Antrim Senior Football championship winners, Erin’s Own Cargin have been the team to beat in recent year with the men from Toome striding the winner’s rostrum in 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019 and currently sit fourth in the all-time role of honour with St. John’s, St. Gall’s and Rossa leading the table.
Cargin have bucked the trend in recent years as the dominance of the city sides has been broken and before the outbreak of Coronavirus the Toome men were setting their sights on three in a row and it would have been a brave man who would have bet against them.
Cargin can look back at their recent dominance with justified pride but it was 1974 that they lifted their first championship and today we take a look back at that success and the joy it brought to a parish steeped in Gaelic Football tradition.
The team who took the clubs first title back in 1974 included one, Geordie McGuckin now a prominent reporter with the Saffron Gael and was captained by his brother Packie who played a starring role at full-back and another brother Martin.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time looking for a report on that game in 1974 when Cargin lowered the colours of a fancied Sarsfields side and I’m indebted to Martin McAuley for all his help in putting this article together. Here is a report on the game that appeared in a local paper at the time.
It would be a further 21 years before Cargin would lift another title with Erin’s Own knocking at the door quite a number of times before achieving success in 1995 with further titles acquired in 1999 and 2000 and in recent times they have become the side to beat if championship success is to be achieved.
