New meaning to the word 'Slapper'

[paul_oshea]

sirhamish, is athlone town considered a roscommon club, a westmeath club or a galway club. what about bucaneers? beee-verythickand-sloe is a roscommon and district league side. so i would always consider it roscommon really. because the biys from galway city didnt want to be travelling down that far every sunday. even though that far is the same distance beeesloe would have to travel to go to the likes of cloonfad etc!

what i dont like is that the shannon divides all of roscommon with other counties, and the thing is, athlone originally started the good side of the shannon. now ganlys etc, advertise as westmeath in a lot of papers and new estates that are in roscommon are becoming part of westmeath

are you glan na gael side or further on?

[hamish]

Good question Paul O'Shea. Athlone's catchment area for football would be Ros/east Galway/Westmeath/North Tipp/Offaly.
Athlone is spread well into Roscommon but is also expanding on the Westmeath side.
The Beeslow connection is that many people from here would have army connections with Athlone and many work in Athlone (Elan etc) from here also. In fact, with most of our factories closed down in the past few years we have become a dormitory town for Athlone, Loughrea and Galway.
Our last big closure was Square D (electronics firm) which closed down last year and moved to Mexico. Guess what country Bertie Aherne was visiting the very week it moved to Mexico? That went down well here, I can tell ya.
In the 70s, the Galway city clubs didn't want to travel to B'sloe which really made a link with the Ros. League inevitable. Lots of junior clubs in the B'sloe area still play in Galway though - Gurteen, CB Trotters etc.
In football terms, most B'sloe lads play with Athlone as it's nearby. Dessie Hope, Town defender, played for Aughrim NS (just up the road) in a league I used to run and another "graduate" David Moran also played with them. Moran played with the Irish u-14s a few years ago and even had a spell with Man. Utd. Others have played with Athlone in the past.
Believe it or not, I was the one who signed Shane Curran for then manager Pat Devlin. I still have a copy of the the letter I sent to then Castlerea Celtic secretary Pat O'Connor. There's a boast for ya.
Believe it or not, Man. Utd. youths played B'sloe youths on 11th August, 2000 as part of the Moran transfer, I was in Portiuncula at the time and could see the game from my hospital room. Steve Bruce's son was with United that day. The score ended 0-0.
Clann na Gael are based near Johnstone, about 6 miles from Athlone on the B'sloe/Athlone road, Roscommon side.
I live in Garbally, on the Galway road, just outside the $hithole college I used to go to.
The Westmeath/Roscommon border is defined by a pub in near Monksland whose name I just cannot recall at the moment. It used to be owned by Bishop Kirby's family - ya might have heard of him.
Check A2Z Soccer and you'll see many B'sloe under age teams in the Athlone and District Schoolboy League.

Hope that helps.

[hamish]

As for the Buccs. It's a combination of Athlone/B'sloe. Most games played in Athlone. In fact, I predicted that the B'sloe side of things would lose out and that, I'm afraid, has turned out to be true. It's impossible to develop two different grounds so the emphasis has been put on the Athlone venue. With crowds dropping due to IRFU neglect of the AIL, Buccs went damn close to relegation this year.
I used to do discos in B'sloe Rugby from 1979 to 1981 and if I couldn't "pull" I used to abandon slow sets!! If I wasn't getting some, neither was anyone else!!
Cruel ******* I was.

[paul_oshea]

ya it does, but the thing is hamish, its the shannon that divides the ros with westmeath check here:

here

i think i know the pub you are on about in monksland, but that is only a division of one part.

so you can be held accountable for signing him!!! what a bad move

why did he stop playing football? was it because they got relegated or because he wasnt good enough anymore? and was there any money involved in that time i.e. given to ccfc. is that pat oconnor a donegal fella

[paul_oshea]

LOL good man, dead right!! hehe

you still havent answered my questions though, what do all those clubs see themselves as?

some people find it a thorny issue the ros/galway thing, like the galway ones really dont like to be associated as ros, even though they are less than half a mile away or a couple of doors down from the border.

[Peadar]

check here:

I've seen it all now.
The Suck River flows through the Suck Valley!

You culchies really crack me up!

