Archive News
Two see red as Rangers fall to Athenry
Date Published: 27-Oct-2009
CORRIB Rangers slipped to their first defeat of the season when exiting the Umbro FAI Junior Cup at Westside on Saturday afternoon as Athenry secured an injury time equaliser and then went on to fire home three more in extra time against a home side that finished the contest with nine players.
All is fair in love and war and in dreadful conditions this was a full blooded affair as two highly rated sides went head to head. There was no shirking responsibility from the opening whistle and, with Rangers enjoying the advantage of the elements, they dictated matters as the visitors lined out in a 4-
5-1 formation in order to combat the pressure.
Straight from the kick-off, Barry Moran wasn’t far off target as he let fly from half way and on three minutes Mark Joyce flashed a header off the crossbar. The start set the trend as the home side kept pouring forward and visiting custodian Adrian Cronin was kept busy with some routine and smart saves.
In front of him Stephen Rabbitte, Ronan Kinneen and the Byrne brothers, Emmett and Packie, worked hard to keep Moran and Joyce at bay, but O’Brien, Smyth and Connell were providing Rangers with a platform to maintain their dominance from midfield.
On 14 minutes, a Moran free kick brought a save from Cronin, with Joyce and Connell failing to hit the target with the resulting rebounds. The former Galway United striker was a constant threat from set pieces and twice later tested the custodian from outside the box.
Now while the vast majority of the action was going one way, Athenry had their fleeting moments in attack and could have broken the deadlock on a number of occasions, but Cathal Fahy and Jonathan Mernagh spurned the opportunities presented. They also lost midfielder Paddy Quinn through injury on the half hour mark and he was replaced by Conor Cannon.
The visitors had a huge letoff on 35 minutes when Martin Connell drilled in a cross from the left and Emmett Byrne stooped low to head clear and he knew little of where the ball went as it crashed off the underside of the crossbar.
However, Rangers made a deserved breakthrough five minutes later. Connell played a one-two with Moran at least thirty five yards out and even Cronin couldn’t make it to the top corner to keep out a stunning strike as the home side made it 1-0. In the closing minutes of the half, Ger Bane was off target with a header, while Cathal Fahy did likewise at the other end.
On the resumption it was the turn of Athenry to take over and very quickly home goalkeeper John Egan displayed the same ability that Cronin did when the shoe was on the other foot. Two smashing early saves thwarted Fahy and Mernagh, before Conor Cannon curled an effort off target.
It was now the turn of the Rangers rearguard to batten the hatches. In fairness to them, they certainly kept the visitors at bay after the early anxiety and Athenry looked much less of a threat in attack
than the home side did in the first half.
Because of the conditions it was difficult to keep the ball in play from set pieces as a series of deliveries just drifted over the end line. As the game entered the closing stages, Athenry by now long playing with just three at the back began to display some of the urgency that they started the half with.
They were helped by the second yellow card gathered by Gary Murray as he dragged down Mernagh on the edge of the box on 79 minutes. In the closing minutes Gary Forde, Mernagh and Crowe all tested Egan, before the visitors rescued the game with the equaliser on 91 minutes. A Crowe short corner short to Fahy was returned and on this occasion the international midfielder picked out Stephen Rabbitte in a crowded area. With a flying volley the right full cracked an effort beyond Egan to tie up matters at 1-1.
Extra time, then, and just like in the opening half Rangers started with wind advantage, but it was Athenry who seized the initiative from the off and two minutes in, Jamie O’Driscoll slipped substitute Brian Mannion through and he powered a left footed effort beyond Egan to make it 2-1. In their next attack Mernagh raced through and while it appeared that the challenge of Egan was good just inside
the box, the match official pointed to the spot and Rabbitte gleefully slammed home his second of the day for a two goal advantage.
Rangers’ Shane Flaherty obviously said too much to referee Tony Geasley about the incident and he was red carded to reduce the home side to nine players. Athenry made it 4-1 on 96 minutes when Mernagh raced clear before rounding the custodian and firing into an empty net and in the process gave the visitors a passage into the next round.
CORRIB RANGERS: Egan, M O’Connor, Flaherty, Murray, Bane, O’Brien, B O’Halloran jun, Smyth, Joyce, Moran, Connell. Reserves: Small for O’Halloran (77mins), J O’Connor for Smyth (82mins), B O’Halloran for Connell (100mins).
ATHENRY: Cronin, Rabbitte, Kinneen, P Byrne, E Byrne, O’Driscoll, Fahy, Crowe, Forde, Mernagh, Quinn. Reserves: Cannon for Quinn (inj-29mins), Hynes for Fahy (100mins).
REFEREE: Tony Geasley.
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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