Archive News
Penalty shootout agony for Mary’s in schools decider
Date Published: {J}
St Mary’s College 0
Summerhill College 0
AET – Summerhill win
5-4 on penalties
Keith Kelly at
Terryland Park
ST Mary’s College relinquished their provincial and national FAI Senior Cup school crowns in heartbreaking fashion in Terryland Park on Wednesday night when they were beaten on penalties by Summerhill College Sligo in the Connacht decider.
Neither side could find the breakthrough during normal time nor 20 minutes of extra time, so the game came down to the lottery of penalty kicks, and it was the underdogs who held the winning ticket, converting all five of their spot kicks to lift the trophy after Mary’s vice-captain Barry McEntee saw his kick saved by Vinnie Cadden.
It was a cruel blow for a Mary’s side that were marginally the better outfit on the night, but it also must be said that it was Summerhill who had carved out the better chances during the game, and only for the heroics of goalkeeper Conor Gleeson, Mary’s would not have made it to extra time, never mind a 12-yard shootout.
The city school received a boost before kick-off when both injury doubts, McEntee and Tony Ward, were passed fit to play, with the latter passing a fitness test just before kick-off, and it was Mary’s who started the brighter.
Most of the Summerhill players had sat ‘mock’ exams on the morning of the game before travelling down to Galway for the game, which gave Mary’s an edge in preparations, and they were on the front foot from the first whistle.
They dominated both in terms of territory and possession in the first half, but Summerhill slowly grew into the challenge, and began to pose more of a threat in attack, especially after the introduction of substitute Andrew Patton, who evaded the Mary’s defence on a couple of occasions only to be denied by some brilliant saves by Gleeson.
It was Mary’s who had the first chance of the game when the ball fell for Evan Browne in the box in the 12th minute after Paul Logan failed to fully clear Rory Lavelle’s cross, but Browne couldn’t adjust his feet in time and side-footed wide from 12 yards.
The League of Ireland experience of the Mary’s central midfield pairing of McEntee (Mervue United) and Shane Keogh (Galway United) saw them dictate the pace of the game, with McEntee providing the drive and Keogh picking out some sublime passes with his left foot, and the pair combined to almost carve out the opening in the 19th minute.
Keogh found Kevin Connolly with a sublime ball, whose shot was deflected away from danger by Conor McDonagh. Ward collected and delivered the ball back into the box, and Niall Murphy’s attempted clearance cannoned back off McEntee towards the goal but Vinnie Cadden blocked with a reflex save, and McEntee just failed to connect with the rebound.
Mary’s didn’t just attack through the middle, as they were also getting some joy out wide, with full-backs Aengus O Curraoin and in particular Shane Gallagher constantly overlapping along the wings, but the Summerhill defence held firm.
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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