They Had Leather Balls That Time
John Reidy
All birthdays are great occasions of joy, and any excuse will do to celebrate. There can't be too many other bands of dedicated volunteers who deserve bouquets come their way during this, the twenty first year of the Blitz. In a way it is a pity that the "twenty first" didn't fall in '91 rather than this year - for December 1991 will be the centenary of the birth of the game basketball. It was devised (where do you think?) in the good old USA, in Springfield, Mass., by a man with the name of James Naismith. As you can imagine, the has evolved from the December day in 1891 when Mr. Naismith nailed an old orange crate to the pole in the school where he taught, and invited a couple of curious onlookers to have a few potshots at it. It is easy to see that from these humble beginnings how the rules of the game would have to be made up as you went on. Who decided and why, that only five players made up a team; that "travelling" should be penalised or that you can't kick, push, trip or bite and opponent.
SIMPLE GAME
Though the game was widely played throughout the States, it wasn't until 1949 that the National Basketball Assosciation was set up as a professional body to promote the sport in college. From this time on, the popularity of the game knew no bounds and rural Ireland, with its mushrooming Macra clubs took this novel passtime to its bosom - anywhere the young people had a ball at their disposal, it was only a matter of time before they were drawn to this "simple to set up" game. "Good players with surprising skills came out of the most unlikely places" said Tom "Fingers" Brennan recently as we spoke about the early years of the game in town. In a piece for this same magazine last year, I spoke to a number of people who were involved in the first organised games which were held in Bryant's Hall in Creamery Lane, This venue was also known as "The Stadium" and if the rafters could talk, they would tell of the many firecly contested encounters below.
DUST UP
Memories fade and people bring different recollections to light when talking about "The Stadium", but the one thing they all agree on is the robust nature of the game - in other words ( Foxy Tim's words) "There would be a good dust up there nearly every night that time". "When we are talking about the fellas that played that time , it is vital that we use the nick-names they had, and still have in some cases" said Fingers, who as you see didn't escape himself.
NICK-NAMES
"If we didn't use these names, people wouldn't have a cluse who we were talking about" added Fingers. "I'm talking about fellas like Brendan "Brenny" Nolan, Denis "Denta" Watson, Sean "The Gunner" Mahony,Patsy " The Vampire" O Connor, Michael " Fean" Brosnan,Jer " Shy" Nolan, " Foxy" Tim O Connor and so on .
Fingers remember the introduction of basketball to " The Staduim" and to the town; basketball was introduced to Castleisland in the early 50's. It was brought in by the likes of "Foxy Tim, Eddie Griffin, The Gunner Mahony, Bertie "Markey" O Sullivan, Sean "Philip" O Connell and Tom Griffin. How it happened was that the boys were members of a very successful FCA marksmen's team and they used to travel around the country to competitions and in the course of their travels they came across the game and when they returned home they had a go at setting up competitions at " The Staduim".
SPRAY THE FLOOR
"Playing there was great because every fella had a chance, on account of the low ceiling - there was no advantage in being tall"said Fingers and added "We used to play three nights a week; Monday nights, that you would break your neck on the floor after the dances on the weekends and of course Rhyno Mills used the place as a store for bags, we often had to spray the floor to keep the dust down, but the bags were great while you were waiting for a game. We used to lie on top of a heap of them while we were watching the action and if the night was cold you could throw a few of them over you".
"THEM" WERE THE MEN
It was great while it lasted and after it closed down, the club moved to the Macra Hall in Currans. We had some great games with the " country boys" and in fact they had one of the finest teams around at the time and they proved it later on when they won in 1966 Novice Co. Championship. Listening to Fingers reminiscing about the days in "The Staduim" you could almost hear the bounce of the ball and smell the meal from the bags. "And" he added "We had leather balls that time". Them were the men!!!!!!
John Reidy
John Reidy wrote this article for the 1990 Christmas Blitz Programme.