AS soon as he landed, he knew damage was done.
There was only a couple of minutes left in the league match against Errigal Ciaran but that was that for Trillick’s Michael Gallagher. He hobbled off the pitch with sweat on his brow that came from the pain in his knee and the worry that something might be seriously wrong.
Unfortunately he was right.
That was June 2023.
He didn’t kick another ball for his club until August this year.
The 14 months between Gallagher’s injury and his return to play were taken up by two operations and countless hours of examinations and rehab sessions as he worked his way back to fitness.
There were dark times the Tyrone U20 star wondered if his knee would “ever be right again” and whether he’d wear the red Trillick jersey that means so much to him again.
Trillick born and bred, Michael’s dad Francie – also an attacking wing half-back – and his uncle ‘Iggy’ Gallagher won championship medals with the St Macartan’s club in 1986.
Thirty-eight years’ on from that success, the next generation of Gallaghers and the Donnellys, McCaugheys, Kings, Garritys, Gormleys etc, etc seek to write their name in the history of the proud rural club that lies off the beaten track.
“It’s a family tradition and up here in Trillick there’s nothing really else to do but the football,” says Michael, a quantity surveyor with Lagan Energy.
“We take a lot of pride in it and if you didn’t play football you wouldn’t be at much else. It brings the community together and we have a tight bunch of lads who all look out for each other.”
The Garritys (Colm, James and Simon), Grays (Liam and Ryan), Peter McCaughey, Seanie O’Donnell, Ciaran Daly… He played his whole youth career beside them and they’ve worked their way up to senior level.
Earmarked as a bright talent from his earliest football days, Michael made his debut for the Trillick seniors as an 18 year-old in 2018. Manager Nigel Seaney had enough faith in the youngster to throw him into the championship fray against Ardboe later that season and Michael quickly realised exactly just how competitive Tyrone’s blue-ribband competition really is.
“It was a rude awakening,” he says
“It showed you the standard and intensity of Tyrone championship football and where you had to be at.
“It was the most intense football I’d ever played. The size and the pace of the opposition… I wasn’t the biggest in 2018 so I knew I had to match what they had – or get a level above it – to get better.
“We got beat that day and I put a lot of work in over the off-season. That defeat stuck in my head and I knew where I had to be to get success the following year. We all put a lot of work in during the off-season. Declan Campbell, our S&C coach, programmed us throughout the winter and we had regular check-ins to make sure we were doing the gym work.
“I enjoy that anyway, I always looked forward to it.”
He certainly isn’t afraid of hard work and his paid off. He was named Freshers’ Footballer of the Year at Ulster University in 2018 and, after putting in the hard yards over the winter months, 2019 was his breakthrough year with the club.
He forced his way into the team for the start of the 2019 season and kept it as Trillick dethroned reigning champions Coalisland in the semi-final and then beat rivals Errigal in the final to win the club’s eighth championship and only their second since his dad’s glory days.
The good times kept rolling. There was also a Ryan Cup win with Jordanstown that year and he added an Ulster U20 title with Tyrone in the spring of 2020.
But the road to glory in the Tyrone championship is riddled with treacherous potholes and, after losing their title in 2020, Trillick lost out to Dungannon and Dromore over the following two seasons.
Last year, although everything seemed stacked against them, they won the title back but Gallagher had to watch on from the wings.
THE final whistle wasn’t far away in that league game against Errigal when he jumped for a ball. His kneecap gave way when he planted his foot on landing...
“I knew straight away something wasn’t right,” he says.
He went to hospital worried that he might be out for “five or six weeks” but the damage was much more severe than he’d feared. Scans that evening confirmed that he had ruptured the patella tendon and he would need surgery within the week to repair the damage.
“They told me that it would be 12 months before I’d be back playing again,” he says.
He had the surgery and then turned his mind to the rehab.
The treatment room is often a lonely place. After the initial attention and well-wishing from team-mates and supporters, the focus can inevitably turn back to who’s available and what’s happening on the field.
But Gallagher’s Trillick mean-mates kept his spirits up and he was never left on his own and forgotten about.
He needed that.
“Progress was slow,” he says.
“It started to play on my mind whether the knee would ever be right again.
“But mentally I was in a good place. I was lucky to have team-mates around me and everybody getting behind me. That gave me the motivation to do the work.
