to travel the longer road and endure the longer hours to achieve their goals, and that is possibly why this current crop of players find themselves where they are now – within sight of their first ever county senior title.

They know what it is like to put in the hard yards and in particular you think of players who have to travel those 50 miles for county training.

Can you imagine what winning their first ever county senior football title would do for the boys and girls of Belmullet and the surrounding area? That’s motivation enough for any team to bring the smiles to the kids in the community.

However, as we know only too well, you don’t always get what you think you deserve. It has to be earned.

So far, Belmullet have earned their corn through hard work and sacrifices but they meet a team with similar attributes and ambitions in Sunday’s final, a proven side in the guise of Knockmore, a team who have finally discarded the unwanted tag of being the nearly men of Mayo club football in recent years in particular.

Like Belmullet, they too are a rural-based club who have been punching above their weight for years. They have achieved phenomenal success with the limited resources that are available to them but work rate and application has long been the by-word of Knockmore and in Ray Dempsey they have found a man who has been able to harness the energies of the group and extract the best from the talent available to him, and there is no shortage of talent in this team.

Dempsey was rewarded last year when he placed the burden of responsibility on the shoulders of the younger players.

They repaid his trust by winning the county title for the first time since 1997. Now, a year later and a year wiser, those young players bid to build on that success.

However, Knockmore are not all about youth and, in the end, experienced played a key part in getting them into this final, particularly against Westport where the Ruttledge brothers, Keith and Pearse, were summoned and delivered the killer blows which dispatched Garrymore.

The role that Kevin McLoughlin plays for Knockmore is key to their success. His intelligence to read a game, his ability to thread a ball into space has been very much a part of Knockmore’s game.

Common denominator

One common denominator between tomorrow’s protagonists is the physicality both bring to the game and they are well-matched in this department, while both will be looking to their benches who have been crucial in their championship journey.

Belmullet’s success has been very much based on their ability to retain ball and frustrate teams, a ploy that both Westport and Breaffy feel victim to.

Yet, if Westport had scored even one of two great goal chances, the outcome could have been reversed.

But scoring goals has been the path to success for both these team and it is interesting to note that they have both scored nine.

The elephant on the pitch on this occasion is the fact that Belmullet have already beaten the county champions in their group stages. Is that significant?

It could be if Knockmore dwell on it too much but I think Ray Dempsey knows how to turn a negative into a positive.

He will be telling himself, and his team, that they should be grateful to Belmullet for getting them to this final – because that result did, in my opinion. Played on Belmullet’s home turf, the game proved to be something of a turning point for Knockmore in finding a path back to their second successive county final, and they will be comfortable playing on the pitch of their neighbours, Ballina Stephenites.

It could just be the a handy piece of psychology to see Knockmore lift their 10th senior title but if Ryan O’Donoghue is allowed to dictate terms, then Belmullet will win their first ever senior title.

Making the call, I go with Knockmore.

*The Connacht Gold Mayo SFC final between Belmullet and Knockmore will throw in at 1.30 p.m. tomorrow (Sunday, November 21) at James Stephens Park, Ballina