Archive News
Galway teen makes Man City debut
Date Published: {J}
A FORMER underage star with Mervue United who is now rated as one of the country’s hottest young footballing prospects came to global attention at the weekend when he made his senior debut for Manchester City in their televised FA Cup clash with Scunthorpe.
Greg Cunningham, who turns 19 at the end of the month, has long been tipped as a star of the future, and he took the next step in what is sure to be a very promising career when he came on at half-time to replace the injured Nigel de Jong at left-back in City’s 4-2 win.
Cunningham was promoted to the first team squad in December after an impressive season with the club’s reserves, and he caught the eye in a 3-3 draw with Liverpool’s reserves in Anfield last Thursday. With manager Roberto Mancini having one eye on tomorrow’s Carling Cup semi-final second-leg clash with bitter rivals Manchester United, he made eight changes to his side for Sunday’s game; and once de Jong flagged that he was struggling, Cunningham got the nod.
Cunningham wasn’t the only young player given his wings on the day by Mancini, as another 18 year old, Abdisalam Ibrahim, was also given his debut in the game, and Boyata (19) made up a trio of teens in the City side.
The former Mervue United player – who started life as a striker, only to be converted into a defender by City – was unlucky to pick up a harsh booking within three minutes of his introduction, but he grew in confidence as the half wore on; so much so that Sylvinho was given greater freedom to attack down the left as Cunningham gave ample defensive cover.
“I am absolutely delighted for him. As both the Mayor of Galway City, and someone so heavily involved with Mervue United, I have to say it was one of the proudest days of my life when he came on on Sunday,” said Declan McDonnell, one of the founding members of Mervue United FC.
“I am not a bit surprised at how well Greg has done as we always knew he was a bit special. He is a fabulous young fella, he has a great attitude, and he is an example to young people everywhere. It says a lot about him that he is at one of the richest club’s in the world, where they can buy any player, and here is a young fella from Galway coming through their academy to play in the FA Cup,” said McDonnell.
Cunningham started out his footballing life with Cregmore before moving to Mervue United at U-13 level, and was part of the SFAI Goodson Cup winning team the following year in 2006, scoring the only goal in the final against Crumlin Utd.
That squad also captured a record five cups that season under the management of Jarlath Connolly, Dave Mulally and Jimmy Howley, and McDonnell paid tribute to Mervue’s various coaches yesterday for their role in Cunningham’s development.
“He is doing great there and training with the likes of Lescott, Bellamy, Shay Given and Robinho will stand to him, but a lot of credit too should go to the likes of Dave Mulally, Justin Neary and Bart Barrett. When he is at home in the summer he usually goes out training with Bart just to keep his fitness levels up, and that shows his dedication, his determination and his attitude.
“One other thing he insisted on when joining City was that he would be able to continue his education – at the time, Newcastle United and Celtic were also very interested in him, but he liked the underage set-up at City and the fact he could continue his education there,” McDonnell said.
“I can’t speak highly enough of him, he is a credit to himself and to his parents Billy and Linda, and his brothers Dan, who is his twin, and Stephen, who both play with Mervue,” McDonnell said.
Mancini may not be long in the manager’s role, having replaced Mark Hughes, but he clearly sees the potential of Cunningham and has handed him a new two year contract at the club – his original contract was to expire in the Summer.
l Another city starlet, Daryl Horgan os St Enda’s College, has been named in the FAI Schools U-18 squad that will play its Australian counterparts in a friendly in Dublin on Thursday. He is one of two Galway players in the 20-man squad, the other being Billy Lane of Presentaiton College Athenry.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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