A Galway Odyssey - Almost a False Start

The best laid plans can easily be shattered by a single phone call.........

Having missed the guts of three seasons of Airtricity League football due to work commitments, my excitement for the new season has been palpable. Galway United are back in the Premier Division and my work schedule has changed to accomodate the joy of raising two wonderful daughters.

The stars are aligned and trips to Eamon Deacy Park are very much back on the agenda, with my eldest (almost 5) in tow. She doesn’t understand the offside rule yet but is aware that the referee will blow a very loud whistle on occasions.

This season I have a plan to remove myself from the press box where extratime.ie now has ample representation and try and see the bigger picture with regards to Galway United both on and off the pitch. Get an idea of how the club now functions, its plans for the future, and whether past mistakes have been learnt from.

For me, the first sight of the floodlights on Friday night will reawaken the thrill of experiencing football in the flesh. Having grown up on a diet of sporadic highlights shows and the odd televised English game on Sports Stadium (remember that), I am very thankful that I had a father who brought me to plenty of live football from an early age.

Nothing beats being there and hopefully, in a new era where the Galway Soccer Co-op is representing all strands of the local soccer community in the running of the club, the crowds will flock, and consistently flock, to Eamonn Deacy Park of a Friday night.

As a part-time statto who loves nothing more than conjuring up an obscure stat out of the blue to raise a few eyebrows, my recent evenings have been spent inputting the details of every team and player in the Premier Division into a computer program that does a lot of the hard work for me.

This is part of my pre-season, getting to know who now plays for who, as a lot has changed since Galway United were last in the higher echelons of Irish football. Conor Winn, Stephen Walsh, and Paul Sinnott remain from the team that was so dispiritingly despatched into the depths by Monaghan United in 2011.

All week my mind has been plotting the finer details. Where to sit? Whether to bring the Nintendo DS as a failsafe should Méabh decide the action isn’t up to much? Is a trip to a certain fast food outlet beforehand vital to the evening’s success?

The excitement has been building, as I am sure it has been all around the country for those who love their clubs, warts and all, and who support them through thick and thin, something which is not a generally accepted pastime in this country.

That was until precisely 14:39 today when I received a phone call from my better half, who was in a state of distress as the clutch in her car had given up the ghost. After approximately 30 seconds of genuine concern over whether she was ok and that nobody had been hurt, my mind began calculating whether this could have serious consequences for my attendance at Friday’s league opener versus Derry City.

Friday work routines, school runs etc were all now in serious jeopardy of being thrown into chaos, in turn throwing my plans into chaos, but thankfully we have found a solution to keep everyone (especially me) happy.

Hopefully this will be a memorable year for Galway United, no doubt there will be drama aplenty along the way. Whichever way the journey turns, I am just delighted that I will be there to witness it.

*For more info on the Galway Soccer Co-op, visit www.gufc-coop.com