Four Masters chase historic Ulster minor double in New Year’s Day clash

Sometimes in sport you are defined by small moments. Four Masters understand that now as they stand on the brink of an impressive Ulster minor double.  

Only three teams have achieved such a feat since the St Paul’s competition was established back in 1981.  

It was first done in only its third year when Donegal’s own Killybegs won the double, before going on to be one of the most dominant teams the county ever saw at senior level, winning five Dr Maguire Cups between 1987 and 1996. 

Then there was Ballinderry Shamrocks who won the St Paul’s double in 1996 and 1997. At senior level, they would forge one of the biggest Ulster rivalries with Bellaghy in the late 90s and early 2000s before they made the break by finally capturing the Derry senior title in 2001, before later capturing Ulster, and finally, All-Ireland glory that season. 

And then finally there was Watty Graham’s who landed the all-conquering four in-a-row between 2011 and 2014, before making the break at senior level in Derry in 2021, reaching the All-Ireland Mountain top at the beginning of this year. 

They are facts that the Four Masters men will be looking to avoid in the final hours before their Ulster final on New Year’s Day at 1pm against Magherafelt . . . they know they have a game to win and anything else is just noise. 

It’s hard to know how much of a tightrope successful teams must walk between experience at the top level and simply having a crop of talented footballers, for Odie McBride, one of the Four Masters’ minor managers, it’s a cocktail of both. 

“Against Fr Rock’s, at one point we were pushed back to a two-point game and the crowd started to get behind Cookstown, but we took the sting out (of the game) and started to slow the game down a bit. We then went up and Tomas Carr got a very good point, and Conor McCahill got a couple of good points and that gave us that bit of breathing space,” he said. 

And that’s exactly what this team has done throughout their journey to three Ulster finals on the trot. The game on Wednesday is in thrall to a Donegal Town side that, in moments of duress, seems to have call on the gearing of a locomotive. They are a team that doesn’t enter the world of anarchy football. 

In their nine previous Ulster championship matches, only twice where they put under the cosh; their Ulster final defeat to Dungiven in early 2023, and last year’s Ulster quarter-final escape against the very team they will face on New Year’s Day – Magherafelt. 

Revenge is the word hoisted around the St Paul’s area and no doubt it will be something the Derry champions have waited almost a year for. 

“It’s good for the soul, it’s good for the heart,” McBride said. “This is going to be a New Year’s cracker.” 

“Isn’t it brilliant these two teams have ended up in the final, it’s going to be a showdown, and please God we’ll do our best. 

“These chances don’t come around that often and I always akin the boys that this is St Tiernach’s Park in July, now May . . . this is an Ulster final. We want to be here on New Year's Day against Magherafelt. They’re a brilliant outfit with great men behind them, I think we’re the same so it’s going to go down to the wire I imagine. 

“It’s New Year’s Day; it’s the first big game of 2025 and we’re just over the moon to be back in it again. It’s a top competition with top players. Against Scotstown, we were a bit lucky, I think we were a bit more controlled (against Fr Rock’s), so we’ll see where the next game takes us.” 

There will no doubt be a harsh melancholic feeling for one of these top sides on Wednesday when the final whistle goes. Like great teams, they haven’t felt that hurt too often.