Corofin’s football revolution is going strong 25 years later

Talking Sport with Stephen Glennon

“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”  – Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed.

It’s a quarter of a century since an empire was born. Yes, Corofin had claimed titles in 1930, ’46 and ’77, but their senior championship victory in ‘91 – following a shock win over Salthill in a replay – marked a revolution within Galway GAA. On Sunday, they seek their 15th Frank Fox Cup in 25 years.

It wasn’t always that way as former Galway All-Star goalkeeper Martin McNamara will testify to. Having made his senior debut for the club in 1983, by the late ‘80s he began to wonder would Corofin ever taste sweet success.

“We had a couple fairly lean years where we had good fun but that was probably the reason we weren’t winning,” chuckles McNamara, who proudly wore the yellow and green of his beloved Corofin for 18 years, winning six county senior medals and coaching the club to another two county title triumphs.

The breakthrough year, though, was 1991 and it was not without a backdrop. In the 1990 decider, a star-studded Salthill had wiped Corofin’s noses in it on a 4-12 to 2-3 scoreline and it looked as if the City outfit were destined for the sort of greatness Corofin would subsequently achieve.

“Yeah, they beat us by 15 points the year before,” winces McNamara. “They had a serious team, backboned by 12 or 13 players who would have played county senior at various stages or, at the very least, county U-21. They were all quality players and I remember people at the time wondering how many in a row would they win. They were so dominant. They had class all over the pitch.”

However, when the two sides met in the 1991 showpiece, Corofin came with a performance that secured them a draw first day out – although McNamara admits they were fortunate after Salthill’s Norman Costello flicked a ball which hit the post and ran along the goal-line late on.

“I would like to see the video of that again because I am not sure if the ball crossed the line or not. It was an ‘iffy’ call anyway but I think that time all of the ball had to be over the line. That is what we like to believe in Corofin anyway,” he says.

In the replay, order was expected to be restored with a Salthill win but it didn’t happen. Instead, a once-again unrated Corofin produced a display of courage and fortitude, winning on a comprehensive scoreline of 0-14 to 0-6.

While he maintains Frank Morris would be credited as the man who has laid the foundations for the last quarter century of success, he says it was their trainer at the time, teacher Ger Hanly, who inspired the players to elevate themselves above mediocrity.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.