As a player, coach, and administrator Joe Keating has given decades of service to Galway football. Living next door to Eamonn Deacy Park means Keating remains a keen observer of the game.
On a wild and wet Friday morning, Keating offers an interesting insight into how the sport has progressed and developed.
Significant changes have occurred, but Keating speaks with real fondness and regard for how Galway Bohemians’ helped him on his way.
“I started with Galway Bohemians with one or two lads that I knew playing U13 soccer,” Keating recalls.
“Really there was no coaching or anything at that time, there was a person called Jim Murphy, who was a tailor, he gave his life to Galway Bohemians, subsidised them. A lovely man. All he would say was to play hard and do your best, that was the only advice you got going out.
“You had to work the rest out yourself which was probably a very innocent time, completely different to now. I don't look at this in an old fashioned way now, but teams are probably overcoached now, the individualistic is probably gone out of it.”
Keating flourished in the junior ranks, but then in the 1976-77 season Galway Rovers were permitted to field a team in the League Cup. That was a significant breakthrough for footballers in the region.
“The first team that got entry into the League Cup was predominantly made up of all Galway lads, who came out of junior football,” Keating says.
“I think we only lost out by an odd goal or two to Sligo, who went on to win the League Cup. I remember 80 or 90 people came for trials, and I was probably very, very lucky to end up being on the team. When I think of it now, the two people beside me in midfield, Miko Nolan, who was a great character on and off the pitch - a great character altogether - and of course, Eamonn Deacy, who went on to prove what a career he had in England.
“To consider he went to Aston Villa, 13 or 14 players that they won the old First Division with, and a European Cup.
“Fair play to the Galway Rovers club in the Claddagh, they made a great fist of it at that time. Then it went on to be Galway United.”
What unfolded in the next decade or so provides Keating with a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. When a schoolboy committee was formed further opportunities were given to young players in Galway.
“A few of us put our heads together, within a year we formed the schoolboys committee, it was probably the best committee I was ever on,” Keating remarks.
“They were all a good bit older than me, on that committee was Jimmy Sullivan, representing Mervue, Michael O'Connor, back in the West, who is still going there watching them playing, Mick Killeen, who reinvented the Bohs underage structure and then ended up with Hibs in his native Bohermore, another great man, Bernard Shapiro, out in Renmore, who was there on his own. I went out to give him a hand for a few years because I always admired Bernard.
“Obviously Br Justin, who went on to be secretary after me. If you look at that underage committee they supplied maybe more than half from the underage into what was Galway United.
“By that I mean, and I'm just going back in my memory - Jimmy Nolan, Renmore, Gerry Mullan, Corrib Shamrocks, John Naughton, Renmore, Tommy Walsh was another, Pete Carpenter, Shamrocks, Ronan Killeen and Paul Reidy. For some reason that isn't coming through right now. I don't know why.
“They were all good players. Tommy Keane came out of the West, but went to Bournemouth at 15, ended up back here and won a Cup winners medal with Galway United.
“He was probably the most talented young lad I'd have seen - his touch, acceleration, and his awareness and everything, fair play to him. The one person who got the most out of him was Joey Malone. Joey, I felt, was a very good man manager, that is the secret in being able to manage.”
Watching others carry out crucial work throughout the years showed Keating the possibilities that existed. Football occupied such a central role for people.
“The late Sonny McHugh was an absolutely outstanding man, he gave his whole life to Crescent,” Keating adds about the famous club.
“They won numerous trophies, Connacht cups, they made impressions in Irish cups too. Sonny could be seen down in that pitch in Mervue seven days a week.
“Another person, Billy Carr, who is probably still doing something with U7s and U8s in Mervue to this day. Those people are immeasurable to society, what they have given cannot be measured, two people like that.”
That appreciation for sport and quietly helping others has been passed down to the next generation.
**Listen to the full interview with Joe Keating on this week’s ‘Cian on Sport’ podcast available on Soundcloud, Spotify, and Apple podcasts.
