2001 Chronicle Article

Linda Martin won the Eurovision Song contest warbling “Why Me?”, Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven” won Best Film at the Oscars and Denmark won the European Championship after being eliminated four months previously. Closer to home three school-leavers had the foresight, determination and overwhelming love of the game to bring organised soccer to Crossmolina. In 1992 Adrian Conway, Paul Flaherty and John Heffernan founded Crossmolina AFC which spent its formative years kicking ball and muck in equal proportions at it’s pitch-come-quagmire at Gortnor Abbey. We’ve come a long way baby.

In the coming season Crossmolina AFC will be an eventful decade in existence. For the players who have grown up with the club it has seemed like a lifetime, while at the same time appearing no longer than a football season. John Heffernan has reared the club like a first born son, ensuring it receives only the best, protecting it from the evils of the world, and of late releasing control as he proudly watches it stand on it’s own two feet as it comes of age. After a brief tenure at Gortnor Abbey the club was adopted by Kilmurry where home games were staged until we finally secured our own patch of land in Abbeytown. From humble beginnings in the Reserve League the club has ascended through the divisions to it’s current position in the Premier Division where it has settled nicely for the last three seasons. The jerseys have changed from a maroon and blue combination to green and back to all maroon as the club has evolved on and off the pitch. Now Crossmolina AFC is ready to spread its wings, no longer a babe in the cradle, but a fully-fledged creature ready to blossom after a trying infancy.

Next year is the most important season in this club’s history. It has nothing to do with the past and everything to do with the future as we prepare to herald the next era of Crossmolina soccer with a new manager and a resplendent new clubhouse. Bert Carolans name is as embedded in the club’s history as Heffernans but he relinquished the managerial reigns in November after guiding the club for most of it’s history. Nobody outside of the club can appreciate the amount of time and effort that Bert has poured into the club, often with no thanks or reward. Replacing him will be an onerous task for the club but hopefully it will be a seamless transition, which won’t have an adverse effect on team morale or results. The other mammoth task facing us is the construction of a clubhouse by the 2003 season to comply with the Mayo FA directive. Failure to do so will result in expulsion from the Mayo League. It is the biggest challenge the club has faced in its ten years of existence but it might have come at the perfect time to strengthen the resolve of the people at the club. The Mayo FA is nationally recognised as being the most progressive in Ireland after switching to summer soccer, a move that the rest of the country is now copying. This year it dropped the bombshell that every club must have a clubhouse by 2003, a decision that could backfire and leave them with fifteen clubs, or succeed gloriously to create a league of forty well-facilitated clubs. Time will tell. Regardless of our opinions of the Mayo FA’s over-ambitiousness we have to focus on building this structure and we are relying on the people of Crossmolina for support. This project isn’t just for the benefit of the twenty people you see congregated outside Munnellys every second Sunday of Summer. This will benefit the town of Crossmolina for years to come; not just your children but your children’s children as we inevitably grow old and fade while younger blood assumes our mantle. The Mayo County Council is currently reviewing our clubhouse plans and we will commence construction once we receive planning permission. Hopefully you all currently have Eamon O’Boyle’s September 22nd poster on your walls or stored away for safe keeping. We would like to thank Eamon for his effort in ensuring that it would be ready by Christmas time and we hope that you will treasure the poster as a souvenir for years to come. This will be the first of many fundraising efforts, which we hope to organise for the coming year. We hope that we can rely on your support for these. With that I will put away my soapbox and continue.

Simple ideas are often the best and so it proved with the resounding success of our soccer marathon. For 24 hours, through light and dark, sun and rain, Kilmurrys pitch was overtaken by lunatics with a ball and a willingness to pass or pass out. The event kicked off with the James Collins Memorial Cup match between Crossmolina and Kilmurry youngsters at midday on August 4th and came to a merciful close 24 hours later when we barely had the energy for the final countdown. Nobody who participated will ever forget trying to play football under the pale glow of a solitary floodlight in the depths of darkness during the night. Again we thank everybody who contributed to making the event the success that it was.

Our 2001 season will not be remembered for any glorious goal or great result but for the tragic death of our team-mate Damien Garrett. He overcame the handicap of restricted vision and was rewarded with a few starts during the season. Despite his brief involvement with us his loss greatly affected everybody at the club. May he rest in peace.

With our boots barely cleaned after last season we already turn our thoughts to next year and the endless possibilities it holds both on and off the pitch. Hopefully our youth movement will continue with this years recruits being reinforced by some more new faces, and just as importantly we hope that some of our veterans can motivate themselves for another season. One player who will probably miss a portion of the season will be Steven Canavan who unfortunately broke his leg in our final league game of the season. Everybody at the club wishes Steven a speedy recovery and we look forward to seeing many more fearless midfield displays from him in the near future.

So that is the state of Crossmolina AFC circa 2001, older, wiser and stronger. We are grateful to everybody who helped us during the first decade and we implore anybody who would like to participate in our future to join the club now. The club’s future is in our hands, and it starts right here, right now.