The two Tom Nevilles
THE PUBLICATION of the list of John Bradley’s Wexford football team-mates from 1965 to 1968 last week prompted a couple of questions from a reader. He was curious to know if the Hugh Byrne listed as a Gusserane player was the future TD, and also if the Tom Neville of the same club was the star hurler of that era.
Well, the answer to the first question is yes, but it’s a no to the second query.
Both men hailed from Fethard, and they were playing with Gusserane at the time because the St. Mogue’s hadn’t enough players to field a team of their own in the New Ross District
Junior championship from 1964 up to and including 1968.
Indeed, Byrne and Neville were on the O’Rahilly’s side when they defeated Half Way
House (Bunclody) in the county
Junior final of 1965 to return to Senior ranks (there was no
Intermediate football grade at the time).
Tom Neville was a fellow
Fethard native and cousin of the star hurler of the same name, who is best associated with the
Geraldine O’Hanrahans club.
St. Mogue’s did return to
Junior football action in 1969, losing a championship game to
Horeswood in O’Kennedy Park on July 6 of that year by the minimum (3-4 to 2-6).
However, that posed some problems for the hurler Neville, who featured in that game, as the bye-laws of the time decreed that he couldn’t then play hurling for the GOH in the same year.
In fact, the All-Ireland medal winner in 1960 and 1968 had to sit out the entire club hurling season of 1969 as a result, and he was obliged to get special approval at a County Board meeting in early 1970 in order to play football with Fethard, and hurling with the Geraldines, in the same year.
Horeswood – then a Senior hurling club – initially argued that because they were closer to Neville’s native Fethard than New Ross, perhaps he should be instructed to play with them.
However, the general view was that, because Neville had always hurled with the Geraldines – and also played football with them when Fethard couldn’t field – it was only right and proper that he should continue to assist the Barrowsiders.