Following Nalto’s Army

DOWN MEMORY LANE A picture of the Shrule FC team from the mid 1970s. From left, back row: Mike Nalty (manager/coach), Ollie Mortimer, Ger Geraghty, PJ Dooley, Donal Carey, Noel Geraghty, Murt Greally. Front row: Giles Nalty (mascot), Paddy Kennedy, Seamus Greally, Declan Ronaldson, Stan Mortimer, Vinny Donoghue, Jimmy Keeleghan (RIP), Tony Mullin (mascot).

The glory days of Shrule FC brings back fond memories

Willie McHugh

TO this day, no one knows how he came to be the manager of Shrule FC. Maybe nobody else was mad enough to do it. Or perhaps it was because Mike Nalty spoke the right jargon that he inherited the gig.
But regardless of the mechanics behind it, Mike Nalty was an enlightened appointment. He preached in a Dalgan field like a contemporary John The Baptist in days that weren’t yet modern.
In the mid-1970s, Ireland was in the first grip of a sporting renaissance. It was the dawning era of the manager in Gaelic football. It heralded the arrival of Heffo’s Army when Dublin splayed the first brush strokes of colour and flair across the canvas of all Gaeldom.
Other things were happening by way of outside influences. Snowy BBC signals beamed ‘Match of The Day’ down rural aerials.
Shrule spotted the approaching bandwagon and climbed aboard.  Suddenly a little village on the edge of Mayo was in the grip of a sporting rebellion. And Nalty was the general who marshalled the troops for this great rising.
They even had their own marching tune. Copyright breaches weren’t afforded a second thought as they plagiarised Dublin’s ‘Heffo’s Army’ anthem. With a little tweaking Shrule loudly sang the praises of ‘Nalto’s Army’:

From Ballycurrin the troops came marching,
From Happy Valley and Cloonbanane too
Down to Shrule to join Nalto’s Army
and his team of red and blue.
(Author unknown)
 
In a backroom of Pascal Mullin’s serene pub on Shrule’s village elbow, they rocked the cradle of the revolution. Regular club meetings were held there. Nalty spoke and everyone listened. The cowboy Jesse James drew from the hip. Mike Nalty shot from the lip.
The jigsaw took shape.
‘Steel’ Craddock from Wakefield was a regular card player in the establishment. Nalty gambled in the same school. ‘Steel’ generously offered the use of his Dalgan Road field as a playing pitch. The ground behind Nell Higgins’s house became their fortress. From her kitchen window Nell had the best view of all. She sat in Ireland’s first corporate box.
Along the side-line spectators gathered more through inquisitiveness than anything else. Tommy ‘Blaithin’ Dowd kept them entertained with commentary, analysis and humorous quips. He was Shrule’s first diplomat.
John Davin with a school satchel was gateman. One Sunday Nalty ejected an inebriated supporter from the ground. He wasn’t leaving without the reimbursement of his 50 pence admission fee. All John had in the bag was a fiver. Shrule’s original football hooligan snatched it and headed to the village for a refuelling.
Shrule FC took breached new frontiers. They went to Knockmore to play Conn Rangers, nearly suffering a bout of homesickness in Pontoon. When they crossed the bridge at Achill Sound their mouths opened wider than Christopher Columbus’s did on seeing Newfoundland.
When they played Liscarney Rovers away in Westport, a ball boy patrolled the back of the goal in a boat to retrieve the ball from the sea. “Will ya drive her to Boston!” Nalty roared at a defender to clear his lines as Shrule struggled to hold onto a one-nil lead.
IT was the best of great times. Frank Greally was in goal. His brother Murt and Paddy Kennedy manned the corners. Donal Carey, with the long flowing locks and headband, was the most dependable centre-back this side of Inchiquin. Declan Ronaldson and Ollie Mortimer ran midfield. Up front Jimmy Keeleghan scored goals better than any striker in the new world. In Seamus Greally, Stan Mortimer, Paddy Joe Dooley, Noel Geraghty and a plethora of other recruits, Shrule had a team to rival any.
Clad in a black Crombie coat, a light beige trousers and canvas runners, Nalty directed operations. And him wearing those infamous spectacles that constantly fogged up with a sticking plaster to hold the frame and lens in place.
Years later, Jack Duckworth brought the practice into vogue on ‘Coronation Street’.
Nalty issued tactical instruction not yet part of the great coaching manuals. “Play the percentage game,” “take no prisoners,” “spread the ball wide,” “hit the space in front of Jimmy” and, when the pressure was on, “will ya hoof the friggin’ thing up the field!” Except for the latter command, his charges hadn’t a clue what he meant, but they listened nonetheless.
He had all the answers. “Hasn’t that ladeen fierce thin legeens entirely, Mike” someone observed to him one day. Nalty’s response was instant. “Musha, all the best thoroughbreds have, a stór,” he replied.
Father Vincent O’Brien, manager of Achill United, was his great rival on the sideline. On a winter Sunday, Shrule travelled to play them in Dugort on the Atlantic edge.
En route a woman refused to answer the door to Ollie Mortimer when he knocked to inquire for directions. Out on the bus, Murt Greally remarked that, on seeing Ollie’s long mane and white sheepskin coat, she probably thought it was Our Lord himself who was knocking on her door.
Fifteen minutes into the game, Shrule were three men and three goals down. Nalty’s interval team talk could be heard in Long Island. One player wanted to throw the referee’s clothes in the ocean.
Shrule scored three times in the second half and drew the match. Holding court in Pascal Mullin’s hostelry that night, Nalty summed up the day’s deeds.  “Eight Shrule men proved below in Achill that a good breeze is worth three goals.”
They won the Travenol Shield. Were awarded it actually when Balla refused to play the final. Nalty accepted the trophy at a meeting of the Mayo League and gave a glowing acceptance speech. Bonfires blazed to welcome him home that night.
They had a good run in the FAI Junior Cup. It ended in Fahy’s Field in Galway when they lost 4-1 to UCG. Playing midfield for the students that day was one Jim McDaid, who later became a doctor and a politician for a spell.
It will ever be remembered as a glorious and magical era in Shrule’s sporting calendar.
A road accident stole Jimmy Keeleghan all too soon, but the remaining foot soldiers are hale and hearty. Mike Nalty jogged around the world running marathons thereafter. Tonight you’ll find him holding court in Manhattan.
In Shrule his legacy lives on in folklore. In times of innocent innocence he brought excitement to a lot of young lives. He took no prisoners.

During all those days of boredom and with nothing much to do
Mike Nalty took an army and togged them out in red and blue.

They still march to the beat of precious memories