Search Results for 'Imelda Hobbins'

On that day in 1996 when Galway won that long-awaited first senior camogie title and the team celebrated to the praise of hordes of young fans who made the long journey up in the days before we had motorways, who would have guessed that the excitement of that occasion would impact so greatly on the mind of one young girl who had travelled to the capital with a busload of her friends.

As in hurling in 1887, Galway took part in the first All-Ireland senior camogie final in 1932 which was played in Galway Sportsground.

There only two women in the 87 years of the Camogie Senior Championship being contested, who have ascended the steps of the Hogan Stand and lifted the O'Duffy Cup while draped in the maroon of Galway; Imelda Hobbins in 1996 and current player Lorraine Ryan in 2013.

"When the whistle goes at the end of the match, you either are up there or you're not." Come 6pm on Sunday evening the Galway captain Sarah Dervan will know whether she will have climbed the famous steps of the Hogan Stand to hold the O'Duffy Cup aloft or whether she will be left on the hallowed turf of Croke Park, watching on as black and amber ticker tape falls to signify a Kilkenny victory.

Every time in this wet late summer, when the skies opened and the heavens poured down upon us with a level of unprecedented ferocity, what followed brought a silver lining. Every soaking was followed by a drying; every flu was followed by sunburn. Every soaking cloud followed by the most blue of skies.