The 2005 season saw a lot of memorable moments for all associated with the club both on and off the playing field. In a year that clubman Michael McGee captured his second All Ireland senior medal we also held the hugely successful development draw and played on the new pitch for the first time. Firstly looking at events on the playing field our senior team finished in fifth position in the Division 1B table having finished on 23 points after playing 22 games; winning ten, drawing three and losing eight thus ensuring qualification for the promotion play- offs for the second year in a row. At present the team has won two play-off games and another victory would ensure promotion to Division 1A for 2006. With former Armagh All Star Gerard Houlahan and James Burns appointed at the beginning of the year there was great expectation as to the team’s prospects for the 2005 season. After impressing in a few pre–season challenge games the team got off to a great start on Sunday 3rd April with an impressive away win against Eglish 2-10 to 1-8, and followed this up in Round 2 on Friday 8th April with a 1-7 to 0-8 home win against Omagh. This match was historic for the fact that it was the club’s first competitive game on the new playing pitch. In Round 3 the side made the trip to Edendork and came away with a 2-7 to 0-12 victory. They followed this up with a draw at home to Moortown 1-6 to 0-9 on Friday 15th April and recorded the first defeat of the season in O’Neill Park Dungannon going down to the home side 0-8 to 0-6 in round 5. But the team quickly bounced back from this defeat to post an impressive 3-14 to 0-11 victory away to Clann Na Gael and followed this up with a slender 1-11 to 2-7 victory over Killeeshil in Round 7 on Sunday 1st May 2005. Round 8 produced our second draw of the season as we shared the spoils with Gortin 1-10 to 0-13. On Sunday 7th May the team made the trip to Moy and came away empty handed as we went down by two points 1-8 to 1-10 but followed this up a week later with a 0-13 to 0-9 home victory over Pomeroy. In Round 11 the team suffered a 1-15 to 1-6 defeat away to Cookstown in a top of the table clash that severely dented our chances of automatic promotion. This defeat was followed two weeks later with the team going down to the challenge of Moortown 1-12 to 2-6. In Round 13 on Sunday 12th June the side suffered an 8 point home defeat at the hands of Edendork 3-10 to 0-11 but managed to get back to winning ways away to Omagh on Friday 17th June 1-9 to 0-9. There followed a home defeat to Dungannon in Round 15 0-8 to 0-10 and then two home wins; first against Moy on Saturday 2nd July 3-11 to 1-5 and then on Sunday 17th July against Clann Na Gael 2-7 to 1-8. In Round 18 on Tuesday 26th July the side recorded their second draw of the season with neighbours Gortin 1-10 to 0-13 in a game which was our last competitive fixture until the championship meeting with Edendork some nine weeks later. In this game played at windswept O’Neill Park, Dungannon on Saturday 1st October, we were defeated 0-6 to 0-5 despite leading 0-5 to 0-1 at the break. This proved to be very disappointing as we knew we were capable of winning the game if we had played to our potential and also for the fact that we were reduced to fourteen men midway through the first half after Mickey McGee was harshly dismissed. contd