[hamish]

Pat O'Connor, I think he might have been Donegal. A real gent. He had some work connection with a special needs (or something like that) unit which was very close to Celtic's pitch. There was a regular friendly played each July in memory of a poor lad who drowned in a swimming pool accident and it went on for quite a few years - I honestly can't recall a transfer fee but if Shane had gone to another club, Castlerea would have got a percentage of that fee as happened with Ray Kelly to Man. City/Willow Park. Pauric Quinn and myself got that passed at an AGM. I'm proud of that. I don't think a transfer fee was allowed THOSE DAYS between a junior and senior club - I could be wrong about that.
He lost his place to Gary Connaughton who now plays with Westmeath. Rory O'Connel, the Ros and Westmeath Dolans and many more all played for Athlone youths in the DDSL. O'Connell was useless - too slow.
As regards Shane, I was dropping him home to Castlerea after a Leinster Cup Final against St. Francis and he said he was going to give up Gaelic.I told him to keep his options open as there was no guarantee that he'd make the grade in LOI. You know the rest. He had two spells with Town and was HUGELY popuilar with the fans but, to be fair, he could make fifteen brilliant saves in a match and then give away a silly crucial goal to spoil everything. It was awful hard to be hard on him though as he was a really nice bloke. I haven't seen him in yonks.
No, the Galway city/B'sloe scene is ok now and a few from here have tried out with Galway United eg Henry Loughnane. Henry also had a long spell with Mervue United.
There has always been a very friendly relationship between Athjlone and Galway.
Yes, the border is very hard to define, especially with all the new housing estates etc as I'm not in touch with the scene over there now. Usually, there's no problem whether an address has Roscommon or Westmeath - letter always gets there. When I was involved with Athlone, I could tell you blindfolded which was Ros and which was Westmeath but not now. Sorry I cannot be more exact.
Cheers.

[hamish]

I've seen it all now.
The Suck River flows through the Suck Valley!

You culchies really crack me up!

I knew you Corky Boys would get round to slagging. Sigh. Of all the fcuking names we coulda had for a river. Suck.!!! Jesus. Anyway, I always thought LEE sounded a bit gay!!!

[paul_oshea]

peadar

my father spent many a day promoting the The Suck Valley Way.

and no im not messing!

and peadar its not the suck river, you dont call the shannon, the shannon river, its the river suck and the river shannon

[paul_oshea]

There was a regular friendly played each July in memory of a poor lad who drowned in a swimming pool accident and it went on for quite a few years

ya he was supposed to be a very good footballer, the ciaran webb memorial sheild is what you are refering too. dont want to say too much but he drowned when he hit his head off the lower board. my cousin was actually one of the first down and tried to revive him i beleive

[hamish]

LOL good man, dead right!! hehe

you still havent answered my questions though, what do all those clubs see themselves as?

some people find it a thorny issue the ros/galway thing, like the galway ones really dont like to be associated as ros, even though they are less than half a mile away or a couple of doors down from the border.

Don't really know how to answer that question, Paul. I haven' noticed any Ros v Galway rivalry. East galway clubs have been so long in Ros Lge now that they feel part of it. Many Roscommon clubs like Skyvalley Rovers (address Taughmaconnell, Ballinasloe, Co. Roscommon) are so near B'sloe that many of the players meet socially in both Athlone and Ballinasloe so everyone knows everyone else. I never had any hassle with the Ros lads - in fact, in my first spell in hospital in 2000, most of the League committee ended up visiting my room and had a virtual bloody meeting there at the same time. They then went upstairs to visit Brendan Fahy, then League Secretary, who was also hospitalised and had another pow-wow up there. Brendan moved his computers, laptop, diaries etc etc into his room and nearly drove the nurses bananas with all the equipment.
There is the odd interchange of clubs from Ros to Galway. CB Trotters (Castlebleakeney) were founder members of the Ros Lge but changed to Galway a few years ago. Moylagh, up the road, moved to Galway to Ros around the same time. Ballinakill United (near Loughrea) moved to Roscommon because they were promoted to a Galway Saturday league and could notm play on that day. The two leagues are pretty ok about things like that.

If there's an important Gaelic match, things then change!!

[paul_oshea]

If there's an important Gaelic match, things then change!!

LOL i'd imagine so!

[paul_oshea]

what the galway lads have done though, is taken the good roscommon hurlers and brought them into the galawy team. there were two lads, unfortunately there names forgotten in my thick head, but were from roscommon and because there prospects were better with galway they were approached by a galway club and now play for that club. one of these has played county already.

