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.

Kildare County Football and 'Boiler' White

The recent death of ‘Boiler’ White brought back memories of a time when our heroes were more home grown than the celebrities of today.  My youthful memories extend back to the 1950s, a time before television engulfed the countryside in a bewildering maze of individuals accorded instant unearned celebrity status.  Those entrusted with that status never come near to equalling, in my eyes at least, the greatness of my youthful sporting heroes.  Men like ‘Boiler’ White whose prowess on the football field I sought to emulate but could never hope to match.  As a Gaelic footballer in the early 1950s ‘Boiler’ was a legend in his own time, such that when referring to him his name was invariably prefaced with the prefix ‘the’.   ‘The Boiler’ White was my generations Roy of the Rovers, the peerless footballer whose strength and skill seemed limitless.

Gaelic football was in my teens a sport ingrained in the parish with offshoots which involved the Kildare county team.  With my friends I played football every day and the long hot summers of my youth (always remembered as such) afforded every encouragement for playing out our roles as county players of the future.  We imagined ourselves striding out onto the playing pitch at Geraldine Park to represent the Lilywhites in a contest almost invariably opposing our neighbouring county folk of either Carlow or Laois.  We had no desire to go any further in our imaginations than the neighbouring counties which we could always feel confident of beating.  At least our confidence in successfully overcoming Carlow was seldom wide of the mark, even if the plantation county of Laois did not always play true to our belief of being less than equal to the short grass county. 

As youngsters in the 1950s our football was played out in the reflective glory of Gaelic football players such as ‘Boiler’ White, Paddy Gibbons, Larry McCormack and Toss McCarthy.  Men whom we saw play on our home pitch at Geraldine Park at a time when issues of public health and safety did not concern the authorities and attendances on the terraces were limited only by the ground’s capacity.

There was no television in those days and so our enjoyment of Gaelic football was wholehearted and untainted by comparisons with games played in places as far apart as Anfield and Old Trafford.  Our sporting heroes were the men who played Gaelic football for our county of Kildare and the mighty ‘Boiler’ White was a special favourite.

In 1956 Kildare won the Leinster Championship Final and two men who played on that team had by then assumed the mantle of sporting heroes which once graced the broad shoulders of ‘Boiler’ White and his colleagues of the early 1950s.  Danny Flood was of course from Athy and had first played as full back for the county senior team in 1954 and would continue to do so for ten more years.  The big strong man from the south of the county easily filled the bill as a sporting hero of my youth, as did the smaller but graceful footballer from Monasterevin, Seamie Harrison.  Danny Flood would continue to play for Kildare seniors during the years Mick Carolan and Kieran O’Malley came to prominence.  O’Malley was a stylish player whose free taking and ability to chip the ball from the ground into his hands without bending or stooping down were marvels to behold.  With Mick Carolan he joined the pantheon of sporting heroes who over the years graced the football field wearing the colours of the Lilywhite County.

But for me at least the one name which stands about above all others is that of ‘The Boiler’ White.  Maybe it was because ‘Boiler’ was in his prime as a player when I first became aware of the greatness which attaches to sportsmen who excel at their sport.  For whatever reason ‘Boiler’ White was my first sporting hero, the man whose name was heard when in imaginative mood I realised the dream of bringing the Sam Maguire Cup to Kildare as I bore down on the goal mouth in a practice match with my friends.  It is now over 50 years since those days and the recent passing of ‘Boiler’ White has brought a curtain down on memories of sporting times past. 

Strangely I never met ‘Boiler’ White but his name was with me for over five decades.  He was a sporting legend and my first sporting hero.

Athy's G.F.C.

‘They have done us proud’.  The words of an 85 year old, soon after news reached him of the defeat of Athy’s senior team in last week’s Leinster Championship semi final.  The young men who comprise the Gaelic football panel for Athy Gaelic Football Club have indeed brought honour and pride to the South Kildare town.  Their success in the Kildare Senior Championship, the first for Athy in 24 years, brought to mind the glory days of the 1930s and the early 1940s when the Athy club strode like a colossus through the rough and tumble of the short grass county footballing scene. 

The first senior county final contested by the Athy club, was the 1923 final which was played in Newbridge on 4^th May 1924.  The opposing team was from the county town of Naas and the injury hit Athy team failed to score, leaving Naas to run out easy winners.

I had the privilege of interviewing in 1990 the last surviving member of the 1923 Athy team, Castledermot native Tom Forrestal when Tom was 93 years of age.  His team mates on that day included the legendary Eddie ‘Sapper’ O’Neill who later emigrated to New York where he captained the New York team which defeated the 1926 All Ireland champions Kerry in the first ever international Gaelic football match.  The emigration boat also took to America some other members of the Athy team, including Mick ‘Myra’ Grant, Mick Mahon and George Dowling.  Mick Mahon is the only Athy club player ever to win an All Ireland medal which he got as a sub on the 1927 team when Kildare defeated arch rivals Kerry. 

Athy G.F.C. lost two senior football finals in 1927.  The first defeat was inflicted by Caragh, to whom Athy lost by one point in a high scoring game.  This was the 1926 senior final which was played on 27^th March 1927.  Just six months later Athy lost the 1927 final to Kildare town.  Six years would pass before the club which was founded in 1887 would have the opportunity to win its very first senior title. 

