Club reunion to hear tales of past glories and old friends
This is the year of the Gathering and Salthill Devon soccer club are using the opportunity to have a reunion of their own. The event takes place on Saturday, October 26, in the Harbour Hotel and a great evening is in prospect.
The reality is, however, that with the Salthill Devon Diaspora spread throughout the four corners of the globe the gathering in the Harbour hotel will be a very small, but vibrant representative body of the thousands who started their sporting careers with the club.
Over the past few months Salthill Devon have promoted a Facebook page for the reunion and the quantity of photographs, stories and comments and general interest that this has generated has been fantastic.
Salthill Devon commenced business in 1977 when Salthill Athletic and Devon Celtic merged. Devon Celtic had been a short run offshoot of Salthill Athletic for a few seasons prior to that. Although soccer had been played sporadically for donkeys’ years previously or as the late Christy Gilbert once said "I was involved in soccer in Salthill when it was dangerous to do so!" Christy is gone for many years now, but to many Galwegians in their 50s-plus he was an affable bus conductor and one of the best known people in town.
The legendary Finbar Lillis was the catalyst when he arrived back from a spell working in the US and rekindled the Salthill Athletic flame. He had a spirit and a fire that captured the imagination of the youngsters and took on something of a 'pied piper' persona and much of the rest is history. if Finbar was the catalyst on the footballing side then the late Tess Brennan had the same impact off the field . It was her drive that 'sorted out' the Athletic/Devon Celtic anomaly and the club set out on the road to where we are today.
Success, like with many new ventures was relatively slow to come as Salthill Devon found its feet. Quickly, however, the founding fathers realised that without a conveyor belt of talent then any club will just stutter from boom to bust and eventually one of the bust scenarios will be permanent. So from the early days the kids were given priority and particularly 'B' teams as many a top class player was a slow starter!
For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.