THE CAPTIAL OF 5-A-SIDE FOOTBALL

The Maytime Festival All-Ireland indoor football is an era etched in minds with great fondness and exciting memories for all who took part in the tournaments and the spectators who jammed the former Adelphi ballroom.

A craze for indoor football swept Dundalk and indeed the entire country, with tournaments regularly staged at local halls and ballrooms, but none with the same popular appeal as the Adelphi during the town’s annual Maytime Festival from which other off-season tournaments sprouted up at the venue, such was the popularity of the sport at the time.

Dundalk justly was called Ireland’s capital of indoor football, with the mass of teams that sprung up from everywhere, the most common being from work places, especially factories and clubs, or simply friends getting together to form a side.

The crowds thronged local halls where tournaments were staged, but nothing like the Adelphi in it’s heyday.

The teams, both ladies and mens, especially the leading ones, proved they were of the highest pedigree not only winning other tournaments within the Dundalk hinterland, but well outside it, competing in Drogheda, Monaghan and even as far as Bray.

It was accident, for the successful teams put a lot of time and effort into practising and training for their participation in tournaments, combined with their undoubted natural talent and skill. Sport, as one player of the era remarked, was her life, and players could spend seven nights a week playing and training for indoor football and other sport in which they were involved.

The interest that was generated and enjoyment derived by spectators led to an estimated 1,000, squeezing in to the Adelphi with standing room only round the partitioned arena to watch the action.

When the bigger games and finals were being played eager followers were seen to queue outside for a number of hours before the doors opened to get in and to obtain one of the better places to see the games, which was against the partition.

One player recalled leaving to go home after finishing work and there were 20 to 30 people waiting for the doors to open at 5.30 in the evening, possibly an hour or more before the action began. Another told of a line stretching as far as the Square.

To facilitate those who couldn’t be accommodated a large screen was erected at the Square and on another occasion seemingly at the lower end of the town at the Green Church for the games to be transmitted live via closed circuit television to onlookers on the street.

Rows of spectators ringed the partitioned playing arena, with those on the outside craning over each other to see the action, and creating such a cacophony of noise that the outstanding lady player Paula Gorham, then a younger teenager, described it was ‘like playing in Wembley’.

Those lucky enough to gain a spot against the wooden partition could lean over it to look up and down to keep right in touch with the fast flow of the play

The fever pitch atmosphere was stirred up through largely word of mouth of players and spectators, with much of the talk at work and school about the Indoor Football and to a lesser extent about other local tournaments when they were staged.

The skating hall in Blackrock was a popular venue, and closed circuit television also was employed there to show finals in an adjacent lounge bar, Uncle Toms Cabin..

There was no social media, never mind mobile phones, with promotion of the tournament, mainly provided through the nightly Festival Flash, which carried news of the tournament with fixtures and results and of other events taking place in the festival. Besides that there were the local newspapers.

But no less a figure than that ‘Memory Man’ of Sport, the beloved sports broadcaster Jimmy Magee lent his support, assisting in increasing interest with a closed circuit television interview ahead of a final in the arena.

The playing surface was the wooden dance floor which posed a challenge for players to keep their feet and balance. It could be very slippery, particularly after dances. A number of the players used a solution on their sneakers to try to combat the problem where they could land flat on the floor when running with the ball.

The daunting nature of playing in such a claustrophobic atmosphere was heightened with the agility of the nerve jangling players tested before even entering the arena, having to hurdle the partition to get onto the playing floor.

The ball was an ordinary plastic one – not like the tennis like full sized football now played with in purpose built halls. In most of the halls where the indoor game was played wooden partitions were slotted across doorways to alleviate the risk of nasty collisions and injury.

Heading the ball was not permitted, and it had to be kept below the height of the partition that was roughly four feet high. Possession was conceded to the opposition if the ball want over the partition, and play resumed with a free kick. These were the basic rules with scoring only allowed from inside the penalty area.

The game suited the skilful player with close tight control who could turn sharply and score and some of the town’s best scoring forwards excelled at the game, such as Ollie Ralph in later years in the Friary hall. The clever and artful player adeptly used the partition to their advantage, knocking the ball off the wooden barrier and nipping past opponents to collect it.

FESTIVAL INAUGURATED

THE Maytime Festival was inaugurated in November 1964 and Harp Lager sponsored what was named the All-Ireland Indoor Football which was a five v five competition that attracted teams from quite a wide area as far as Belfast. Ardoyne Celtic was one of the top mens teams who competed, but the one who dominated in those years was drawn from top local junior club

Bank Rovers.

They appeared in the first four finals, winning the inaugural tournament in 1966 with a side consisting of goalkeeper Robbie Moore RIP, Brian Murphy, Eddie O’Connell, Thomas Kelledy RIP and Stephen Maguire that was hugely talented. Thomas Kelledy, Stephen Maguire and Eddie O’Connell all played in the League of Ireland, with the latter lining out for Drumcondra and his two teammates for their home town club Dundalk, with Thomas a youth international.

They defeated Newry Crusaders in the final who included Vincent Gilmore, a member of the Dundalk cup winning team of 1958, Ted Harte who played in the Lilywhites title-winning side in the 1962/3 season, also Brian Jennings, a brother of the legendary Northern Ireland and Spurs and later Arsenal goalkeeper Pat, Ken Halliday and Brendan McManus in goal.

Brian Murphy was an ever present in the finals with Kevin Morgan, Tom Carroll and Paddy

Crossan also figuring in the team at different stages.

Blackthorn won both the ladies and mens tournaments to complete a double the next year, the mens team comprising Gerry Foley, PJ McEnteggart, Gerry Savage (captain), Joe Callan and Jim Murphy. The ladies included Marie Conway (captain), Paula Gorham, Carol McGuire, Pauline Charity and Pat Neary.

Bank regained their title in 1968 when the final was held in the Hoedown in what was McCourt’s granary a short distance away further down the Long Walk. Rangers, big rivals of Bank in local junior soccer, provided the opposition, with the like of Tommy McConville, Tommy Connolly and Brendan Watters in the team.

A team with Jas Craven and Danny Culligan, both with strong GAA affiliations, beat Bank in 1969 when they again appeared in the decider, but they won a couple of ‘in between’ festival tournaments, and also