Incredible to think that a town of that size are stuck in Junior. Are they’re clubs on the periphery of the town nipping away at their resources from underage up I wonder.
I can only think they don’t have enough people who give a shite in the club there as there is no excuse for a big town club like that to be languishing in junior. And not like they don’t have tradition either. They have a pile of county senior titles albeit most of them were pre WW2. They need someone to go in there and revitalise the whole set-up from top to bottom. Ballinasloe itself is generally surrounded by rural hurling clubs. Ahascragh Fohenagh to the north, Sarsfields and Cappy to the west and Kiltormer and Meelick Eyrecourt to the south. To the east alright is football territory but that’s south Roscommon. Not sure how true it is but heard there’s even some Ballinasloe lads who tog out for some of the south Roscommon clubs rather than for Ballinasloe itself.
Some lads found it impossible to take a free with a helmet on as well and any daw of a goalie wearing a helmet would be a right soft cock altogether, sure you’d see nathin
Not if you didn’t have a face mask. Which very few helmets had up to the second half of the 90s at least. Cormac Bonnar, Brian Corcoran and Joe Rabbitte were sort of pioneers in this regard.
Damien Quigley as well. The ugliest helmets you’d ever see
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Eh…
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They were so awful they were nearly cool again.
The Christy Goodwin Hurling Helmet. “The first true hurling helmet.”
Iconic
Ballinasloe is a sad story in every way really. Just seems to be no real community spirit there at all. GAA is in a bad way with talented young lads transferring out to neighbouring clubs. Rugby is a mess there also and even in soccer, which you would expect any town that size to be decent at, they struggle away in the Roscommon league. Small rural soccer clubs like Kilkerrin Utd have more success than them.
It’s strange.
Do/did Ballinasloe have a hurling team?
I worked with a lad from Ballinasloe when I was in Galway and he was heavily involved in the Pearses club in Roscommon who seem to be one of the top 3/4 clubs there. Reckons they draw a fair few Galway men in?
They won at least 1 county championship around the 50s and made a senior final in the 70s. They were a decent intermediate club in the 90s, they are down to a junior B club now. They still put out teams at underage but Iv been told their best hurlers get taken by various clubs as they get older, generally due to a parent with a connection I think.
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I’d well believe it. Pearses ground is only about 2 miles outside the town sure, it’s a very strong club and the games wouldnt involve much travelling. Ballinasloe are a struggling outfit and there would be a good bit of travelling for games because of where they are in Galway, only makes sense lads would go there. Ballinasloe soccer club play in the Roscommon rather than Galway league which is partly due to travel reasons as well.
Niall Daly would be a Pearses lad who is actually from Ballinasloe, but he has always played with Pearses. The best estates in Ballinasloe are right out on the Roscommon border, I’d say most from there plays with Pearses.
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You’d imagine if they had any pride in their own club they would be going absolutely ape about a situation like that but it barely seems to register. They just drift along down in junior and nobody seems too bothered. A big town like that should be producing players for Galway but they are barely producing any players for themselves. Let alone the county team. But as someone said above, a lot of counties have at least one big population centre which is a bit of a black hole GAA wise.
Are any club championship matches being televised? Didn’t TG4 cover a few of them this last couple of years?