That win came in 1933 and was followed a year later by a second senior title.  The Athy team featured such great players as Paul Matthews, Tommy Mulhall and Barney Dunne.  Three years later Athy won the 1937 senior title, with Paul Matthews and Tommy Mulhall again to the fore.  Several newcomers were included on the team, including Tommy Buggy, Jim Birney, the Murray brothers Matt and Lar and the man regarded as the finest footballer ever to have played with Athy, George Comerford.

The success of the 1930s was not quite matched in the following decade when Athy’s only senior final success came in 1942.  The peerless Paul Matthews who had captained the Kildare county team in the 1935 All Ireland was still a playing member of the Athy team which was defeated in the 1941 senior final.  The victors on that occasion were Carbury against whom Athy exacted revenge when winning the following year’s final.  That was the last Athy winning team until 1987, and signalled the final appearance in a county final of long serving players such as Paul Mathews and Barney Dunne. 

The success of this year’s team has given an enormous boost to the South Kildare club and the young stars of the team give hope of further continuing success over the next few years.  The townspeople responded wonderfully to the team’s successful run in the Kildare championship and the subsequent Leinster club championships.  The celebrations in the flag bedecked streets of Athy contrasted with the public’s apparent indifference to the club’s success in the 1930s.  I remember Barney Dunne once telling me of the championship winning teams returning home to Athy, and the absence of any public acknowledgement of their success as county champions.  It was I felt a matter of regret, not just for Barney, but also his team mates who would have wished to share their success with the townspeople whom they represented on the playing fields.

This year’s team can have no such regrets.  Their success has brought glory and honour to Athy and to their club.  In years to come someone else’s pen will no doubt write of the footballing exploits of the men in red who in 2011 blazed a trail of success across Kildare county before venturing further afield into the hitherto unknown realm of Leinster football.

Athy Senior Footballers Success

Sporting success is an important stimulus for any local community and nowhere was that more apparent than following last Sunday’s football final between Athy and Carbury.  The excitement in Athy prior to the final was palpable and the spread of red and white flags throughout the town gave visible expression to the pride we all felt in our local team. 

Everyone was elated by the team’s success and one can scarcely imagine the uplifting effect victory had on the people of Athy.  It was quite obvious that the sporting success had managed to lift the mood of an entire town banishing, even if only for a short spell, the thoughts of recession, NAMA and bankers madness. 

This was a club success, but equally it was a community success, earned as it was by men, young and not so young, with roots extending back generations in the local community.  Young James Eaton, whose early goal laid the foundation for the team’s win, is the grandson of James Eaton who in his young days, while working in Jacksons of Leinster Street, also played for the Club.

Another man involved in the winning team was Ger Clancy, whose father played for Athy.  Ger was a selector on the winning senior team, a role which he also filled on the minor and Under 21 championship winning teams of recent years.  Uniquely Ger is himself the holder of Kildare Championship winning medals at minor, Under 21 and senior level, the latter having been won in 1987 when he lined out at right full back on the Athy team.

The involvement of local families with Athy’s G.A.A. club and Sunday’s winning senior team is evident in so many ways.  Another senior selector, Dinny Sullivan, played on the Athy team which lost the 1978 final to Raheens and he, like Ger, also served as selector on previous minor and Under 21 Championship winning teams.  His brother Anthony is currently President of the Athy Gaelic Football Club.  Club Secretary Colm Reynolds is the proud father of Man of the Match winner Cian. 

Another past Club President, whom I had the honour of proposing for that position many years ago, was the late Tim O’Sullivan, a Kerry man whose adult life was spent in Athy.  His grandson Hugh Mahon came on as a substitute in the second half of Sunday’s final.

As one looks down the generations it is not surprising to find a continuity of service and allegiance to the local G.A.A. Club.  One household now holding five Kildare Senior Championship medals is the Dunnes of Ashville.  Patrick Dunne has just won his first Senior Championship medal, but at home there are four similar medals won by his grand uncle Barney Dunne in the late 1930s and 1940s. 

The late Tommy Brophy who was a neighbour of mine in Offaly Street in the 1950s was a hurling man through and through.  His son Mark who was on the 1995 losing Athy final team panel is the manager of the 2011 senior winning team, having fulfilled the same role so successfully with Athy minors.  Mark’s brother Ken played in Sunday’s final, as did Emmanuel Kennedy, both of whom are the last survivors of the 1995 losing final team.  Ken and Emmanuel have been tremendous servants of the Club over many years.

Comparison between this year’s successful championship campaign and Athy’s success in 1942 when we also beat Carbury shows that both victories were achieved by very young teams.  Sixty nine years ago the Athy team which deprived Carbury of a third in a row senior title was comprised of 7 players under 22 years of age and one player under 18.  Those ‘youngsters’ as they were referred to in the 1942 press reports included Danny Shaughnessy, Tommy Fox and Lar Murray. 

