A LABOUR OF LOVE

THE MANY VOLUNTEERS WHO GIVE THEIR SPARE TIME TO ROVERS DO SO FOR LOVE OF THE CLUB.

SLIGO Rovers would not be the club it is today if it wasn’t for the many volunteers behind the scenes who ensure everything ticks over smoothly.

From the lotto sellers, the stadium announcer, the turnstile operators to those who run the website - the club is largely run by volunteers and that includes members of the Management Committee who give countless hours per week to the club.

When people discuss Sligo Rovers, it’s the team and management who are mainly the topic of discussion. But without these people behind the scenes - none of those on the pitch would get the attention or publicity that they rightly deserve.

But the volunteers too deserve credit for all they do for the club. Most will be reluctant to take any credit for the growth of the club and the development of The Showgrounds over the years, and that is partly why they are so valuable to the club.

One volunteer whose name is synonymous with Sligo Rovers is Ray Gallagher. Much of today’s developments at The Showgrounds are down to work of Ray and his colleagues. Mr. Gallagher first got involved in 1966. Working as an agricultural advisor at the time, Ray was aware that the lease on The Showgrounds was almost up.

A big fan of Rovers at the time, but not involved, Ray then decided to join up with the club to assist them with the lease, and eventually obtaining the rights to The Showgrounds. “So I joined in 1967 on a sort of one item ticket. So myself and Brendan Byrne did a lot of work on the deed. So it’s a long story but basically we secured the Showgrounds. I was then doing a lot of development work on the Showgrounds, I was on the committee and I was doing all the manual work. Like the drainage and all of that, all the levelling and that now was done in that time. We did this in all of our free time,” he told The Sligo Champion.

Working with Paddy Morahan at the time, the pair were instrumental in turning The Showgrounds into what it is today.

“Paddy Morahan, who was a fantastic person, spent his holidays in The Showgrounds. He’d take holidays off work and do as much, if not more work, in The Showgrounds when he would be there. He couldn’t wait to come home after work in the evenings and go to The Showgrounds and do some work,” he added.

The lease was up in 1968. Thanks to the work of Ray Gallagher and many others, the ground was purchased by a trust, and was leased back to the club. The Showgrounds can now never be sold or used for anything other than sport.

“If it wasn’t for that, Sligo Rovers wouldn’t be playing in The Showgrounds today,” said Ray.

His involvement stretched further than securing The Showgrounds, although that is probably his greatest legacy of his time as a volunteer at Rovers.

“So then again in the late 80s we were in great difficulty. Brendan Byrne then and myself came together to set up the co- op. I was working for the co- operative movement and we put the club into a co- op. In year one we were wondering if we’d go into the Sligo/ Leitrim league but it coincided with Ireland’s revival and we set up a golden goal competition that raised about five thousand, in 1988 that was a lot of money. Our first priority then was to pay players who hadn’t been paid, and there was money owed to the banks. So we then got permission off the League of Ireland to enter the league.

“I remember in the first year back, the turnover was 9,000. That wouldn’t get you far now but at least it got us back on track,” he said.

Ray was also Chairman at one stage. Even in that time, he knew to keep his distance from the on- the- field matters.

“I never had too much involvement with the team or anything. I concentrated more on the ground. I was chairman for five years, I did improvements on the dressing rooms, but I never stood in them and got involved in the team selection or anything like that.”

Even in his later years with the club, Ray was still keen to improve the physical appearance of The Showgrounds.

“The big thing then was my work with Kevin Colreavy. We never had a lawnmower. Vincent Nally went and bought one but of course before we got to use it vandals burned it. And Vincent being the kind person he is, went and bought another one. Everything back then was voluntary.

“We did a lot of work then on the development of the two stands in The Showgrounds. We spent years doing the main stand. We were always short on money so it took a while. Then we had to do all of the licensing and that cost over 200,000 outside of the costs of doing the stands. That was the early 2000s.

“The ground was quite dilapidated back then so we had to bring the ground up to standards. But we had a very good