When Galway and Carraroe managed to outwit the GAA
HAVE books will travel. It is a simple ethos, one which author Brian Kennedy has followed over these last number of weeks as he journeyed the length and breadth of the country spreading the gospel from his latest tome: One Team. One Dream. Won Friday Night. It is the follow up to Just Follow
The Floodlights, which was shortlisted for the 2011 William Hill Sports Book of the Year, and carries tales of joy, despair, success and heartache on every page.
‘This is very much a labour of love,’ the Waterford native explains. ‘That’s the only way to describe it.’
Kennedy is one of 27 contributors on a collection of clubs still thriving today — like Shamrock Rovers and Cork City — to those long extinct — such as Kilkenny City and Kildare County.
There are stories from every corner of Ireland and the depth of feeling from the individual authors is clear — two Dundalk supporters exiled in Brooklyn embracing Dirty Dancing-style moves in front of their stunned colleagues when they qualified for the Europa League group stages in 2016 is just one tale of ecstasy.
Being the League of Ireland, there is of course plenty of woe, but more than that you are left with a greater understanding of an enduring love of their football club.
A prime example is the chapter ‘Sleeping with the Enemy… Of Sorts’, cataloguing Galway United’s short-lived 1986/87 European campaign — all of one round — and how a canny use of a loophole in the GAA’s ban on foreign games led to their UEFA Cup tie with Dutch club Groningen being played in the small village of Carraroe in the heart of Connemara’s Gaeltacht.
19 years before Croke Parke temporarily suspended Rule 42, it looked as if Galway would suffer from their own ground, Terryland Park, not being up to spec. The nearby Sportsgrounds, which hosted a Cup Winners’ Cup tie a couple of seasons previous, was also deemed unfit for purpose and Galway GAA refused the use of Pearse Park.
‘It’s their pitch. It is money they raised themselves, albeit the money was raised from the people of Galway city who weren’t necessarily associated with the GAA in any way. There were a lot of businessmen, professional men, ordinary working people who put the money in and I’m certain the majority of them aren’t all members of the GAA. So, therefore I think they should soften their attitude a little,’ the city’s major of the day, John Mulholland said.
The first leg went ahead in the Netherlands and Groningen ran out comfortable 5-1 winners. Little did they know a venue for the return fixture was yet to be confirmed.
That’s when Galway’s club secretary, Bernie O’Connell, who also taught in a local Irish college, had the Carraroe brainwave.
‘They had just spent almost £150,000 redeveloping a sport field complex,’ Kennedy writes. ‘Most people just presumed that Páirc an Chathánaigh was owned by the GAA. Especially since it was located in an Irish speaking community and was home to Carraroe, Rosmuc and Carna GAA clubs.
‘But it was a community ground. The MacDara soccer club played there as well and there were plans of further development with a race track and tennis courts on the site. Bernie knew it was a public pitch. This could solve the problem.’
With a way around the GAA’s rules, the tie went ahead, although Galway’s striker Ricky O’Flaherty just so happened to be a senior inter-county footballer and reveals the depth of ill-feeling among those in power at Croke Park and in his own community.
‘I think Carraroe was nearly blacklisted from the GAA for letting us play out there. There were die hard GAA guys who just couldn’t get over it. They thought it was a disgrace.
‘I played for the county around this time. I got it big time from guys from St. Michael’s, my own club. One used to call into the house nearly every day, fuming about this game. He thought it was blasphemous to have a soccer team on the hallowed turf of a GAA pitch.’
Such is life, Galway lost 8-2 on aggregate, although Paul Murphy did score a famous volley.
Just one piece of League of Ireland folklore catalogued on these pages.