More money for football please

[hamish]

Those of you who take the Dublin to Galway train will pass through a small rural station called Woodlawn. The guy who used to run Woodlawn United (Roscommon League) lives right beside it.

In the early summer of 1998 I attended the Roscommon League Third Division Cup Final between Woodlawn Utd and Strokestown United in Dysart (near Athlone)
There was acrowd of about 2,000 at it - most from the Woodlawn area and surroundings.
Woodlawn won on penalties - their first ever trophy in footie.

There were old guys there who had never been at a soccer match in their lives jumping for joy. Why?

As my mate above said. "Woodlawn is part of a parish and often overlooked when the local GAA team plays or wins anything, even if we have players on the team. They have no village to parade through as we're only a townland and never bother to bring any cup to our pub so we feel left out. This is the first time our townland has achieved anything so that's why it mean so much to us"
The team was welcomed home with bonfires and the cup was paraded up every by - road in the townland. Needless to say, the local pub had a dance and party afterwards and this Hamish had one sore head the following morning.
The club dropped out of the Ros. League earlier this season - simply through lack of players. Some areas in the country still suffer through emigration to other parts of Ireland and abroad. Many factories in B'sloe have closed recently and many Woodlawn folks would have worked in these.
They intend to reform the club next season with under age teams if they cannot get enough adult players. Plenty of kids to form teams but feck all fit adults.
Above is a perfect example of soccer's deep roots - I could give you hundreds more - eg my cousin's involvement with Torro United in the Meath League - similar situation.
You will NEVER see stories like these covered in the media because lazy assed journalists won't bother to research them and these out of touch hacks won't bother their indolent ar$es to find out and instead parrot out the old GAA parish cliche again and again. True about the GAA and its parish roots BUT soccer is, in many cases, going even deeper. See above.

By the way, the pub in Woodawn is slightly famous for one thing - it was the first in Ireland to be allowed open on Christmas night.