‘It was nothing like I’d ever experienced’ - Colm Boyle recalls playing for St Colman’s

There's something different about St Colman’s College.

Since doffing the famed red and white jersey for the last time in 2005, Colm Boyle has kept a close eye on the footballing fortunes of his former school. That’s not at all unusual for past pupils of south Mayo’s famed footballing nursery.

WATCH: Footage from St Colman’s College 1977 Hogan Cup win

“It’s a footballing obsessed school,” Boyle tells The Mayo News.

In the summer of a glowing football career, Boyle won four All-Stars and six Connacht medals with Mayo, played in Croke Park with Davitts, and took lumps out of the Aussies with Ireland.

Though he never won a Connacht championship with Colman’s – a few league titles, alright – he still treasures his days in the red and white.

“It was so, so different, but it was brilliant. I loved it.”

He elaborates: “You are going into an environment where the Claremorris lads were playing at a much higher level than I was for Davitts at the time and wondering were you able to compete with these fellas and testing yourself out. So, from that aspect, it was great.

“Generally, when Colman’s were playing a senior championship game, the whole school, would be going if it was during the week. Or at the weekend, they’d organise buses. That just created this crowd and atmosphere. It was nothing like I’d ever experienced before.”

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ROYAL RUMBLE

A day that stands out is a Connacht senior final against St Jarlath’s in Tuam, where St Colman’s were humbled by schools footballing royalty.

Boyle was still first year, but from the moment the bellowing began beneath the hayshed before the game, he was hooked.

“They were an exceptional Jarlath’s team and Colman’s were well beaten, but I still remember that game in Tuam, just for the atmosphere alone. It was absolutely brilliant.”

The Colm Boyle we saw playing for Mayo was very different to the one that played for St Colman’s. No an all-action, no-nonsense, hard-tackling, lion-hearted, centre-back, but actually a fleet-footed forward.

He had plenty of competition up there. No lesser footballers than future Mayo senior Enda Varley, the ‘unbelievable’ Kevin Costello, and fellow Davitts men Ronan McNamara and Michael Conroy, to name but a few.

St Colman’s hardly had three better half-backs than Colm Boyle back then, had they?

“I just always played in the forwards, it was never a thing that I was a defender or anything like that, I just always played in the forwards,” he explains over tea in Westport’s Wyatt Hotel.”

He recalls the day that Michael Conroy – the most old-school of corner-forwards – withdrew from a senior championship game against St Jarlath’s.

Enter Colm Boyle, who was still only in third year. While ‘Mickey C’ was having his appendix removed, ‘Boyler’ was getting ready to face a mighty Jarlath’s team led by the great Michael Meehan.

“My first game for the senior team would have been corner-forward, and I’d say my last game as well for the senior team would have been corner-forward, which is a strange one when I look back now.”

LIFELONG INTEREST

BOYLE started for St Colman’s for the rest of his school days and captained them in his Leaving Cert year, joining a roll of honour that includes Enda Hession, Shane Nally, Stephen Coen and now Rio Mortimer and Darragh Beirne.

He won more medals with club and county, but made lifelong memories in school.

“It was great craic. It was brilliant. It was great playing with boys who you were just hanging around with all day. You don’t get anything like that ever gain,” he says.

“Even third-level college is very different to that because you’d be playing Sigerson Cup there and you might not even know the guy you’re playing beside or barely know his name. That’s the nature of it, it’s very different. Schools football is completely different.”

Easy to see why he, and so many gone before and after him, still keep a close eye on their old school’s fortunes.

“I don’t think any other town and surrounding areas in Mayo follows their school team as much,” he says.

“No matter how they are going from year to year, whether they are playing a Connacht semi-final down in the COE at 12 o’clock on a Wednesday, if you go it you will see loads of people from around the town. They might have been ex-pupils of the school themselves, they might have had sons that played for the school ten years ago, but they are still going to games and keeping an eye on how Colman’s are doing. I don’t think you get that in every school.”

Indeed, you certainly don’t.

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