Archive News
Hard work key to change UtdÕs fortune
Date Published: {J}
Cian O’Connell
In tough times a positive mental attitude is required and it is exactly what John ‘Jumbo’ Brennan is striving to bring to an ailing Galway United outfit now.
Nobody can disguise the fact that 2011 has been a year fraught with financial and footballing problems, but Brennan wants to get back to basics by putting his own, unique stamp on the club. Graft is essentially what is needed and Brennan has promised to strain every sinew by simply getting the utmost out of the players available to him.
With a keen knowledge of the local game Brennan is adamant that Galway is blessed with plenty of footballing talent.
“The ability is there, yes, I’m convinced it is there, I’ve seen it all the way along, all the younger age groups, the players there, people are complaining that there are three teams in one county, but for me the players are there.
“Of course I believe it, otherwise I wouldn’t go into this job, I don’t want a team of Dublin lads, I want a good local-based team, with a few guys in it with a bit of experience, and that’s how we’ll do it,” was Brennan’s crisp assessment.
“I would be hoping to make a mark, as I said to the boys running the club, I’ll stay for the eight or nine games, I won’t sign a contract for two or three years. I said ‘look, I’ll go on my results. If you want to get somebody better, that’s fine, but I will make this team better’ – that is my aim and I will be doing everything I can to achieve it,” he said.
Brennan will be assisted by another hugely respected figure in Galway sport, Tommy Lally, and they are anxious to develop the youngsters in the squad.
“I’ve been there and done it, the person I’m going to bring in has been there and done it. The best advice we can give to young lads and how to progress them, we will give it. I’ve progressed players with Salthill Devon, internationals, we got players across the water, and that’s what I’m looking to do here, can we get our players to step up to the standard, to the Premier Division standard.
“It’s a great opportunity for me, I’ve always wanted it, I’ve done all the youth structures, I’ve done U-19 for years, I’ve done U-17s, I’ve done U-21s, I’ve done A Championship, I’m well able for it.
“At the UCD match it didn’t bother me, it didn’t faze me, now I can train my team, now I’ll be doing the work on the training pitch and that’s what it’s all about,” he says.
With Bohemians next on Galway’s agenda on Friday week (Terryland Park, kick-off 7.45pm) Brennan is excited about the possibility of being given time and space to make plan for that encounter.
“I don’t think confidence is an issue, I think once I get to work with them now, I’ve got two weeks to get them ready for the Bohs game, it’ll be a totally different team, I’ll have them playing the way I want them to play and nothing against Sean Connor, he was here, he was doing a decent enough job, but that’s the way football is, you don’t last long in these jobs if you’re not getting results.
“It was a positive performance at UCD, the lads played really well, it was just a lack of concentration for the two goals, I mean we conceded two own goals and in those situations there is nothing you can really do.
“We had a tremendous amount of chances in the first half, the boys’ heads didn’t go down. We let them back into the game after they scored their first goal. They shouldn’t have got back in because I thought we played the ball and they were under severe pressure.
“It’s about getting points on the board, and that’s basically it, if we can get points on the board, we were looking to get three points at UCD, but we gave away bad goals. Realistically, we’re going for the playoffs and you know, that’s really the job, any points I can pick up, I’ll take them.”
The worst kept secret in Irish football was eventually made public following Galway’s draw with Dundalk last Friday when Sean Connor left the club by mutual consent. Controversial issues over training facilities featured two versions, one from Connor and another from the Management Committee running the club, but the former Galway boss was ultimately unhappy about how he was treated over the last couple of months.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.
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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