Team mates on the pitch, mother and daughter always!

Team mates on the pitch, but mother and daughter off the pitch, there is a really unique family affair going on at Judges Road.

City of Derry Women’s 30-5 victory over Belfast Harlequins last weekend was memorable not just for the victory, but for the fact that there were two sets of mothers and daughters playing alongside each other.

Michelle Gormley-McLaughlin and Lauren McLaughlin have been playing alongside each other for just over four years now, but Saturday past saw Chaz and Elle Doherty play together for the first time, making it a real family affair for the green and blacks.

Michelle, also a coach and a former team captain, has been playing at Judges Road for several years now, after moving away from her gaelic and camogie roots in Ardmore. Her daughter Lauren, who also played alongside her on occasions for their parish, followed suit, and went straight into the senior set-up once she turned 18.

That was four years ago and they have been inseparable since, with the presence of Michelle’s sister and Lauren’s auntie Kelly Gormley in the team making it feel like home away from home for everyone.

Having played alongside her daughter for so long now, it is now second nature for Michelle, who acknowledges the uniqueness of the situation.

“It's great,” she said. “Because we’re such a small club at City of Derry, we’ve sisters playing with each other also; my sister also plays so it’s me, Lauren and her auntie all in the same team. At one stage we had four sets of sisters playing so it has always been quite close.

“We played gaelic together for Ardmore when she was starting off. Lauren was only 14 or so but I had to pull her in a couple of times. Then, whenever I started playing rugby, she came down and she trained with us, but because we didn’t have a junior team she and another girl never got a match. When she finally got to senior level in 2018 she was able to train with us and play matches with us. In her first year of playing, we got to Kingspan for a final which was amazing, so she’s been playing with me for quite a while.”

Michelle, who teaches sport in Northwest Regional College, played gaelic and camogie for years before being invited to City of Derry by her boss Mike Poole.

“I always thought rugby was far easier than gaelic, which was a stupid mistake,” she laughed. “When you play gaelic, you might be down the back, and if you have a good set of forwards, the ball mightn’t come to you for ages, whereas in rugby you are all running at the same time. If you’re a forward you’re in scrums and line-outs and you name it.

“It took me a while to get into it because when I was running it was hard to get out of the habit of hand to toe the ball. I got used to it and I loved it.”

Named captain in 2017, Michelle and others began coaching to accommodate the younger girls who wanted to join the club, and an opportunity opened up in Ulster, a youth team finally started up, allowing Lauren and Elle a pathway to senior.

Going from mother and daughter to team mates wasn’t a difficult transition Michelle insists, although she has forgotten herself once or twice.

“She’s a back and I’m a forward so sometimes we don’t even get to train together,” she continued. “At the start, especially with gaelic, I was always really wary if someone pushed her or was cheeky to her, but she can stand up for herself now so I don’t really worry about her.

“We’ve had a nickname for her since she was a baby. We call her ‘Princess’ because she went on like a princess and she was mad about princesses. I accidentally called her that one day when she was running up the field. Everybody else heard me. She wasn’t too happy.”

Lauren will never forget it.

“The last match she came on and I had to dead eye here and say ‘If you call me Princess I swear to God’,” Lauren laughed. “I don’t mind when she’s not on the pitch because no-one can really hear her, but when she’s on the pitch the whole team can hear her so I don’t call her ‘mammy’, I’ll call her ‘Michelle’. If I’m on the sideline I’ll shout ‘mammy’.

I’m well used to it now, but it’s still funny when I shout ‘mammy’ and the other team looks at me like ‘Why are you calling for your mammy in the middle of the pitch?’.”

It might be handy enough for Michelle, but it has taken a bit of getting used to for Lauren, who has developed her own passion for the sport.

“It’s been interesting. She definitely pushes me to do better, but sometimes she’s a pain in the ass,” she revealed. “On the pitch, it’s weird because I’m a back and she’s a forward so we don’t really get a lot of contact with each other. It is quite good; there are the older girls and the younger ones, but it just feels like a massive family and it’s kind of nice to have my auntie and my mum as a mini-family in that big family.”

Disagreements

As is the case with any family, there has been the odd argument or two between Michelle and Lauren, with the wisdom of one generation clashing with the confidence of the other.

“It is brilliant to have her in the team, but we do fall out a lot,” Michelle admits. “If we we’re going away for a match day, I would be up early and I would have packed the night before but Lauren just comes sauntering in as easy as you like. She’s always asking for stuff so I’m always double packed her either her or Kelly because they are always very lightly packed.

“She does have a lot of potential but she is pretty laid back so if she would just get her head down, she would have a lot more potential. But at this stage she’s just loving getting out there playing and that’s what it’s all about. 

“It’s funny because I teach sport and I do sport, but she’s graduated in Musical Theatre, which is as far away from sport as you can imagine. In saying that, she loves all that drama and glitz and then she goes and plays sport and gets covered in muck.”

“I think it has actually become a wee ritual that we’ll get annoyed with each other before a match just to take it out on the other team,” Lauren agreed. “She shouts at me while I’m packing my stuff, but she has never packed my stuff for me.”

Michelle and Lauren’s sporting time together could well be drawing to a close with the mammy planning to retire next year, to pursue a different goal altogether.

“My aim is to retire net year and do a triathlon,” Michelle revealed. “When I was cycling down by Inch Island, I was on my own and I was nearly in tears crying because I’m so used to someone else being there and that team bonding. It was a whole new experience for me. Although there is a high turnover in rugby, you are always meeting new people, which is great.

“I’ll still continue doing the taping and strapping but when it comes to running, I’m starting to feel it now and it takes longer getting over injuries, so maybe it’s time to hang the boots up, in competition anyway.”

Those plans were met with the proverbial eye roll by Lauren, who insists who Michelle is all talk about stepping away from rugby.

“She’ll not retire,” she insists. “She says she’s been retiring since I was 18. I’m not going to lie, I can’t picture her not being there because she’s too stubborn to let go of anything. I don’t think it’ll be next year, maybe when I’m 30.”

In the meantime, what advice does Lauren have for Elle, now that she is playing alongside her mammy.

“‘Just run away from her’,” she said. “I’ve already told her.”