Looking to the future
December 31, 2001
Moynalty has produced more than its share of officials and great servants of anything GAA over the decades. Club stalwart Paddy Gaynor reflects on his time with his native club.
Fellas didn't need training back then. Sure they were kept fit on the land and then cycled or walked to the field. They were as tough as nails and well able to play any time of the year."
Paddy Gaynor's reflections on Gaelic football down Moynalty way and further away smacks of the rare 'oul times. To a rookie journalist, Paddy's free-flowing comments makes for a convenient afternoon's chat. Thankfully though, his reminisces are free of the accompaniment of the oft times mandatory rose-tinted glasses.
With four score years on the clock, the current Moynalty joint-club president is a mine of information about the past. Despite his senior years, his delivery is swift and to the point, not laboured or convoluted. Being quizzed by a hack is no bother to him and one can imagine him being in his element with equal panache on the field of play too.
Paddy played a lot of football in his time but one has to wind the tape back to the end of the 'fifties and the onset of 1960 to finger the last days of his career as a dedicated, enthusiastic and whole-hearted half-forward.
The football back in the forties and years that followed wasn't as foul or vicious as some of us of more tender years have been led to believe. In fact, Paddy feels that such talk of fellas being almost up for manslaughter and others crazed with drink before donning boots is as close to balderdash as has ever been mooted.
"The football wasn't dangerous or filthy dirty. It was fair and honest although there were no prisoners taken. Fellas gave a wallop and were expected to take one back.
"There was the odd fella who might go out to do you some harm because he wasn't fit for the game but he was a rare one. Most of the players played hard but fair and even though it was a lot tougher than it is today, it wasn't half as rough as some people make it out."
Paddy was always going to be involved in some shape or other on the GAA front. It was no surprise that he was to go on to become a stalwart footballer with his native Moynalty and a dab hand at administration matters also.
His father Peter hailed from across the county boundary in Mullagh and though young Paddy was an only child he remembers a lot of the craic locally revolving around football matters and he received due encouragement to join in when he entered his teens.
Before setting forth to help make a living on the family farm, Paddy attended Moynalty National School where he came under the wing of school teacher Master Melville, a native Galwayman. He was suitably keen on football.
"Master Melville had us playing at every opportunity during breaks and against other school teams. There was no underage football organised at that time so all the football you got was either at school or among ourselves.
"We had some good craic playing football in the sports and in Feis competitions against other schools and afterwards we'd be treated to minerals and sweets which went down very well of course.
"I remember there was a minor team in Moynalty during the thirties but that was all the football there was for youngsters. We didn't need any encouragement though to tog out and play though and it didn't matter that there wasn't much competition around, we'd go anywhere we could, take posts with us on the bike and some twine and play away."
Johnny Bradley's field, or up the road at Conal Farrell's holding or maybe across to Larry O'Brien's field. Moynalty's footballers often found themselves leading a real bohemian lifestyle but given their enthusiasm and innate gra for the native game, one supposes if a pitch became available on the banks of the Boyne, they'd have been up for it!
"There was nothing else to do but play football but we loved it. We hadn't our own pitch but local farmers were good to the club - unless you forgot to close the gate behind you of course!"
Paddy didn't play at minor level for Moynalty simply because there was no team organised at that grade during his time. He was still in his teens though when he first togged out with the village's first team.
Of farming stock, Paddy remembers as a teenager the joy there was locally when Moynalty enjoyed county success and he yearned for some of the same.
The Moynalty cause received a set-back in 1930 when they lost the county junior final but they rebounded a year later to make sure that the Owen Roe's name was on the intermediate championship cup. Then the blue riband senior county title was annexed in 1932 and the intermediate again in 1936.
"All the club's best successes came before my time but I remember the great buzz there was about Moynalty and I remember going to some of the matches, even when Moynalty and Kilbeg amalgamated briefly in 1937 under the St. Mary's banner to win the senior championship and the Feis Cup," the Billywood native recalls.
A sprightly 80-year old, Paddy didn't enjoy much luck in the Moynalty colours as a player but that never dampened his enthusiasm for the game of Gaelic football. Even the disappointment of losing out in the 1947 junior championship final failed to sour his passion for his chosen sport.
"If I had to pick out the biggest disappointment I suffered in my time as a footballer, I 'd have to say losing out to Young Irelands in '47 would be it.
"We drew with them the first day but lost out by just a couple of points in the replay in a game which we could have won.
"Peter McDermott was a county man at that time and he was their dangerman but we could and should have won the final that year.
"It didn't bother me that much though that we lost out because winning medals wasn't what it was all about. We reached divisional finals too but there was no big emphasis on winning the way there is nowadays. It wasn't win at all costs," remarks the former club secretary and club treasurer.
Recalling the times when he plied his skills alongside the likes of clubmates Paddy Connell the high fielding county midfielder of 1949 fame and Charlie Reilly, the Moynalty club stalwart had a few trials with the Meath juniors but didn't quite make it. If anything though, such misfortune only served to fuel his interest in his own club.
And what of the interest shown by players in their clubs these days?
"I don't think players have the same interest in playing for their clubs as they used to have in my day. Every club trainer would tell you that it's hard to get players out for training a lot of the time.
"It's the same all around the country. Young fellas have too many distractions now and football isn't the be all and end all anymore. I think a club needs to win things on a regular basis but it needs to get fellas out in big numbers for training and that's not easy to do."
And the prospects for the red and whites in the short-term?
"The club has only got a small pick and it needs to make the very most of the players it can call on but there's good potential there at the present time. We've got one of the smallest picks in the county but if they're all got out and well prepared, the team has definitely got potential.
"Over the last ten years or so, the team has had a few chances of getting among the medals but a lot of times, they lost out by just a couple of points and the team that beat them then went on to win the championship so it's obvious that there wasn't that much missing with the team.
"The potential is there to do better next year, especially in the lower grade. With the pitch ready to be opened in the months ahead, it would be great if the team could enjoy some more success."
Hear, hear.
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