Healthy competition
IN CALRY, the athletic club organised the Calry Community Games and they were held in Paddy Devaney’s field, Ballinode. As Club Secretary I had a fair amount of work to do in organising the local games - a lot of paperwork. One of my duties was to visit Dunally NS and Calry NS annually to verify the ages of the competitors against the school registers.
Parents took a keen interest in the games and wanted to see their children perform well. There was always a healthy rivalry between the two schools. The Calry colours were red shorts and white vest and I remember we had a large banner ( done by a Sligo Post Office employee) that we used for the Sligo Games parade - a bit like the parade that is part of the Olympics opening ceremony!
The local community winners then competed in the county games and those winners went on to the national finals in Santry Stadium, Dublin later the national games transferred to Butlins, Mosney, Co Meath.
In 1972 I won the 6 mile mini marathon in Sligo and went on to the finals in Santry. Eilish Feehily, Margaret Gilligan, Kieran Walsh & Nicholas Walsh from Calry also qualified for the national finals. We had a Sligo group photo taken outside the temporary Friary which was a prefab building in the Market Yard.
At Santry I came 5th in the U- 17 mini marathon. I remember the Kerry competitor over- taking me near the finish and edgeing me out of 4th place. My main memory that day was watching a goofy looking kid from Waterford win the U- 16 1500m in 4m 9s which caused a big stir in the stadium as his time was incredible. That kid was John Tracey who would go on to win the World Cross Country championships and take silver in the Marathon at the 1984 Olympics in LA.