“I just felt really sorry for someone in their peak in whatever code it was,” one of Galway’s most versatile and accomplished sportsmen Seamie Crowe says about the past 16 months.
“It was just taken away from them, it was worse than actually being injured. You had lads or girls at their peak, they are fit, playing great stuff. Then bang all of the competitions are gone. It was worse than being injured.
“For myself personally, I've run my race, I'm gone to the other side of the line. It was tough, even that side of it and it was so weird. It was a mad couple of years, but as we all knew it would eventually come to an end. We are all just happy to be back involved in sport.”
Crowe recently steered Athenry to Western Hygiene Supplies premier division glory. Sport, though, always played a central role in his life affording an opportunity to sample life as a professional footballer with Wolverhampton Wanderers.
“When I look back now it is something I can be proud of,” Crowe says. “For a long time there I would sweep it under the carpet, try not to talk about it.
“From the very start hurling was always my first sport and obviously I played a lot of Gaelic Football. I played soccer relatively late in today's terms. I went up to Corrib Shamrocks down the Francs, Pat O'Donnell brought me there.
“I remember playing there going way back with Ollie Raftery. Lord God, I never saw anything like it, I think he got 10 goals one day, I think they had to take him off he scored so many. Probably himself and Mats O'Malley were the two best underage players I have seen. I went up to Newcastle then, it took off.”
Cross channel clubs were monitoring Crowe’s exploits. “I played in the Kennedy Cup and got player of the tournament at that and that was when all the offers started coming in,” Crowe adds.
“My father, before he passed away, left a box, there were offers from 30 or 35 clubs which when I look back it now was mental. To get that amount of offers and that amount of people looking for you to come over, offering you contracts without even bringing you over.
“I did end up at Wolves, I got the best kind of vibe there, all the underage players at the time loved it there. The underage structures were really good and Irish lads had signed up which made things a lot easier.”
Crowe returned home, had a short stint with Galway United and also enjoyed a spell with Longford Town. How hard was it to readjust?
“I didn't really know at the time, I left home, realistically I left school when I was 14, I did my Junior Cert right before I went,” Crowe recalls.
“When I came back, you see yourself as a failure really. You nearly try to not talk about it rather than be proud of what you did. I came home, I had a very, very brief spell with Galway United. In my own headspace at the time I probably just needed a break.
“Everything was so mad, everything was so crazy. I took that break for a while. I did a course up in Dublin with Darragh Sheridan, an unbelievable course. He had an unreal course set up for players returning from England trying to get them eductated, into a professional set up. It is unbelievable what he had done there.
He asked me to come up. It basically was for players coming back from England. I was home for a while, so I had a bit of experience, but out of that a few of us ended up signing for Longford Town. I spent a year with them, we were training in Dublin, doing maybe one trip up to Longford on bad roads, one or two trips up to Dublin, then you had an away game every second week.”
The travelling took its toll and Crowe pined for some GAA action too. A couple of Galway SFC titles, an All Ireland club win with Salthill-Knocknacarra and plenty of scoring bursts with Menlo Emmetts were also delivered.
“Pretty much every game was away,” Crowe says about his time with Longford. “I really enjoyed it, you had lovely people there, but at the time I had one eye on going back playing a bit of Gaelic and hurling. That is exactly what I did. When I did that I got roped into playing a bit of junior soccer which is a decision I've been very happy with.”
Ultimately Crowe found a way to simply appreciate and derive joy from sport. “I didn't play the best football I ever played until I was in my early thirties,” he replies.
“That is something I tell lads now. They think when they hit 30 they are finished, not at all. It got to a stage when all the pressure was gone, every game was a bonus no matter what it was whether it was hurling or football or soccer I was playing. You'd go out on the pitch, you would really enjoy it.
"There was a stage between hurling, football, and soccer in the space of a couple of years I played with 11 different teams - Irish amateurs, Connacht, Athenry, then playing football with Salthill, with Tom Nally's Heart of Galway inter-firm football, playing with the Galway intermediate hurling team, with the club Menlo Emmetts.
“At the time it was mental, but I look back with great memories. I wouldn't change it for the world.”
