Jumpers For Goalposts (Well, Trees Acually!)

by Brian Kennedy

(first published in the October 2011 Mervue United match programme)

There was a time not so long ago when no team from Galway had kicked a ball in anger at League of Ireland level.  The country was in recession, unemployment was rife and we paid most of our wages in taxes – so things haven’t changed much.  Now however there is a sibling rivalry among the province with three teams playing League of Ireland football for the first time in history. A ménage a trois of football teams made up of Galway United, Salthill Devon and a club from Fahy’s Field who recently celebrated their 50th anniversary – Mervue United.

The Galwegians have adapted well to the League this year under Johnny Glynn and surprised quite a few. They came from humble beginnings; their first ground would be a little patch on an area called the Redemptionist ground in the suburb of Mervue. At the time it seems two trees acted as goalposts and there were no nets! It took divine intervention to sort the problem. Father Jack O’Connor managed to get the Galway Corporation to give the club a site on Monivea Road which they shared with Mervue Athletic Club. A local house garage owned by Mick Halpin would double as the club’s dressing rooms. The innocence of it all!

Their first break nationally came in the 1985 FAI Cup when they drew UCD in the first round proper of the tournament. Having battled through several qualifying rounds Mervue United under Jimmy O’Sullivan would take on the Students on the 10th of February 1985 and to add even more to the occasion, UCD were the current Cup holders. The game caught the imagination of the local public and a gate that produced £4,000 turned up to witness a potential David v Goliath moment. A field full of romantics and scriptwriters prayed for the happy ending and superlatives in the next day’s sports pages but were left heartbroken as, despite Tony ‘Ginger’ Collins scoring Mervue’s first goal at this level, the Students would go on to win 2-1.

Throughout the first few years of the nineties Mervue would continue to perform consistently in the province (winning all four senior Connaught trophies in 1992/93) before the club got another chance to participate with the big boys. A first ever call up to the League of Ireland League Cup then came about. Athlone Town would present the opposition on August 15th  1997, however Mervue’s big day would be soured with a 3-0 defeat, and Limerick didn’t make the introduction to top flight clubs any easier a week later, hammering Mervue 5-1, along with a further defeat to their nemesis Galway United.

The Galwegians continued to improve, stepping up to the A Championship in its inaugural 2008 season. Now only one division separated them from League of Ireland football. Despite competing in an eight team League, six of which were reserve teams of established League of Ireland clubs, Mervue weren’t phased and went on to finish third behind Finn Harps A and eventual winners Bohemians A. This would be good enough for a crack at First Division strugglers Kildare County in a promotion/relegation play-off in November 2008. The game was as dramatic as could possibly get – Mervue took a 2-0 lead before their brand spanking new floodlights went out and that lapse in concentration saw County level at 2-2, however the second leg saw no mistake from Mervue when goals from David O’Brien and David Goldbey gave United First Division status.

Almost 50 years after they first started kicking a ball about between two trees,  United’s promotion to the First Division meant that for the first time in history Galway would have two League of Ireland teams. They would use Terryland Park in their first couple of seasons but the club finally moved into their old stomping ground Fahy’s Field this year. That historic first League of Ireland home game there took place on March 11th, with Mike Tierney scoring a 88th minute equaliser against Cork City in a 1-1 draw to send a sizeable home crowd home happy . The club have proved no pushovers and competed well this year, something I’m sure they will do tonight.

JUST FOLLOW THE FLOODLIGHTS

I’d like to personally thank the management and supporters of Waterford United that turned up in Dooley’s Hotel last Saturday night for the launch of my book. Seeing some of the true greats of Waterford football turn up made all the hard work worthwhile.