In pictures: Finn Valley AC honour historic cross country team, Rosaleen McGonagle enters Hall of Fame

Click on the arrows to go through the images, by Joe Boland of North West Newspix

Finn Valley AC honoured its remarkable senior women’s team who won ten national senior cross country titles between 1993 and 2004.

The group medalled at the national senior for 14 successive years and the sequence included a run of eight team golds in a row.

At a special function in the Finn Valley Centre on Friday night, the eleven scoring athletes were honoured while Rosaleen McGonagle was inducted into the club’s hall of fame.

No Ulster team - in either the men’s or women’s race - had won an Irish senior crown before Finn Valley AC made the breakthrough in 1993 - after two second-place finishes in 1991 and 1992.

At Phoenix Park in 1993, Belinda McArdle led the charge in 11th as Finn Valley AC finally broke the mould.

With Catriona McGranaghan (14), Dawn Hargan (15) and Kay Byrne (17) all inside the top 20, Finn Valley were on the famous roll of honour at last.

Byrne scored on all ten while McGranaghan appeared on the scoring team eight times.

Retaining a title is always difficult but not with this group. In what was probably the toughest course ever set up for a National Cross Country at Ballinlough, County Roscommon, Finn Valley retained their prize in 1994 with Byrne joined there by Rosaleen Campbell, Margaret Synott and Rosemary Bogle.

Ita Boyle joined the scoring athletes in 1995 while Helena Crossan was there in 1997 and Noeleen Merritt and Clodagh McCool were part of the elite gang after the turn of the century as Finn Valley AC maintained their dominance.

The magical years also saw Finn Valley AC compete in Europe at the European Champion Clubs Cup Cross-Country. In 1995, Finn Valley AC finished sixth in Maia, Portugal - a trick they repeated 12 months later in Lanciano, Italy.

They were among the best in Europe, competing against full-time athletes; in ’95, Albertina Diaz, a three-time Olympian and World Cross Country champion, took the gold medal.

The renowned BBC sports journalist said in his 2011 book, Sporting Greats of the North West: “No club from the north west of Ireland, competing in a major team sport, has before exerted such control over a national senior award. The achievement of Finn Valley’s exceptional women’s team will surely stand the test of time.”

Throughout that period, Patsy McGonagle used to repeat a mantra to the group: ‘This is not normal life’. And yet. they made it the norm.

Rosaleen McGonagle was also inducted into the hall of fame.

In 1973 Rosaleen was a scoring member of the first Finn Valley to won bronze medals at the Donegal Novice Cross Country Championships.

She has been ever present on the committee of Finn Valley Athletic Club from its formation in 1971 and she scored on the first Finn Valley team to won the All Ireland Master Cross Country Championships in Dungarvan in 1991, joined by Jean Harron, Noreen Mc Gonagle and Mary Martin.

She has been team leader on a variety of trips abroad, including to Aalborg, Denmark in the 1990s when a Finn Valley AC group competed in a European Youth competition.

Her attention to detail is obvious throughout the Finn Valley Centre and her support to Patsy’s vision on and off the track has been unstinting over the years.