Over the hill: Fond memories of rolling corner-forwards and hardy corner-backs!

Our man Frank on a nostalgic trip to the St Croan’s grounds; A night of celebration for Creggs RFC; In praise of the Rossies (honestly!)…

It’s Good Friday evening and we’re heading for Ballintubber, where our football team are playing St Croan’s in an O’Gara Cup League game. Everywhere we pass, I am reminded of the huge changes that have taken place during the course of my lifetime.

As we pass through the few villages that we encounter on our way, one of the first and most obvious changes is that all the pubs are open today. As we all know, for many years pubs in Ireland could not open at all on Good Friday (it was only in 2018 that the ban was lifted). Funny enough, I have always been happy to abide by a Good Friday ban, and despite the new-found freedom I still haven’t made it to a pub on the day in any of the years since the change came in. Anyway, business seemed to be booming in all the local pubs we passed, and I suppose anything that helps keep our local pubs alive has to be welcomed.

In Ballintubber, the first thing we noticed was the fact that the Croan’s club are developing a second pitch to go with the splendid new one that they opened only a few years ago. The old pitch, which had an infamous hill on which many a corner-forward had a good roll after getting a welcoming shoulder from a corner-back (it is said some of them were never found) is completely dug up. In time there will be another superb playing pitch.

As a few of us oldies reminisced about the old days, a Croan’s club stalwart, Padraig Conama, remembered togging out under a large tree at the side of the pitch, and noted that the only shower the lads had was whatever rain might be falling at the time! We realised that every club now has super pitches, shower facilities that are second to none, and physios and masseuses always on hand to cure whatever pains and aches the players might have.

As we discussed the huge rise in soft tissue injuries like hamstring tears, we wondered why no one ever had any of those injuries back in the day. My own conclusion, although without any scientific proof, is that all our sportspeople are doing too much training and are asking too much of their bodies. Anyway, we concluded that the whole thing has turned full circle – we now have pitches every- where, and yet a lot of clubs are struggling to get teams on them. Particularly at underage level, clubs are having to amalgamate in order to fulfil their fixtures, so while it’s great to see all the improvements in clubs’ facilities, it is more important to try to keep interest alive in localities, and keep our children playing whatever sport they would like to be involved in.

Croan’s won a high-scoring game by a few points, and as we left their hugely impressive set-up, I looked forward to our next visit to see how the old hilly pitch turns out (although the romantic in me secretly wished they would have left it alone, and let some other corner-forward have the dubious pleasure of having a good roll, compliments of an old-style shoulder from an old-style corner-back). If memory serves me correct, Croan’s always had their share of tough, old-style corner-backs!

And finally…

I can’t let the occasion pass without congratulating the Rossies on a famous and fully deserved win over Mayo on Sunday – despite all the pre-match verdicts in Mayo’s favour, I was not one bit surprised to see the result. I have no doubt that the Rossies will fancy their chances against Galway.

I also must congratulate New York on their first ever Connacht Championship win (beating Leitrim on penalties).