Dreams really do come true for rural Galway club
IT was a strange kind of notion to take, back in the summer of 1972 . . . the formation of a soccer club in the North Galway GAA heartland of Abbeyknockmoy . . . but by August of that year, St. Bernard’s United were up and running.
Last Sunday, almost 44 years on from that date, St. Bernard’s wrote their own piece of sporting history by winning the Galway Premier League for the first time when they clinched the title with a 2-0 league win over Mervue United.
Bernard’s amassed a total of 44 points from their 18 league matches and reaped the reward for a committed and hugely disciplined season under the tutelage of Eddie Treacy and Derek Warde
The club probably has its roots in oft times hotly contested soccer matches in Keane’s field at Newtown locally named ‘The Turlough’ where young lads had heard about, but not seen, the English World Cup success of 1966.
By 1970, when that most spectacular of Brazilian teams defeated Italy 4-1 in the World Cup final of that year in Mexico, ‘the kids’ were beginning to note the names of players like Carlos Alberto, Gerson, Jairzinho, Tostao, Rivelino and of course Pele. Black and white television sets had arrived, many of them rented ones.
The coincidence of the Brazilian and St. Bernard’s colours [blue and yellow] is just that, with one of the founder members of the club, Val Dolan, responsible for the colour selection.
Back in the early 1970s he was training as a hair stylist in London and noticed that the Crystal Palace second strip of blue and yellow was particularly attractive – in the late Summer of ’72 he ordered the first set of jerseys from Sean Fallon’s in Tuam, and St. Bernard’s were on the road.
See the full feature and sports report in this week’s Connacht Tribune.