On the morning that the death of Edmund Hillary (Lord rest him and all that) has been announced, it’s not one for cracking jokes about climbing Everest, I suppose. However, references to the ultimate mountain challenge still seem somehow appropriate as I’ve set myself an Everest-like task of compiling all of Mayo’s results back to the days of the Land League. While I have already set out on the task, I know that, so far, I’m only in the foothills of the Annapurna (if that) on this one.
To date, I’ve put together details of results, teams and match scorers for the past two years, for both the NFL and the Championship (here it is) and I’ve also set out separate details of per-player aggregate scoring figures for both competitions in 2006 and 2007 (that’s here). Both sets of data are also accessible via the “Results archive” and “Scorers archive” pages at the top of the site.
It’s going to be a long haul back to the late 19th century and the information will become sketchier (probably as early as the 1980s, as the papers back then didn’t go in for the kind of in-depth coverage we now take for granted) so, for much of the time, I’d say I’ll only be able to get match results. Still, that’s better than nothing, which is what is generally available now.
Nothing much else to report from today’s papers. In the Indo, John Prenty is defending the €10 million being spent on a provincial training centre on a 57-acre site over in Bekan (or, as the Indo term it, “Bakan”) and he’s hotly denying it’ll become a white elephant. Well, if it does at least it’ll be our white elephant and, in any event, I recall the same being said about another East Mayo project costing a similar amount in the early 1980s.
What else? Mort played a winning part for DCU in their O’Byrne Cup match against Louth last night, scoring 5 points before being substituted. And Peter Ford is apparently about to be appointed manager of Castlebar Mitchells: I suppose we can now expect them to start kicking and belting their way back to glory.
If the new training facility will have six pitches, an indoor hall and indoor training and meeting facilities, I don’t understand how people think it will turn into a white elephant. A stadium yes, but not the facilities planned. Sounds like a good project for the province to spend money on and which more than one county will benefit.
That’s absolutely correct, Ronan. They seem to be getting a lot for their €10 million and it’s not as if there’s any other facility like this anywhere else in the province. It’ll be close to the N17 so handy coming to it from either the north or the south and it’s in East Mayo and so close to the Sheep Stealers as well. In any event, it’s not at all clear from the Indo report who is opposed to the proposal: all the report says is that “questions have been raised” about it but they don’t elaborate on what the questions are and who is asking them.