Sport
Located in rural West Tyrone, where many students do not live in the immediate vicinity of Dromore and depart the school each day on buses, restricts most sports activity to that within breaks during school hours and during Physical Education lessons.
The main success for the school in sport has been in Gaelic football. The school has won numerous Tyrone Vocational Schools Gaelic football titles at under-14 and under-16 level and has won the Ulster Vocational Schools Arthurs Cup (under-16) in 1967, 1974 and most recently in 1999, along with the Ulster Vocational Schools McDevitt Cup (Under 14) in 1977. Several past students have also represented the Tyrone vocational schools' Gaelic football teams in winning Ulster and All-Ireland titles since the late 1960s.
The school has been an important nursery for local Gaelic football clubs in its catchment area, notably Dromore St. Dympna's, Fintona Pearses, Trillick St. Macartan's, Drumquin Wolfe Tones and Drumragh Sarsfields. A large amount of the Dromore squad that won the Tyrone Senior Football Championship for the first time, including captain Fabian O'Neill, were former students of St. John's.
In 2008, Ryan McMenamin and Colm McCullagh, both past students, were starting players of the Tyrone team that won the 2008 All-Ireland Senior Gaelic Football Championship defeating Kerry in the final at Croke Park while Conor O'Neill and Ronan McNabb were both members of the Tyrone team that won the 2008 All-Ireland Minor Gaelic Football Championship defeating Mayo after a replay in Longford with McNabb as team captain.
The school has also had success in ladies' Gaelic football with the winning of the Ulster Under 15 "B" Schools title in 1999 being its biggest success to date. Its most recent championship victory was winning the Tyrone Schools "C" Championship in 2006. Former students to have represented the Tyrone county team included Orla O'Neill, Sinéad McLaughlin, Mairéad McCann and Sonya Maguire. St. John's is also an active participant in school cross-country running competitions.
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Famous quotes containing the word sport:
“For generations, a wide range of shooting in Northern Ireland has provided all sections of the population with a pastime which ... has occupied a great deal of leisure time. Unlike many other countries, the outstanding characteristic of the sport has been that it was not confined to any one class.”
—Northern Irish Tourist Board. quoted in New Statesman (London, Aug. 29, 1969)
““Justice” was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Æschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess. And the d’Urberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing. The two speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued to wave silently. As soon as they had strength they arose, joined hands again, and went on.
The End”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“Every American travelling in England gets his own individual sport out of the toy passenger and freight trains and the tiny locomotives, with their faint, indignant, tiny whistle. Especially in western England one wonders how the business of a nation can possibly be carried on by means so insufficient.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)