Another link with the past was the inclusion on this year’s team panel of Aongus Corry, a former County Clare minor and the holder of a Clare Senior Championship medal.  His inclusion brought back memories of another Clare man, George Comerford, who played for Athy in the 1937 Senior Football Final when Athy won its third senior title in five years.  George was a Garda based in Athy who not only played football for the Clare County Senior team, but also for Munster and Leinster.  In addition he played inter county football for Kildare and Louth and was on the losing Dublin team in the All-Ireland Final of 1934.  The late Pat Mulhall regarded George Comerford as the finest footballer ever to have played with Athy.

The story of Athy’s success in the Kildare County Final of 2011 is a story of a community whose spirits were lifted by the skill, panache and energy of 15 and more young men.  We rejoice in their success and for a while our spirits were lifted and the whole town, not for the first time and hopefully not the last, enjoyed its position as the premier sporting centre in the County of Kildare.

Athy Under 21 Football Team

What a bumper year 2010 has been for Athy Gaelic footballers.  Last week’s victory of the U-21 team in the County Final brought the Squires Gannon Cup to the south Kildare town for the first time.  St. Michael’s Parish team had been previous champions at the same grade in 1975 and 1983 when the teams included players from Athy, Castlemitchell and Rheban.  The success of the U-21 players was all the more welcome, coming as it did after the ‘Triple Crown’ win of the Club’s minor team in this year’s Kildare Minor Championship.

An interesting fact is the number of players on the winning team who shared in the Club’s minor championship wins in 2008 and 2009.  No less than 6 players hold that unique distinction, including Luke Thomas, Barry Purcell, Kevin Feeley, Liam McGovern, Tony Gibbons and Sean Ronan who was on the substitute’s bench.

I could not but help thinking back to the founding of the Young Emmets Football Club in the early 1920s at a time when emigration had brought the previously vibrant Athy Gaelic Football Club almost to a standstill.  It was the locally based Christian Brothers, spearheaded by lay teacher Seamus Malone, who founded the Young Emmets Club based in the local school.  It became in time the focus for Gaelic games in Athy and eventually emerged as the local club before changing its name to Geraldine Football Club. 

Seamus Malone and his brother, both from Tyrrellspass in County Westmeath, were very prominent in the Irish War of Independence but Seamus’s greatest legacy to the people of Athy was the football club which he organised and acted as Club Secretary for several years while a teacher in the local C.B.S. 

The age profile of the U-21 team makes all the players eligible for next year’s team, while many of them also played on the U-21 team during the 2008 and 2009 championships.  En route to the final the team defeated the Allen parish team, Na Fianna and Naas before emerging as winners in an extraordinary game against Sarsfield in the semi-final.  The Newbridge team had run up an 8 point lead at one stage in the first half, and were still ahead by 6 points when the half time whistle was blown.  A revival by the Athy footballers in the second half saw their team draw level in the last minute of normal time before going on to win by 4 points in injury time. 

The U-21 final against Clane saw a more clean cut victory for Athy, even though Clane opened the scoring and held the lead at half time.  The impressive young Athy players came out after the break determined to emulate the minor team’s success.  Their final victory on a score line of 1-11 to 1-8 rounded off a fine game of football played by Paul Clynch, Luke Thomas, Joe Kinahan, Conor Ronan, Shane O’Brien, David McGovern, Barry Purcell, Brian Kinahan, Kevin Feeley, Corey Moore, Liam McGovern, Daniel O’Keeffe, Cian Reynolds, Darroch Mulhall, Tony Gibbons, with playing substitutes Sean Ronan and James Eaton. 

The headline in the Kildare Nationalist ‘Mulhall’s Masterclass puts Athy in a League of its Own’ told the story of the man of the match display by Athy player Darroch Mulhall.  His score tally of 5 points, superbly taken at important times in the match, proved inspirational for a team and a club which in the not too distant future can hopefully go on to achieve long awaited success at senior level.

Athy’s U-21 management team comprised Dinny Sullivan and Ger Clancy as selectors, with Joe Kinahan as team manager.  They were also the management team for the successful minor champions of 2009 and this gives them a unique place in the club’s history having guided two teams at different age levels to championship success. 

Athy Gaelic Football Club has enjoyed remarkable success at underage level over the last 3 years and at senior level discernable improvement has been noted.  Falling at semi-final stage in a senior championship to the eventual winners was the club’s measure for 2010.  Here’s hoping that 2011 and beyond brings a senior county championship to Athy.

It was the late Tim Clarke, long time Secretary to the Kildare County Board, who was believed to have penned the following lines prior to a senior championship final in the early 1940s.

            ‘The Athy men, always stylish

            Since the days of Tom Mulhall

            Were a joy to all spectators

            For the way they played the ball’.

The young men of 2010 are following in the tradition of the great Tommy Mulhall and the many other great players who lined out over the years for the Athy Club.  They have done us proud. 

Joe Connolly has written a history of Kildare’s Drama Festival entitled ‘Pure Drama from behind the Spotlight’.  It includes references to the Athy Social Club Players who graced stages throughout the country in the 1940s and the 1950s.  The book will be launched in the Silken Thomas Kildare on Thursday 2^nd December at 8.00 p.m.