n the 1952 All-Ireland Minor Football Championship final at Croke Park, the man of the Match was a boy of 16/ Tommy Brosnan from Athenry Road, Tuam and turned 16 in August and by then he'd already won a Galway Senior league medal. In May of that year, at 15-and-a-half years of the age, he played alongside Sean Purcell, John Nallen and Frank Stockwell as the legendary Tuam Stars team, of their club's golden era defeated U.C.G. by 1-7 to 0-8 in the League final at Tuam Stadium on a Thursday evening. In his Herald match report, Jarlath P. Burke stated that young Tom Brosnan was "well in the picture" at left full-forward, helped by the "brainy football| of Frank Stockwell outside him, with Nallen the midfield anchor man and Purcell, captain of the team, playing at centre half-back.
Later in the year, only two months past his 16th birthday the "boy wonder" of Tuam and Galway football in 1952, heir to the awesome tradition then being established by three other extraordinarily gifted Tuam men- Mangan, Purcell and Stockwell - was the holder of a County Senior Football Championship medal and an All-Ireland Minor Championship medal. He won his County S.F.C. medal in early September as Tuam defeated Oughterard in the final in Clarinbridge, 1-7 to 1-4, with the teenager playing a key role, this time at left half-forward, and early in October in the All-Ireland Minor final he shot a goal and six points in a dazzling display at right half-forward as Galway defeated Ulster Champions Cavan by 2-9 to 1-6. It was the first of Galway's six titles in the U-18 grade. Remarkably, the minor star was also chosen for the Galway senior team late that year, at 16 he starred in two National League victories, over Clare in Tuam and Cork in Clonakilty.
Sadly, Tommy Brosnan died recently at his irish residence in the parish of Ahascraghg, Ballinasloe, having moved over from England with his wife Mae (nee King) twenty years ago. Before that, from late 1953 to early 1991, they had lived in London and Stevenage, Hertfordshire along with their two sons and three daughters. Next Monday, March 14th, Tommy will be laid to rest after requiem Mass in the Church of the Transfiguration, Stevenage Old Town, with burial at nearby Weston at 12.30. A lifelong friend from Tuam who has lived most of his adult life in London, Christy O'Gara and four other old friends, will drive up from London to Stevenage on Monday to pay their respects.
Tommy Brosnan is also survived by six of his eleven brothers and sisters: eight girls and three boys, the children of Thomas and Annie Brosnan. Thomas was a Kerry man, from Tralee, who had moved to Tuam on his appointment as Assistant Postmaster in the town. Annie (nee Glennon) was a native of Mullingar, Co. Westmeath. Their daughters Eva married Patrick Brennan, they live in Creggane, Ballinasloe, not far from where Tommy and Mae lived for the past two decades, in Cloonshe, Ahascragh. On Mae's side of the family, brothers Paddy (Athenry Road, Tuam) and Liam King (Galway city) are particularly well known.
Old friends from his native town have been saying lovely things about the youthful genius that was Tommy Brosnan on a football field. One who was particularly close, on and off the field, said: "When we were playing Juvenile football together in Tuam at 15 and 16, my Dad used to say to mee after the games that it seemed 'Brosy' didn't have to go looking for the ball- the ball followed him around the field." Another schoolmate said of him " He had such a distinctive solo running style, with dazzling close control at speed, for a boy 6' 1" at 16 years of age, that you felt you could hear music around him when he was racing through to score." A third person vividly recalls his pointing 50s while in 6th class at Tuam CBS primary school, and a fourth schoolmate remembers his going for a cross-country run while in the CBS secondary school and , "just for the fun of it," he scored over a 5' high jump on the side of the running track but, being different by nature, he jumped it straight-on, like it was a hurdles obstacle!
By then, he was the most talked about young man in the school and in the town, but he was completely unfazed by all the attention, even when he so quickly became a key part of spectacular big-match victories with Tuam Stars seniors and the Galway Minor team. For,at 15 Tommy and his young girlfriend Mae King, also from Athenry Road, fell in love and inside two years they emigrated to England to make a new life for themselves.
A happy and wonderfully satisfying life together it was, too. Tommy who went on to work in the British telecommunications service, had no regrets about the sporting fame he was leaving behind him; he lived only of Mae and their children, and he loved life. In London, in the early years there, he maintained friendships with several lads he'd known in the C.B.S. an in the two years he spent at Tuam Tech., just before he emigrated. At the time, a close friend on and off the football fields was Micheal ("Hauleen") McDonagh, another gifted young player produced by he Stars club at the star of their golden era. The magnificent team that went on to win seven County Senior Championships in a row missed the spark of creative and scoring genius that Tommy Brosnan would undoubtedly have provided, as did the Galway senior team of the 1950s, but both sides already had enough flair, brilliance and sheer class in Purcell and Stockwell to enter the Halls of Fame in a blaze of glory.
Family and friends in London and Stevenage will fondly say goodbye to Tom Brosnan Next Monday, and back home in Tuam many people of a certain age will have a lump in their throats when they think of the boy wonder who put love before fame, and did not regret it when he grew to be a man.
May he rest in peace.
Jim Carney

Courtesy of the Tuam Herald
10th March 2011 Tweet

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