Remembering a legend who was our very own ‘master of the skies’

It was a Sunday morning in the mid-sixties and my father announced that he would bring a couple of us into a match in Tuam Stadium with a very specific mission in mind. Milltown were playing in the championship and he told us to keep an eye out for their full back and how he could leap feet into the air to catch ‘the leather’.

That man by the name of Noel Tierney was already a legend not only in Milltown and Galway but right across the country as he guarded Johnny Geraghty’s small square during an era in the men in maroon just couldn’t seem to lose.

That summer Sunday in Tuam, we positioned ourselves behind the town goal low down on the concrete steps looking out through the goal net which gave a bird’s eye view of action there . . . the far goal though was barely visible to the naked eye.

Even with a touch of Astigmatism from birth and with the medical card glasses either lost or broken there was still a remarkable clarity at watching ‘Tierney’ as he was affectionately known to us all, making that hallmark leap to grasp the ball.

We’d talk afterwards about how he showed a reluctance to punch or knock down any high ball coming into the square . . . his hands like magnets for the ball . . . and after he secured possession there was the trademark ‘bursting out’ – or ‘breaking the tackle’ to use more modern terminology.

For us, kids of the 1960s, Noel Tierney never grew old, always that powerhouse of a man whether it be with the blue of Milltown or the maroon of Galway, as we waited with the full expectation each summer of another All-Ireland title being chalked up.

While the 1960s mightn’t have been a hungry time, in the literal sense of the expression, for kids in rural Galway, there was certainly ‘nothing to spare’ in the household budget with pocket money only ever arriving if an aunt or uncle arrived unexpectedly with a couple of half-crowns. Even at that maternal confiscation was always an issue.

However, two game changers for the children of that era in Galway, were the footballers and the introduction of television to Irish life. They were really the perfect match for those of us who believed in dreams and who wanted to have sporting heroes.

Maroon might have been the colour of the Galway jerseys but for those of us finding our feet in the world of primary school education with the Franciscans, the colour of Galway was jet black in the pre-colour TV era of the Bush, Pye and Philips sets that were very scarce in country houses.

Pictured: Majestic fielding and athleticism from full-back Noel Tierney during the All-Ireland football final against Meath in 1966 with Sean Meade, Martin Newell and Bosco McDermott lending close support.