Search Results for 'Johnny'

‘CAPTAIN’ JACK Boyle is a lout. He can’t be bothered working and prefers to spend his time drinking in Foley’s sung, being the ‘big man’. He’s a hero to the barflies - but what about hiss family?

We all remember different defeats with more emotion than others. Some leave a very raw scar that takes a long time to heal. It may be from a game that annoyed you intensely, or 60 minutes you would love to have re-lived again.

Last Sunday I witnessed two of the finest games of football that I have ever seen on All Ireland final day, and I have been at most finals since 1977. We occasionally get a memorable match, but rarely do we get two wonderful exhibitions of football. The two games were enthralling, exciting, nerve racking, at times but it was football played at its very best. I left Castlebar early on Sunday morning as I wanted to get to Dublin with time to relax and soak up the atmosphere before the games. Jones’s Road, on big match day, is a hive of activity and last Sunday I mingled with friends and acquaintances for almost two hours before going into the ground. We were blessed with the most glorious day that added greatly to the feel-good factor. There were lots hovering about the place hoping to pick up a spare ticket but I got the impression that there were very few floating about the place last Sunday. (No harm to see the touts taking a hit too in these economically depressed times.) I had my son Johnny and my daughter Sally Rose with me bedecked in their red and green ensembles. They were excitedly looking forward to seeing the Mayo minors play Tyrone. Others from my house were content with the luxury of home viewing. I met and chatted with a few of the 1983 Galway footballers as they made their way into Croke Park for lunch. They, and the Dublin footballers, were guests of Croke Park as they were part of the 25 year jubilee celebrations. I sent my two on their way into the game and made my way upstairs to the media section as I was lucky enough to be asked to work on the game for RTE Radio 1. I had a cup of coffee in the canteen with a few journalists and the unanimous consensus amongst these experts was that Kerry would win their third All Ireland in a row. They couldn’t call the minor match, but I did get the impression that if they were pressed they would side with Tyrone. I spoke with Micheál O Muireachtaigh to establish his views on the two sides. He thought Tyrone had some excellent players but “liked this Mayo team”. He referred to their physicality and suggested that this year’s team reminded him of some of the great minor teams he had seen from Mayo in years past. Micheál is too much of a gentleman and diplomat to suggest either team would win it, so he said that we should have a great game of football. And what a game we had.

Local TD Willie Penrose was taken to hospital yesterday, October 30 after he fell ill in the Dáil during a vote on the Budget’s education cuts.

We all remember different defeats with more emotion than others. Some leave a very raw scar that takes a long time to heal.

I have been intrigued over the years by the large volumes of people travelling weekly across the water to support, in the main, Glasgow Celtic and English soccer teams. No expense is spared it seems as these die hard supporters make their weekly pilgrimages to London, Manchester, or Liverpool. My 10-year-old son, Johnny, is a supporter of Liverpool so I decided to source a couple of tickets for a home match in Anfield as a Christmas present. I booked the flights last December. Departure was from Knock on Saturday morning with the return flights booked for Sunday lunchtime. I discovered, however, sometime in mid January that Sky Sports, which dictates when matches are played, had moved this fixture to Sunday which meant I had to re-book our flights. When I realised what Ryanair wanted to charge me to change my scheduled flights, I decided to stick with my outbound journey and book separate flights home on the Monday. With an arrival time of 10.45am in Liverpool and loads of time to kill I managed to secure two tickets for the Manchester v Blackburn game on the Saturday evening in Old Trafford. Johnny had got lucky!

We all remember different defeats with more emotion than others. Some leave a very raw scar that takes a long time to heal. It may be from a game that annoyed you intensely, or 60 minutes you would love to have re-lived again.

Take a trip down memory lane next Friday at Christy Maye’s ‘Disc A Go Go’ charity night in aid of the North Westmeath Hospice and Fr Liam Hayes’ Argentinean orphanage.

THE GALWAY Sessions, the city’s trad and folk festival, organised by Mick Crehan, takes place next week and will feature Mick Hanley, Ben Taylor, and Alec Finn.

If friendship was to be measured by the number of times I called to John Naughton’s house to say hello, I was not John’s friend at all, for I never called to his home, nor he to mine and this despite the fact that he only lived over the road from me here in Castlebar. But I have known John all of my adult life because he played in goal for the Crossmolina senior football team for years. Unfortunately John lost his brave battle with cancer and passed away last week. John was a very clever, gifted, man who knew things that others didn’t. He was interested in predictable things like Gaelic football, his farm and livestock, and loved his work with the HSE in Castlebar Hospital. He always struck me as being a wise man. He remained passionate about the Crossmolina football team even after he stopped playing. When I made my way on to the senior team in Crossmolina John was already the well established custodian, having played in goals for years prior to my arrival. He took his game seriously and was never shy in making a suggestion as to how the opposition would be beaten, or offering his point of view on what was going awry in a game. John had notions of grandeur for the club. He wasn’t content with the junior medal won in 1975 or the intermediate title won in 1980. He wanted the team to be the best it could be, to be up there with the top teams competing for the county senior title annually. He was one of the real leaders in the dressing room during my indoctrination. At that time I was a young naive defender on the team and John often pulled me aside before, during, and after games to offer encouragement and advice, for which I was most grateful for. What I loved about those words was the fact that they were delivered in the language of the plain man. In other words, there was no doubt in my mind about the content of the message delivered! John’s manner was genial, his humour easy, and his mind acute. He was enormously proud of the achievements of his native Crossmolina, particularly the All Ireland club victory in 2001. On big match days, whether it was Mayo or Crossmolina that was involved, John would have the field in front of the house bedecked in the Mayo and Crossmolina colours. The display of a variety of paraphernalia, bunting, and flags signalled the fact that a serious follower of the GAA lived in the house behind the field. An enormous crowd of old GAA friends and colleagues, from as far away as Co. Tyrone, turned out for his funeral last weekend to bid farewell to a good man who loved his sport. John would have been immensely proud of his son Kieran who bravely took to the field last Sunday to assist his club, Castlebar Mitchell’s, get through their quarter-final replay vs Shrule/Glencorrib successfully. It can’t have been easy.