A granddaughters footballing success

he October Bank Holiday Monday was a great day for a group of young girls whose success in the Under 15 football county championship final that day created an unforgettable memory for each of them. They will remember and cherish that day for years to come. It was a memorable day for me also for it was the second time since my brother Tony won a minor championship medal in 1956 that a Taaffe family member won a precious winners medal on the football field. My granddaughter Eva on winning her football medal, as did her sister Rachel two years ago, achieved more success than I ever had, despite a footballing career which extended over many clubs in three different counties. Three years a member of the Under 14 school team brought no success but would give me an unforgettable memory of a football match played in lashing rain in Monasterevin. On that day my elasticated togs were so soaked the elastic band expanded requiring the hapless youngster to play with one hand holding up his togs during the entire second half. Its all I can remember of that match. Playing for Athy Gaelic Football Club for many years and for one year with Rheban Club brought no medal success. The experience was repeated when I played for Colmcille Gaels in Kells and finally with Monaghan Harps Gaelic Football Club. So one can appreciate how important in ones footballing career is the winning of a championship final medal. Well done to Eva and all the girls on the Athy team panel who were photographed after their great win. Remembering that Eva and her teammates are all under 15 years of age I could not but bring to mind the Athy youngsters of a previous generation who did not have the opportunity to play with Gaelic football teams during their youth. If they had, I wonder would Pat Delahunt of Mount Hawkins Lane have chosen to join, as he did, the Leinster Regiment at 15 years of age to participate in a war fought on the foreign fields of France and Flanders. He was possibly the youngest recruit from amongst the hundreds of Athy youngsters and men who enlisted during the 1914/’18 war. Pat was the same age as the young girls who played in the football final in Newbridge last week. He survived the war and returned to Athy but like his comrades in arms did not receive the adulation which is due to the victorious. Athy of Pat Delahunt’s day was a town which showed few changes in terms of buildings and streetscape compared to today’s urban centre. While new suburbs have developed at the edge of the town the inner core of Athy which once housed the towns population of 3,500 or so displays a main street townscape which is largely unchanged. The greatest change is in the social and sporting facilities available in the town for a population of nearly 10,000 which facilities were not available to Pat Delahunt and his friends 100 years ago. The public houses cum grocery shops which were once the principal business outlets in Athy have decreased from about 44 to a dozen or so pubs, with only one premises retaining the old bar/grocery business combination. Perhaps the greatest change noticeable in recent years has been the involvement of girls playing Gaelic football, soccer and rugby and the early involvement of young children in the same field sports. The success of the Athy girls on the football pitch in Newbridge must give the youngsters a deserved feeling of fulfilment and their parents, family and friends an equally deserved sense of pride in their achievement. Well done to the Athy Under 15 team which under the captaincy of Elizabeth Mazur succeeded in repeating the success of Athy’s senior footballers in last year’s senior championship.