Annual Ray Daniels Cup goes down a festive treat

Soccer and GAA teams come together in Ray’s memory

A great crowd turned up at the Blessington GAA grounds on St Stephen’s morning for the annual Ray Daniels Memorial Cup clash between Blessington GAA and Blessington AFC.

With both squads at near full strength it made for a very interesting soccer clash over 60 minutes on the top class Astro surface.

Blessington is one of the few areas where there is very little cross over between GAA and soccer teams and only two players play both codes from the teams that featured on Monday morning last.

Organiser Jonathan Daniels said that the game has to be a full soccer encounter as a GAA contest would be unfair on the soccer players.

In the end the spoils went to the Blessington AFC side who got the better of their GAA cousins on a score of 4-2 with Paddy Carroll grabbing two and Cian O’Brien and Sean O’Brien completing the tally; A Derek Balfe og and a Curtis Geraghty strike for the GAA team kept the game alive as a contest until late on.

Dominant displays from the Carroll brothers, Paddy and David, was key to the victory of the Blessington AFC team in this wonderful event held to celebrate the memory of a tremendous clubman, the late Ray Daniels.

Jonathan Daniels said that the event was a wonderful success with a “brilliant” turnout and a brilliant attitude from all involved.

“Everyone enjoyed it and we had a few sociable drinks in Murphy’s afterwards to celebrate,” said Jonathan.

The Blessington AFC and Blessington GAA teams after their Ray Daniels Memorial Cup clash in Blessington. Ben Carroll Daniels and Ray Daniels present the Ray Daniels Memorial Cup to David Carroll, captain of the winning Blessington AFC team.

Action from the Ray Daniels Cup memorial final.