When hoop dreams came true for Ballina

Hoop dreams do come true


Terry Kennedy has fond memories of Neptune Stadium, where Ballina won the cup in 1991

Feature
Daniel Carey

“IT feels like yesterday,” says Terry Kennedy. But in fact, next week 19 years will have passed since Ballina’s basketball team went to Neptune Stadium in Cork and beat the locals to win the national cup for the first time.
Asked to pick one standout image from an unforgettable weekend, Kennedy plumps for a photograph of the three McHale brothers taken after it was all over. But there are so many moments to choose from. The injured SeΡn McHale came off the bench for the last 20 seconds and scored the final basket. Anthony McHale, a great servant, ‘nearly pulled the hand off’ Tony O’Connell from ICS when the presentation was made, so desperate was he to have the silverware in his possession.
There were great performances too. Deora Marsh was named Most Valuable Player after scoring 59 points in 24 hours – 30 in the semi-final against Lucozade Sport, Killester, and 29 in the decider against Burgerland, Neptune. Liam McHale – “the best player ever, there won’t be another one like him,” says Kennedy – restricted Neptune’s Tom O’Sullivan to just four points while scoring 24 himself. Paul McStay ‘ran the whole show’, coach Kennedy recalls, and ‘was like another coach on the floor’.
Brian Collins, starting in SeΡn McHale’s stead, scored five points against his neighbours in Killester, and said after the cup win that he’d ‘rather drive 120 miles to play with Ballina than walk around the corner’ to represent the Dubliners. DJ Naylor and David McAndrew also saw action for the side then known as Team Connacht Gold NCF, and the players were roared on by huge travelling support.
“We were actually based in the Commodore Hotel in Cobh, and they reckon between 700 and 800 people from the area were down there,” Kennedy remembers. “We took over the town that weekend, actually. It was like a home from home for us. The following we had that time was incredible, and the lads with the bodhrΡns were as much a part of the club as we were!”
The presence of TV cameras brought the national spotlight on Ballina’s heroics. Having been in the 1990 final – where, without the injured Liam McHale, they lost to Neptune – it wasn’t totally new to the Ballina lads. But Kennedy, never a man to call a spade a shovel, recalls with a laugh that he ‘got caught out cursing a few times’ during team talks – “The producer would see me coming and say ‘Oh Jeez, not you again!’”
The extensive RTÉ coverage meant that those who didn’t travel south could still follow the team’s exploits that weekend. Ballina ‘shut down’ as townspeople gathered to watch the semi-final and final. Having lived every moment of both games, they were ready to give their heroes what The Mayo News called ‘a rapturous reception’ when they returned home.
“I’d never seen a crowd like it in all my life!” says Kennedy. “It was probably one of the best homecomings a sports team ever had. They had bonfires for us all over the place on the way back. The Minister for Sport, Frank Fahey, met us in Gort. Then there was another reception in Ballaghaderreen, I think. We got to Foxford and there was another big one there. They wanted us to stop everywhere, but we just had to get back to Ballina. It was late at night when we got back.”

OF course, as Kennedy points out, support for the team wasn’t confined to the banks of the Moy. Some fans travelled to matches from Achill, others from Ballinrobe, Castlebar, Ballaghaderreen and Castlerea. With the Ballina Sports and Leisure Centre a thing of the future, their home games took place in a small gym in Killala, where they once went two years’ unbeaten.
“It was just like a fortress for us,” says Kennedy, who’s currently managing the Sligo women’s team. “The thing about Killala was you could nearly touch the players. A lot of the guys [from that era] still say it was the best place to play – the atmosphere was just incredible. It was so tight, and you had maybe 800 people watching where there should have been 400!”
With four Americans involved in nearly every game, the standard was very high. Kennedy speaks of a family atmosphere, and mascots and music offered razzmatazz in an era where the Celtic Tiger had yet to roar. No wonder it caught the imagination of so many.
“The thing about basketball in Ballina at that stage was it was THE thing to do on Saturday nights,” the coach explains. “And there wasn’t much else, there were no bowling alleys or cinema… everyone followed the basketball. I saw nights where we turned away hundreds – 300 or 400, maybe. If it was an eight o’clock tip-off, you mightn’t get in there if you weren’t there for seven.”
That cup win was the culmination of a lot of hard work, both on and off the court. Kennedy mentions the likes of Father Michael Cawley, Brother Michael O’Hara, Danny Thompson, PJ Walkin and Pat Rouse, who all played their part. Ballina won the competition again in 1996 – by which time they were known as Team Chambourcy and included two men who had worn the Neptune colours five years previously, Tom O’Sullivan and Brendan O’Flaherty. But the 1991 victory remains special for Kennedy.
“I think it was probably the best,” he told The Mayo News. “Because no-one really fancied us and no-one gave us a chance. Plus it was our first national title. We were together for so long, and we were saying to each other: ‘Jesus, when are we going to win something?!’ So it was like a dream come true.”

ON THAT DAY
Huge cheer at GAA Convention
THE 1991 ICS Cup Final coincided with the day of the Mayo GAA Convention, so the attention of many delegates was divided between the TV and the debate, despite the presence of the Association’s President-Elect, Peter Quinn.
Mick Higgins, who held off a strong challenge from Christy Loftus for the job of County Board Chairman, announced the result to a huge cheer. Noting the performances of dual players Liam McHale and Paul McStay, Higgins defended the shooting power of the Mayo attack, and referred to Deora Marsh as ‘that man from Ballycroy’.

Rushe hat-trick wins Cup Final
ON the same day as the basketball final, a hat-trick from Gerry Rushe gave Urlaur United a 4-3 victory over Skyvalley Rovers in the FAI Junior Cup Area Final.
The teenage striker left his sick bed to line out, and had a huge influence on a game played at Milebush Park.
Jimmy Marren opened Urlaur’s account with a long-range free kick, while SeΡn Jordan, Pat Byrne and Paul Jordan also impressed for the East Mayo side.