Archive News
Yoffe goal takes the points as Utd get the better of Bohs once again
Date Published: {J}
Bohemian FC 0
Galway United 1
Daire Walsh
Galway United’s excellent recent form against Bohemians continued in Dalymount Park last Friday evening, when a 60th minute strike by Joseph Yoffe gave them all three points as United made it four wins from their last five meetings with Pat Fenlon’s side.
It was a first win of the season for The Tribesmen, and manager Sean Connor will be hoping that his troops can push on from here as they aim to leave a tough pre-season campaign behind them.
Having lost to St Patrick’s Athletic and Dundalk in their opening two matches, United possibly deserved more than the draw they got against UCD last week, with Connor saying after that game that he felt it was two points dropped and so his side would have to pick up points elsewhere.
He didn’t have long to wait, as Yoffe’s goal on the hour mark on Friday night means United have now taken 13 points from a possible 15 in their last five games with the Dalymount Park club, and while they are just one off the bottom of the table, the win will give them a massive lift ahead of the visit of Sligo Rovers top Terryland Park this coming Friday night.
Bohs, who have introduced a number of young players to their first-team squad for this season, had to re-shuffle their attack when star striker Chris Fagan was ruled out through injury, with Anto Flood deployed as a lone striker, with Stephen Traynor playing in the role just behind him.
The changes seemed to work quite well initially, as Bohs made a promising start to the game, and were presented with the first real chance of the game with just 10 minutes gone when good approach work by Traynor and Flood presented Robert Bayly with a chance just inside the United penalty area, but the former Sporting Fingal man was well off target in the end.
Bohs continued to cause problems for United, with Killian Brennan in particular being a real threat out wide. In fact, the Drogheda native went close to opening the scoring just six minutes later when he was played through by skipper Owen Heary, but his subsequent shot was just wide of the right-hand post.
United, on the other hand, were finding that chances were few and far between during the opening quarter, but they did have a lively operator in Yoffe, who looked threatening whenever he gained possession in the final third.
Karl Moore was also causing Bohs plenty of problems on the ball, and he was the catalyst behind United’s best chance just seven minutes before the break, as he waltzed his way through The Gypsies’ defence before attempting a through-ball to Yoffe, whose eventual charge down on a Mark Rossiter clearance almost went all the way past Barry Murphy in the Bohs goal.
After something of a lull in their performance levels, Bohs finished the half in good form, but the closest they came was an effort from former United striker Flood which went narrowly wide.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.
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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