Galway GAA Football Championship 2000

I've done a few posts in recent months on some of my old bits and pieces from childhood. 'What do you mean' says you...

Let me fill you in.

I called to my parents house a couple of months back and they weren't in. I was about to turn on my heel, but my three boys were with me and asked if they could see my old room as they like to do sometimes, and so we popped upstairs in my parents house and had a look, and we uncovered some interesting bits and pieces.

Old photos, sticker books, mementos and old equipment, including old cameras and a wireless as they were called then, we call them radios now. I got the old equipment handed down as I thought they looked really cool back in the day.

This post is about the match and racing programs I found and today it's about the Galway Senior Championship meeting between Killanin and Corofin in the year 2000. It's hard to believe that was 24 years ago. Holy shitballs Batman! Time flies when you're having fun and I remember this distinctly.

It stands out in my memory as this is my Dad's home parish, Killanin that is and it was their first time getting to the Championship final ever. Not since the first ever championship started in 1889 had they managed the feat.

So there was great excitement and anticipation in the parish in the leadup to the match. My father could'nt attend, so I went on his behalf with some of his friends. This was the team that togged out that day for Killanin.

One of their tallismen was Galway senior footballer Gary Fahey. He was one of four Faheys on the starting team that day. A proud day for Mrs. Fahey I'm sure.

They faced a formidable foe that day in 2000. Corofin who had great success up to that point reaching 18 finals and winning 9 of them. That success was only going to increase and they have reached 15 finals since 2000 and incredibly won 13 of those finals. They now have 22 titles and are closing in on Galway's most successful club Tuam Stars who have 25. Here is the Corofin team that togged out that day.

Here is how each team set up and a look at the substitutes.

Let's have a little bit more of a look inside shall we?

It turns out the match programme was more entertaining than the match in the end, which was a drab low scoring game played in awful weather. The final score was:

COROFIN 1-03 -- KILLANIN 0-03

There was great disappointment aftwrwards as you can imagine, but looking back now 24 years later, you realise what an achievement it was for the small parish of Killanin to reach the county final. It might never happen again.

The images used throughout are all my own captured on my Samsung Smartphone