July Road: Leo Moran and his love affair with Galway football

If a list of the country’s most football-mad towns were to be drawn up the likes of Killarney and Tralee would instantly spring to mind. But Tuam would also have to be well in the conversation. The town has produced numerous greats, including Seán Purcell, Frank Stockwell and Ja Fallon; Tuam Stars sit atop the Galway SFC roll of honour with 25 titles and St Jarlath’s College’s 12 Hogan Cup wins is a record.

Tuam is also famous for The Saw Doctors and the two obsessions intersect. In a fascinating interview with Paul Rouse on the Irish Examiner podcast, The Saw Doctors’ Leo Moran discussed his love affair with Galway football.

“We grew up in a town where Seán Purcell and Frank Stockwell walked around the streets,” Moran explained. “The fact you had people of such stature walking around the town, it made football greatness seem very normal.”

Moran’s father, Jimmy, was a noted player and official; he refereed a county final at 24 and was chairman of the Galway county board at 28.

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Back in 1998 the Saw Doctors performed at an open-air concert on the night before Galway won Sam and again at the banquet in the Burlington Hotel and the team’s homecoming – to Tuam, naturally.

That year they pulled 10 songs together for a special release around the All-Ireland, as Moran explained.

“I said to Pádraig [Stephens], ‘Do you think we might do a song for the final?’ and Pádraig said, ‘No. We’ll do an album’. And we did.”

Incidentally, there is a further connection to the great Purcell in this year’s championship. Westmeath attacker Sam McCartan, who was brilliant in their Tailteann Cup success, is a grandson.

The threat from television

Nowadays we are well used to wall-to-wall coverage of the big games, with both RTÉ and Sky screening Sunday’s football final live. At one time, though, live television coverage was seen as a threat to the association.

Before the 1965 All-Ireland final between Galway and Kerry (the Tribesmen won, 0-12 to 0-9), Eamonn Young, a writer with the then-popular Gaelic Sport magazine and formerly one of Cork’s greatest footballers, wrote in their final preview issue about how the Kerry v Dublin All-Ireland semi-final had detracted from the attendance at a senior hurling championship match in Cork.

“Our association has done a lot for the manliness and the youthful strength as well as the character building of Irishmen. We cannot now allow it to be used for mere fireside entertainment,” he railed.

“The television is hitting the local games and the athletic meetings. The gate receipts at the hurling game I attended were abysmally small in spite of the fact that it was a replay. We must not allow this to continue, and far more important than money we mustn’t allow Telefís Éireann to herd the nation into smoky rooms, leaving the pitches empty just because 30 good men are fighting it out in Croke Park.”

The first matches televised live by RTÉ were the Railway Cup hurling and football finals in 1962.

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I think from a mental approach to the game there is still an awful lot expected of Kerry… Galway are in a nice position here, I’d like to think that they could really have a go at them – Antrim manager Andy McEntee on Off The Ball.

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The turnstiles will open earlier than usual on Sunday, the GAA confirmed on Wednesday. A sell-out is expected.