The Premiership star that is reforming a famous Irish League club 19 years after folding - and is determined to bring them back to the big time

Originally founded in 1962, Omagh made it to the senior ranks in 1990 and enjoyed a golden period between 1996-2003, qualifying for Europe on two occasions alongside winning the First Division title (2000) and reaching the Irish Cup semi-finals (1996) before losing out to eventual champions Glenavon.

Now, almost two decades after the doors shut for a final time at St Julian's Road, McAleer has announced that the club where he gained some of his fondest early football memories, like playing at half-time as a youngster when Linfield and Glentoran came to town, is on its way back.

The plan is to take “baby steps” with McAleer, who runs his own coaching business, developing the youth structure before looking to scale further, but the Loughgall attacker’s end goal is to once again have Omagh Town amongst the country’s elite.

Omagh Town's Mark Donnelly playing against Liverpool at St Julian's Road in October 1999. PIC: Pacemaker

"People have been crying out for this for years and I feel like I'm the right person to do it,” he said. "I've always thought about starting Omagh Town when I stopped playing, but I've started now a few years earlier and am taking baby steps, but the goal is to get Omagh Town back into the Premiership.

“The support has been massive and it has taken me by surprise at how big Omagh Town maybe were. The Facebook post had over 600/700 likes, Twitter has blown up with a lot of football pages interacting and everyone is all for it.

"You have to start small and have the vision...I know this is going to work. I don't know how long it's going to take, but Omagh is a good area and there's no reason why they can't get back to the Premiership."

Omagh’s old ground, which hosted Manchester United’s treble-winning side in 1999 – one news report from the time says 7,000 attended the match held to raise money for the Omagh bombing victims' fund, was demolished and renovated into a public park in 2020.

Liverpool visited only a matter of months after Sir Alex Ferguson’s side and Chelsea travelled earlier that summer for the same cause – a young John Terry was in the Blues team alongside Roberto Di Matteo while Gianfranco Zola sat in the directors’ box.

McAleer will be staging sessions at Youth Sport in the town and having watched many youngsters from Omagh be unable to fulfil their potential due to geography, the 30-year-old is determined to make sure the same problem doesn’t impact the next generation of talented stars.

"It's an unreal history the club has and it's a shame when you drive past the old ground and it's not there anymore,” he added. “A lot of people miss it.

"There are a lot of good footballers from Omagh that mightn't have kicked on because there's no team that is playing at the highest level. There's a lot of people, parents and businesses in the background - everybody wants to support it and bring it back.

"My whole football career I've had to travel to Dungannon, Belfast...I was lucky that my dad could support that, but a lot of players haven't been able to travel too far and this is now going to be on their doorstep.

"We're starting off with the youth, want to build them up and in five or 10 years time want to have senior teams that they can play for. Then hopefully you'll get Omagh Town back in the Irish League...it would be class."