I remember the first time I witnessed Cillian O’Connor in action, I was maybe six or seven and Ballintubber school were facing Killawalla, my school, in a Cumann Na mBunscoil game on our hallowed turf. That team was full of what would become future well-known Ballintubber stars but Cillian stood out a mile. One of the teachers in our school, […]
I would like to dedicate this article to the memory of my brother-in-law, Eugene Loftus, who passed away one year ago today after living with Motor Neurone Disease for five years. Eugene was an avid follower and contributor to the blog under the handle “Inbetweener”. He also played for Ballina Stephenites and as a selector for the Mayo Under 16s […]
You could wax lyrical about what the rivalry between Mayo and Galway is and I have done this in the past for this blog. But nothing sums it up better than what I was told in a pub in Liverpool at the start of this year, when the next game on the horizon was a crucial League relegation battle for […]
It’s been a while since I put pen to paper for this blog. April to be precise. David Brady’s Laochra Gael had just aired and we faced into an indefinite number of months without sport. It was a tough slog, we kept ourselves entertained with 5km challenges, zoom quizzes and reruns of Reeling in The Years and Love/Hate. My housemate […]
The full Italia ’90 One Day at a Time podcast series is now available, with the final episode having gone online earlier today. In total, the series comprises 24 episodes covering stories relating to the 52 games involving 24 countries. The 1990 World Cup was a seminal moment for sport in Ireland as we know but, as we’ve found out […]
Unlike their male counterparts in recent times, the Mayo LGFA footballers have reached the top of the mountain. They were the last All-Ireland winners of the 20th Century and the first winners of the 21st Century. They followed that brace of titles with another pair in 2002 and 2003. They boast some all-time greats in their ranks, but who are […]
Over the last 20 years, we have watched on anxiously at the possibility of bearing witness to a (possibly mythical) curse being broken. We have come so close to seeing it happen that you would have to believe in the strength of said curse. Own goals are quite possibly the rarest of sights on a Gaelic football field, and in […]
Pushed very close by the renaissance of 2004 and the goal-glut of 2013, 2017 is probably the most enjoyable Championship campaign I can remember since I started following the fortunes of the Mayo senior football team. Ten games, four draws and the priceless scalp of Kerry don’t even tell half the story as Mayo’s summer routinely lurched from the sublime […]
I don’t know about you, but David Brady’s Laochra Gael was the only thing that got me through yet another working week of what we now consider normal – operating from the kitchen table and practically seeing nobody except your housemate and the shopkeeper, if you’re lucky. Every couple of months, on a hungover day or a programme binge to […]
It’s hard to imagine why any Mayo football fan wouldn’t enjoy the Mayo News Football Podcast. No doubt some curmudgeons could come up with the odd reason but they would very much be the exceptions, not the rule. The ever growing listenership figures for the Podcast bear that out. From its start back in 2009, the Podcast has gone from […]