“There have always been great soccer players in Tuam, and footballers, of course,” Franny Fallon says proudly.
Throughout the decades Tuam Celtic and Dynamo Blues have produced strong teams with Fallon, an able performer in his playing days, who now is very much involved in coaching the next generation.
The past matters deeply too. Pa Dunne and Eugene Halion featured for Galway United, while the present belongs to the gifted Shamrock Rovers striker Rory Gaffney, who has forged a hugely successful career in the game.
“I would have grown up watching Pa Dunne, Tommy Carton, and Eugene, God rest his soul, I was great friends with Eugene,” Fallon recalls.
“I played with Eugene at Mervue actually, we made great friends and had great experiences watching all of those great players. Even now with the underage players coming through, you always have had great players in Tuam.”
On Sunday a gritty Tuam U16 outfit were edged out of the Connacht Cup at the penultimate round by Daniel Stephens’ delightful goal at Fahy’s Field.
“I would have got involved, like most coaches around the country, when my own young lad started playing, you get roped in and that is it then,” Fallon says. “My love of the game was always there so I just dived straight into it.
“That U16 team when we started coaching them the structure of the game, at U13 they picked it up very quickly. For that age group they did. You can see the fruits of that now. At U16 they are very well set up, they have good players.
“The two games they have lost this season are two last minute goals against Mervue United and Home Farm in Dublin, who I think are in the semi-final of the Irish Cup. There was nothing in that game, the U16s are a very good side. There is loads of good work going on across all of the ages.”
It means that significant hope is attached to Tuam Celtic. “There is a lot of work going on at underage level for a long time,” Fallon adds.
“It is coming to the fore now, it is improving all of the time, we are just making sure young lads enjoy it. Tuam Celtic as a club is getting bigger and bigger every day so there is a lot of work going on.
“You can see all the clubs around Galway are getting bigger, facilities are a huge part of it. You need them. We have three full size pitches and a half size Astro which is used for training mostly. Again they are being used nearly full time.”
Fallon enjoyed many productive days playing for Blues, but recalls a stint with Celtic too. “I played with Celtic for a year or two in '95 and '96,” Fallon says.
“They were much the same, the differences, a couple of decades ago, there wasn't much. The biggest difference now is the underage structure that Tuam Celtic has and all of the work going on.
“Back over the years there was always that competitive thing there. Of course when Blues and Celtic played back in my time you had two good teams playing against each other. We used to watch the St Stephen's Day games growing up, they were brilliant games, we played in them. The competitiveness was always there.
“You see Blues have their new pitch up and running so I'm sure they are intending to build. The big difference in the last few years is all of the work that has gone on at underage with Tuam Celtic. Going back to the times when I was watching them you would have had Pa Dunne, Tommy Carton, [Dynamo Blues] and you'd have the likes of Franny Stockwell and John Ger Davin playing with Tuam Celtic. Great teams, great players, you would always go to watch soccer when we were growing up.
“Probably in my time playing with Blues a lot of the team we had from 2003 to 2007 or 2008 they were mostly lads up around that area. So area does play a bit in it, especially in my time and before my time. You had Thomas O'Neill, all those lads from that area and my father would have been over it at that time. The area thing does come into it a small bit.”
Challenges will always be presented, but Fallon is hopeful Tuam Celtic can keep youngsters involved.
“You are trying to keep numbers up as you go through the ranks,” he responds. “We have two teams at every age level so numbers are great. For your junior team going forward you want to bring a few of them lads through, one or two every year so the junior numbers stay up too. Great work is being done back there.”
In the Galway FA premier division Tuam are involved in a relegation battle. Retaining top flight status remains the aim. “We would love to, but it is going to be a tough one,” Fallon replies. “We have had a few tough games in the last couple of weeks that could have gone either way. It could have made the difference. We had a couple of draws and we lost to Hibs by a goal and Bernard's by a goal - very close games.
“Those few points might have done the trick, but a lot of the first team squad are very young. If we do go down - we hope we don't of course - we will keep going as long as we can, but even if we do we have a lot of young lads there and a lot of young lads coming through. We would hope to bounce straight back up.”
**Listen to the full interview with Tuam Celtic’s Franny Fallon on this week’s ‘Cian on Sport’ podcast available on Soundcloud, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
