Football is life for rising Tyrone star Eoin McElholm

By John Harrington

There was an unexpected McElholm family reunion when the Tyrone team bus pulled into the Four Seasons Hotel in Monaghan for a pit-stop on the way to their Allianz Football League match against Louth last Sunday.

As Eoin McElholm alighted from the Tyrone bus in his Red Hand County gear who did he spot climbing out of his car replete in a Monaghan tracksuit only his father John who coaches the Farney County senior footballers.

“The Tyrone boys were giving me a serious slagging, calling him a traitor and all of that stuff,” said McElholm with a smile at the launch of the Dalata Hotel Group U20 Football Chamionships.

“It was funny, probably something that doesn’t happen too much having a father and son involved with two different county teams, but my father loves it.

“He loves coaching, he loves the opportunity of being in with Monaghan, and he loves supporting me too. It’s just football mad in our house.”

For as long as he can remember, McElholm’s life has revolved around the game, and from a very young age he dedicated himself to being the best footballer he could possibly be.

“In the back yard we had a garage door that was kind of in the shape of a net and I used to shoot into all day,” he says.

“You'd be imagining scoring goals in an All-Ireland Final and different stuff like that.

"My mum and dad would come out complaining because there's such a bang off the door.

“Then out the front, we have a big garden and we had the goalposts there so I used to be out there with my friends and cousins.

“The likes of Ronan Fox, Oliver Anderson, and my cousin Dara Curran would be over playing football literally every single day.

“It used to turn into a killing match, but it was brilliant, it was unreal, you'd still have fond memories of them days.”

If the young McElholm wasn’t kicking ball in his back yard or front garden, he was doing it in the Loughmacory GAA clubgrounds or St. Teresa’s Primary school.

There was no shortage of boys willing to kick it back to him as a gifted generation of players who would go on to win the club’s first ever Tyrone senior club championship last grew up together.

“Growing up the whole way, we always had teams that played in Grade One,” says McElholm.

“We always had a good bunch coming through. We used to win stuff in primary school. Under 12 blitzes. Even under 14 Division 1 league titles and stuff.

“We had good success going through the years. That hasn't always been the case in Loughmacrory. There was a huge emphasis put on coaching at a young age, enjoying your football, even in the school.

“You've got Mark McCullagh and Mickey Gallagher teaching there and my mum Caitriona is the Principal and there's a huge emphasis on football in there. They all love football and you learn to love it too at a young age.

"Going out at dinner time and playing football for 45 minutes every single day with your best friends who I've now won a Tyrone championship with, it just correlates into something special when you're all doing it together at a young age.”

McElholm is just 21 but has already achieved an awful lot in the game.

He’s won a senior club championship with Loughmacrory, captained his county at minor level, won back-to-back U20 All-Irelands with Tyrone, captained Omagh CBS to a Hogan Cup, and is already in his third season as a senior county footballer.

His status as one of the most exciting young attackers in the country was franked in 2025 when he was crowned the Dalata Hotel Group U20 Footballer of the Year after finishing as the competition’s top scorer with a remarkable tally of 6-24 that included a haul of 2-4 in the Final victory over Louth.

“It's been fairly hectic from a young age,” he agrees. “That's probably a word that a lot of people would use to describe me, is ‘hectic’. I kind of love it when you're always going to football or going here, going there.

“I just love that. I love getting about and experiencing these unbelievable things. So to say that I've captained the Tyrone minors and won two under 20s and the Hogan Cup, it's surreal nearly because it's something I really dreamed of when I was younger.

“I can still remember being out kicking the ball at the garage door and shooting with my left foot and pretending it's in an All-Ireland Final and then a few years down the line it's actually happening, so at times it's surreal.”

It hasn’t been a great start to the year for the Tyrone footballers with just three points from four games in Division Two of the Allianz Football League but McElholm isn’t worried.

He believes their form will improve with a few “small tweaks” and is optimistic not just about the rest of their campaign but what the short to medium term future will bring for the county.

The generation of players that won back to back All-Ireland U20 titles in 2024 and 2025 are starting to filter through to the senior team, and McElholm sees no reason why they shouldn’t dream big.

“It's hard to know really, but I think we can achieve the All-Ireland," he says when asked about their potential. "That's obviously what everybody sets out to win at the start of the year, all the big teams, and Tyrone's a big team.

“I just feel like over the next few years, with these young under-20 boys and the experience that's there already, it's definitely going to be a powerful bunch of boys.

“It's just about really creating a very tight relationship and working on different things together and just striving for that success. I think someday it can definitely happen.”