The mascot who ended Killoe's Leinster dream
November 12, 2014
Garrycastle's Dessie Dolan gets in his pass despite the efforts of Joe McCormack (Killoe Emmet Og) during the Leinster Club SFC game at Cusack Park. Pic courtesy of Daniel Boyce Photography
Twenty-six years after he was a mascot for the Killoe team that won the Longford SFC, Dessie Dolan Jnr returned to haunt the Young Emmets by scoring the winning point for Garrycastle in last Sunday's Leinster club quarter-final.
The former All Star produced a man of the match performance at Cusack Park to help the Westmeath champions to a narrow 1-11 to 1-10 victory, which sets up a semi-final meeting with reigning All-Ireland champions St. Vincent's on Sunday week.
How Dessie came to be a mascot for Killoe all those years ago was down to his father Dessie Snr and current Garrycastle boss being the club's manager at the time. Dessie Snr guided Killoe to a 3-7 to 1-7 victory over Mostrim in the 1988 Connolly Cup decider but, like his famous son, came back to haunt them last weekend.
Dessie Jnr came across this photograph of the 1988 Killoe panel, which includes himself and his brother Gary (they're pictured in front on the extreme right), and shared it with his followers on twitter.
Just to show how small the GAA family is, here's me& the bro as a Killoe mascot 1988!!! pic.twitter.com/XfceKjfCcu
- Dessie Dolan (@dessiedolan) November 11, 2014
Tweet
