As a wee girl that kicked about at Sunday morning football in Canon Maguire Park with a pair of mouldies and idolised Derrygonnelly and Fermanagh player Adele Gallagher, Eimear Smyth vividly recalls her earliest football memory;
“I remember being so jealous of everyone who had metal studs because they made noise on the tarmac,” she laughs. “I couldn’t wait until I got my own pair of stud boots.”
A simple request and one that thankfully Smyth got because for the last number of years she has established herself as one of the top forwards in the country.
The Derrygonnelly full forward is a class act and her ability really shone through this season as she helped the Harps lift a first-ever Ulster title when they beat Castlerahan-Denn in the intermediate final.
Over the course of the Fermanagh intermediate championship, the Ulster campaign and the All Ireland series, Smyth racked up a massive 11-54. Her eye for goal is something extraordinary and time and time again she delivers, but it’s something she works on too.
“I just take a bag of balls and go down [to the pitch],” she explains. “In terms of practicing my frees and stuff I have a routine that I work through.
“I love doing it, it clears the head. No better place than doing that in Canon Maguire Park as well.”