St. James' make history to join senior football ranks

St James’ 0-9An Spidéal 0-7

Dara Bradley atPearse Stadium

IT’S been a long time coming ... but what better way for St James’ football club to celebrate their sweet sixteenth birthday than winning the Claregalway Hotel intermediate football county final.

St James’ ‘raison d’être’ since Mervue and Renmore football clubs amalgamated in 1994 was to establish a senior football club on the east side of the city and on Sunday the dream finally came through.The city club has been churning out young talented footballers and picking up county minor and underage titles over the past few years,and while underage achievement doesn’t always translate into adult success, it really was only a matter of time before this day would come.

St James’ have been threatening to make the breakthrough for the last few years and the investment in underage structures and development eventually paid off as Seamus Burke’s charges put the bitter disappointment of last year’s final defeat behind them to just about edge An Spidéal in a dour contest.

It’s a wonderful achievement for the youngest GAA club in the country but ‘stink’ is the only way to describe the match itself.

It really was woeful stuff from two sides who looked shackled by the weight of expectation and seemingly fearful of what it was they were going to achieve – remember it wasn’t just St James’ who were on the cusp of something big; An Spidéal were gunning for a bit of club history, too, by graduating from junior to intermediate to senior in just two seasons.

In a strange way, this St James’ performance was as bad – if not worse – as last year’s county final loss to Leitir Mór, the difference this year was their opponents, An Spidéal, were pretty awful as well. St James’ were the better team on the day even if An Spidéal could easily have won had they taken more of their chances.

For more, read this week's Connacht Sentinel.