“That’s the best thing about where I’m from - you have friends and team-mates who always look out for you.
“But I struggled to find anyone who had suffered the same injury locally so I couldn’t really compare the challenges I faced with anyone else’s experience – that was probably the most difficult part of it.”
He started his rehab journey two weeks’ after surgery with Cookstown-based physiotherapist Marty Loughran and he was soon joined by two clubmates who’d had their own bad luck with injury.
Mattie Donnelly ruptured his posterior cruciate Ligament and broke his tibia in a horror injury at the Kilmacud Sevens and Damien Kelly had torn his Achilles Tendon. The ‘choice’ was stark for all three of them – put in the work or walk away. Of course they were never going to walk away and so they motivated and guided each other along the long and difficult path to recovery.
“I was lucky to have them join me and work alongside me because it meant you weren’t in the gym on your own,” says Michael.
“They were there inspiring you and motivating you to do better and get back to wearing the red jersey again.
“They’re back this year as well and that’s a testament to the work they’ve put in. Mattie is a role model in our community for the youth and he’s somebody we can all admire because he has showed us where hard work can take you.
“Having them there to push you on made showing up that bit easier and all three of us are back wearing the Trillick jersey this year.”
HIS path to getting that red jersey back was anything but smooth. Last December, six months’ after the first operation on his knee, Michael met with his consultant to discuss his faltering progress.
“They just couldn’t real get to the bottom of what was happening and why progress was so limited,” he explains.
“I wasn’t really progressing at all.”
The bad news was that he would require another operation. The good news was that, if all went to plan, it could get him back on the pitch this year.
He went under the knife again in February and this time he began to make real headway with his recovery.
“After I got that second operation it really freed up the knee,” he says.
“I started getting flexibility back in it and that got me back onto the bike. From there I could progress onto the pitch.
“Marty did a lot of work with me in a return to play programme and I stuck to that and got back onto the field.”
Straight line runs progressed to twists and turns and from there to kicking the ball and jumping and tackling. Eventually he was able to return to training with the Jody Gormley-managed side and begin to build up his fitness and sharpness.
Then, on Sunday, August 18, he trotted out onto his home ground as a substitute in a Division One game against Ardboe.
A month later he came on against Ardboe again, this time in the championship quarter-final.
Spectators probably didn’t realise how much that moment meant to him - they were his first championship minutes in over two years.
“There were plenty of setbacks along the way but thankfully I’ve been able to pull on the Trillick jersey again and that’s something I didn’t think I’d be able to do this time last year,” he says.
“Even at the beginning of this season I didn’t think it would happen with the way the rehab was going.
“It was a huge relief to get back onto the pitch again. Playing in a championship match wasn’t something I thought I’d do this year but I’m back and I’m just relieved the rehab paid off.”
SO he’s back on the pitch, but is he out of the woods? After so long on the sidelines, obviously it will take time to get himself back up to full speed once again.
“I’m back and I’m pain-free again so it’s all about managing the work load now,” he says.
“I’m maybe not quite 100 per cent yet but I’m getting there so I can’t complain.
“It’s all been worth it. Just to represent Trillick again – that was my goal and thankfully I’m doing that again.
“I wouldn’t say football is the be-all and end-all for me, but it does play a big part in where we’re from and just to be a part of it is special.”
He came off the bench in the semi-final too. Trillick had the hard work done by then and Gallagher helped to close out a 10-point victory against Dungannon. He continues to push hard at training to play his part in Sunday’s decider against Errigal Ciaran.
“That’s all I can do,” he says.
“You just have to try and put your hand up at training and be a part of Jody’s plans.”
When it comes to talking about Sunday’s final he isn’t giving much away. While Trillick virtually cantered into the decider, Errigal came through a bruising semi-final against Killyclogher.
That experience should leave them battle-hardened and ready for what is a repeat of last year’s decider which (even without Donnelly, Kelly and Gallagher) Trillick won after extra-time.
“We know previous results will have no bearing on Sunday,” says Gallagher.
“They have a lot of championship experience and we’ll have to put in a serious performance to get a result.
“It would mean a lot to us to hold on to the O’Neill Cup but it’s not something we’ve been thinking about. It’s all about preparing for this game and knowing that we need to perform to get the win.”
