A FEW of his old teachers might have recognised him, but they wouldn’t have had a clue what he was doing.
Out by himself on the gridiron pitch at Schwarzman Stadium, home of the Abington High School Ghosts, Aidan Coyle had a few soccer balls with him and he practised catching, soloing and kicking points through the goal posts on the American Football field in the Philadelphia suburbs.
Fast forward four years and America born and bred Aidan has now played - and scored - in a championship match at Healy Park, the spiritual home of Tyrone GAA. A fortnight ago he came off the bench and sent Pomeroy Plunketts on the road to victory in their Intermediate quarter-final against Owen Roe’s of Leckpatrick. The Plunkett’s won by six points and now meet Derrylaughan in the semi-finals on Saturday.
Abington to Omagh... It’s been a remarkable journey for the 25-year-old who only took up Gaelic Football in 2019 and returned to the native sod of his father Michael to play for Pomeroy and reconnect with the family and the community.
Throughout this year he’s been living in a caravan behind the Coyle family’s home house where his dad (the 10th of 14 children) grew up. He’s surrounded by uncles, aunts and cousins and, understandably, he’s had the occasional pang of homesickness but this experience, his GAA year, has been all he hoped it would be.
"He's a great lad and he's full of talent," said Tyrone Allstar Kieran McGeary of his teammate.
"Nobody took it light on him when he came in, nobody went easy on him, actually some of the boys were struggling to get near him.
"He fully earned his place and he's unfortunate not to get a starting jersey but as an asset coming off the bench he's fantastic."
Aidan’s dad and brothers Noel, Sean, Paddy and Peter all played for Pomeroy and when Michael moved to the States in the early 1980s he lined out for the now defunct Club Tyrone in Philadelphia - he met his USA-born wife Maureen after one of the games.
Michael and Maureen encouraged their son to have a go at GAA with Philly’s Kevin Barry’s club in the summer of 2019 and it turned out that Aidan was a chip off the old block.
He took to the sport of his forefathers like a duck to water and after he played a game for the Pomeroy Reserves and scored a penalty against Cookstown during a family holiday back to the old country last year, the novel idea that was in his head suddenly found a voice.
“Every year you get people coming out to Philadelphia from Ireland to play and I was curious to know whether anyone had ever gone in the opposite direction,” he explained.
“I thought it would be pretty cool experience to spend a year here and really get to know everyone. I’m really thankful to my parents - not only were they okay with me doing this, they encouraged me to do it and it has been really cool.
“My dad was as excited, if not more excited, about me coming over as I was.”
Just four years after taking up the sport, to be playing in Tyrone, where football is a religion, and even getting close to a team preparing for an intermediate semi-final is a phenomenal achievement.
Aidan grew up playing baseball, soccer and basketball in Adington. Gaelic Football contains elements of all three and he says that helped him get up to grips with the new game with impressive speed.
“I think Gaelic is basically a combination of all the sports I’ve ever played,” he said.
“When I was on the Kevin Barry’s team in Philly I tried to get all my friends to play. I was like: ‘You guys would be good at this, give it a try’. I think there’s a lot of potential for growth of the sport everywhere.
“I don’t know if it’s the one that suits me best, I hope it is! I would say it is – it’s just a really fun sport to play.”
THERE was no settling-in period for him in Pomeroy and from the first night in training he worked as hard as the rest of the squad. No-one went easy on their American visitor when the ball was there to be won but after making his senior debut against Owen Roe’s in the intermediate league he now has a lot of game-time under his belt.
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He runs hard and tackles hard in the half-forward line and among the highlights of this season is a memorable hat-trick of goals (one right foot, one left and the other a palm-in) against Strabane in the league.
“I’ve had the opportunity to start games for a good amount of the season but as players came back from injury, or from the county team I’ve been coming off the bench,” he says.
“I guess I’m quite quick, I don’t know, they want me to run a lot and tackle a lot. I try my best. I’m just lucky to be on such a good team and I’m trying to enjoy it as much as I can.
“I’ve got to play with some of the best players in the country. I’m so fortunate to be on a team with a guy like Kieran McGeary, who was Player of the Year in 2021, and Frank Burns and Brendy Burns and Hugh Pat… The list goes on.
“There are so many good players who are really making this team gel and I feel very fortunate to be on a team with such good players – people you can learn from every day at practice.”
OF course it’s much more than a game. Aidan admits he didn’t know just how focussed the entire Pomeroy community is on their club and their team. It’s something he’s had to experience to realise.
“It’s pretty crazy how hard we’ve been going at it since February,” he says.
“For basically this entire year it’s been all football. I’ll be on phonecalls with mom or dad and I’ll be like: ‘This is nuts how invested not only the players are but the entire community is’. It really feels like more than a sport to everyone here, it means everything to everybody here.
“It’s been a long season in terms of learning to play the game with such passionate fans watching. At first the pressure would get to me but I’ve learned to play through it – I’ve never played a sport where the fans are as passionate, if not moreso, than the players at times.
“It’s really fun though.”
Training and games are tough but off the field he has been well fed and looked after by his army of aunts with their home-cooked meals.
“They’re the best,” he says.
Nutrition hasn’t been a problem and he has plenty of family on the field as well to keep an eye on him as well. Cousins John McCourt, Ryan O’Gara, James Quinn, Ollie McCreesh and John Paul Coyle all play for the Plunketts and Noel McCreesh is part of the management.
“Going from Philly to Pomeroy, where there’s like one street… It’s different but the cool thing is there’s more of a community feel,” says Aidan.
“Everybody knows you and they say ‘hello’. That’s a very cool feeling when you’ve come from such a big city. I’ve never experienced it before.
“It’s been what I hoped it would be but there have been challenges along the way. Coming to live in a different place is hard and you don’t always perform on the field the way you want to – there have been times when I haven’t played up to what I feel I could be. But it’s all worth it when the team is doing well and you’re seeing Pomeroy get success, it means a lot more.”
THE GAA has other benefits too. Aidan had been studying construction management in Philadelphia and wisely decided that he needed to combine his GAA experience with some career-related experience.
So last year he sent his CV out to companies around Tyrone and, as luck would have it, one of them found its way to Eddie Quinn, a former chairman of the Pomeroy club who is also the owner of E. Quinn Civils.
“I knew nothing about the company before the Facetime interview but it just so happened that during it I was introduced to Eddie,” Aidan explains.
“He asked me: Do I know you?’ because Pomeroy had come out to American in 2019. So there was already a connection there. We talked about my experience and the kind of work I wanted to do and I got a job. It was plain luck the way that happened.”
In one fell swoop, Eddie got himself a keen worker, Aidan got the job he needed to push forward in his career and Pomeroy Plunkett’s landed a fit, strong lad from Philly who wanted to make his mark.
Of course he’d love this chapter of his story to end with a medal but Derrylaughan stand in the way of that on Saturday (Galbally, 12.30pm) and, should Pomeroy make the final, they’ll have the winners of Clonoe and Moy (also Saturday) to contend with.
“We’ll see,” says Aidan.
“I know Derrylaughan have a lot of good players, I know they’re a very good side.”
After this season ends he’ll take some time out, maybe travel a bit and then go back home for at least a couple of months and then see what’s next.
“I don’t want it to be the end of my Gaelic Football career,” he says.
“I’m thankful to all my family, teammates, coaches, and co-workers over here who have made living and playing for Pomeroy so special. It’s a time I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”
