Bealo’s one of our own now!

of players that were about to plummet from Division 1 to Division 4, but Bealin had better times when he got to manage son Jonathan with Parnells in Dublin.

‘I went up to manage Parnells as well, for two or three years,’ he recalled. ‘With Dublin being so competitive, we were beaten by Ballymun Kickhams who went on to the club All-Ireland final. We were beaten by two or three points and he was only a young lad at the time, it was good to be around him giving him advice, but now I think he’d be advising me!’

The Bealins moved to Castletown in and around 2007, and there has been a conveyor belt of mini-Bealins coming through the system in recent years, headed by Jonathan, the eldest.

It was a proud moment for dad when the boy who was in his arms as he tried to board the celebratory bus in 1995 made his inter-county debut for Wexford 24 years later.

‘He has done extremely well,’ Paul beamed. ‘I was at every one of those matches (in 2019), including the one in London.

‘I enjoyed watching him playing inter-county because it’s a small window that you can play and it’s the highest level that he’s playing at. It was a very proud moment to see him playing.’

Having managed Castletown, and seen his sons involved with club and now with county, and having won all there is to win at inter-county level, there are few people in a better position to cast an eye over Wexford football. This is what he sees:

‘I suppose the difficulty you have with Wexford football at the moment, if you said to me if they didn’t play hurling would they have a good football team? They would have a fantastic football team.

‘Trying to play both codes is very difficult, they are very successful at hurling at the moment and it’s great to see them doing really well and it gives the whole county a lift which is brilliant, but I think Paul Galvin has added a profile.

‘I think Paul McLoughlin did a good job. Paul Galvin in his first year in terms of what he has put in the background has been very good. He didn’t get a run but he raised the profile of the players wanting to be involved which is really important.

‘It’s really the development of the players that they have, and the players they have are good players. If they can stick with it, get a run and unearth one or two guys every year, they are a much better squad.

‘Even Jonathan said he really enjoys it, they are really committed, really dedicated, trying to achieve something. It’s just to stick with it and try to unearth a bit of talent that will add to it, and hold on to what you have got.’

All those years after holding on to young Jonathan on the most beautiful bus journey of Paul Bealin’s life, there may be days when the ‘what ifs’ still circle, but the memories of being All-Ireland champions make all the other tough losses worthwhile.