Tyrone handball honoured with 2 gongs at Ulster GAA Writers Awards 2014

Tyrone GAA Handball were very well represented at the 2014 Ulster GAA Writer’s Awards Banquet in the Great Northern Hotel, Bundoran, on Saturday. On another great evening for the county, following an outstanding year on the handball courts, Tyrone GAA Handball collected two highly prestigious Ulster GAA Writers Awards on the night.
Loughmacrory GAA Handball Club collected the Ulster GAA Writers ‘Handball’ Award for 2014. This was in recognition of a fantastic year for the club which saw the launch of a state-of-the-art One Wall Handball Arena as part of a massive £1 million+ Community project back in June 2014 and hosted a record Ulster One Wall Championships there as part of the launch of that facility. In addition the club, all through 100% volunteer work, launched and ran a record One Wall Tournament – the Lough 1Wall Showdown – which attracted not just the best players from all over Ireland but also the World Handball Champion, from Puerto Rico, Wally Amaro. A total of 248 players, which is a record for any tournament outside of the GAA Handball One Wall Nationals in Ireland. On Finals day some 1,000 spectators watched a series of finals across 16 grades, with the Open finals seeing Puerto Rico’s Amaro dft Irish Mens Open Champion, Conor McElduff, and Cork’s Catriona Casey defeated Maeve McElduff for the Ladies Open title, an event in which there were four World Champions in contention. These were some of the highlights of the highly acclaimed weekend Lough 1Wall Showdown Tournament back in August. The Club also played host, with other Tyrone Clubs, to the All Ireland Féile na nGael in June and completed a first ever All Ireland Division 2 Boys and Girls double at that event for the club, plus in addition the All Ireland Division 1 Skills awards title through Antoin Fox. Four USHA National junior titles, All Ireland and numerous provincial titles were also secured by the Loughmacrory club in 2014.
Tyrone’s brilliant year was also highlighted by the fact that Conor McElduff, following a year in which he won the Mens Open One Wall Nationals title in July and the Mens Open Doubles with Killian Carroll at the Canadian 40×20 Nationals was also a nominee in this Award Category.
There was to be another remarkable achievement for Tyrone’s brilliant handball star of 2014, Johnny Woods also. The Breacach teenager has had one of the best ever season’s by any minor handballer in the country. A clean sweep of successes across the codes of 40×20, One Wall and 60×30 in a remarkable campaign. An outstanding seven All Ireland championship titles in 2014 makes most impressive reading for the gifted teenager, now studying Sports Studies at UUJ. Johnny claimed the “Outstanding Young Achiever” Award at the provincial GAA awards and even more ipressive considering he won this award ahead of Donegal GAA football stars, Ryan McHugh and Patrick McBrearty.
In addition to the two big awards for Tyrone on the night there was also the added distinction that Johnny Woods, Ryan Mullan, Maeve McElduff and Aoife Kelly opened the evening as part of the Parade of Champions alongside the major stars of Ulster GAA in football, hurling, camogie and ladies football.
Committee Members of Loughmacrory GAA Handball Club together with Breacach’s Johnny Woods are pictured with Tyrone Senior football manager, Mickey Harte, and Donegal’s GAA Writer’s Footballer of the Year, Neil McGee.
The next awards coming up will be the 2014 Teamtalkmag Tyrone GAA All-Star Awards Ceremony on Friday 28th November. The Handballers in line for awards at the Banquet are as follows:
Tyrone GAA Handballer of the Year: Conor McElduff, Darragh Daly, Shane O’Neill
Tyrone GAA Young Handballer of the Year: Johnny Woods, Ryan Mullan, Maeve McElduff, Sean Kerr.
Voting is now open for those awards category and can be accessed on the www.teamtalkmag.com website.