[hamish]

ya he was supposed to be a very good footballer, the ciaran webb memorial sheild is what you are refering too. dont want to say too much but he drowned when he hit his head off the lower board. my cousin was actually one of the first down and tried to revive him i beleive

Yeah, that's right, it was poor Ciaran. Yeah, I remember how he hit his head allright. Tough on your cousin too wasn't it. He was a good footballer at Gaelic allright and I think he was nifty at soccer too. Always tragic when a young lad/girl dies like that. I'm glad to say the Athlone players really liked to be able to play a memorial game for young Webb and the Castlerea lads also appreciated it too.
We used to have a huge pi$$ up in a local pub afterwards - cannot remember the name.
Did you know a Paul kelly (he's in Perth now) from Castlerea. He played guitar with a band I managed in the early eighties. He was one great character.

[paul_oshea]

i know a good few from around the whhhest! give me a little more info about him. there was a huge family of kellys who used to live in what we called the "new houses", social housing. so it may have been them, if its paul he was a sound fella alright but he was in england so i dont think its the same fella. he could also be a brother of a fella called noel kelly.

the pub was most likely mulvihills and/or the horse and jockey. what you say about curran is very true. he is a bit of a loose cannon, could have been a great keeper but he was to irratic.

the celtic used to draw with athlone at the time and athlone were a decent enough side at the time as well.. though im sure they werent trying their hardest it was still good.


why did they call him the cake, was it like curran cake? or what i have heard different reasons.

[hamish]

what the galway lads have done though, is taken the good roscommon hurlers and brought them into the galawy team. there were two lads, unfortunately there names forgotten in my thick head, but were from roscommon and because there prospects were better with galway they were approached by a galway club and now play for that club. one of these has played county already.

Yeah, hurling in Ros as you know is really centred around Athleague/Four Roads/Knockcroghery/Roscommon town a little. A good mate of mine, Noel Dervan, who plays with Ros League side Shiven Rovers also trained the Roscommon u-16s hurlers against Derry a few years ago. But like, Meath, Football is the numero uno with the county board and the hurlers are neglected. Did you know that Mattie McDonagh, Galway All Ireland winner, who dies a week or two ago, played hurling for Roscommon as Ballygar Hurlers were designated a Roscommon GAA club while the footballing element was designated a Galway side. In fact, he played hurling for Ros against Galway.
Shane Curran always was going on about that minor penalty against Galway when I knew him (remember that) and said he hated Galway. Where was he born? TUAM
Re Knockcroghery above, they used to have a Ros. League soccer team (Rovers I think they were called) and this is a true story. I played against them in the early 80s in Knockcroghery. Early in the match I ran off the pitch to collect the ball for a throw-on and promptly dissappeared up to my elbows in a fcuking boghole. The two teams fell around the place laughing. I was playing sweeper and at that stage the score was 0-0.
For the rest of the game, I was covered in sticky, mucky $hite and we lost 9-0.
I retired after that experience.

[paul_oshea]

Shane Curran always was going on about that minor penalty against Galway when I knew him (remember that) and said he hated Galway. Where was he born? TUAM

91 i think, where they were debating who would take it, no time left, up runs curran from the goal and blasts the ball into the net. i thought ath was the deciding kick of the game?

that sums him up really

fell in a boghole up to be elbows.The two teams fell around the place laughing. I was playing sweeper and at that stage the score was 0-0.

LOL is that true?? LOL

[hamish]

Yeh, Mulvihills was the pub.
The cake story is true. Currant cake etc.
Paul Kelly was a psy. nurse in St. Brigids Hospital here in the 1980s. Not too sure about his family though. I met his mother and a sister but that's all I can remember. He plays with an Italian band for weddings in Perth last I heard, divorced his wife and married another. Guess what her first name is......Kelly. Imagine Mrs. Kelly kelly!!!!!

[Peadar]

Mrs. Kelly kelly!!!!!

Surely she's Mrs. Paul Kelly?

[paul_oshea]

LOL. i dont know him. what was his sister and mothers names? i think they may be related to the osheas in ballinasloe, sorry killimer i think it is, they own a pub up there called osheas. do you know them?

mulvihills used to be the big soccer pub big everything pub then. but now the soccer crowd has moved and no one really goes there now, tis sad.

we are taking over this thread...again!