This week sees the culmination of the Top 100 Club Footballers series in the Mayo News. Over the past few weeks the top 20 Junior footballers and the top 30 Intermediate players have been unveiled, along with the first tranche of Senior players to make the cut. In this week’s paper, the top 25 Senior players have been announced and standing at the top of the list is Ballintubber’s star forward Cillian O’Connor.
In this episode of the Mayo News football podcast, host Rob Murphy is joined by Billy Joe Padden to review the Top 100 Club Footballers series. Then Billy Joe chats with the man of the moment, Cillian O’Connor, where we hear how Cillian is handling the downtime during the ongoing Covid-19 crisis. Cillian also speaks about his career highlights to date and how he has coped with the various injuries he’s suffered down the years.
This latest episode of the Mayo News football podcast is now online and is available to listen to on iTunes, SoundCloud, Spotify and Podomatic. You can also listen to it directly on the Mayo News website as well as here on the blog using the SoundCloud player below or the one on the panel on the right.
The Mayo News football podcast now has its own Twitter presence, @MayoPodcast, so if you’re a Twitter user you should follow us there to make sure you get the latest podcast-related updates, including new episodes.
Covid downtime inspires people to do strange things to pass the time. Never being one for great physical exercise I have avoided such as soloruns, skipathons, pressupathons etc.
What I have done, inspired? by this sites and the Indo’s proposed selection of our top twenty players over varying time periods was to trawl through WJ’s archives of past Mayo teams to list all those who made their debut for Mayo in Championship football since 1970. This exercise was prompted by trying to select my own top teams and finding that memory can be very faulty.
Anyway my researches [which are not guaranteed to be 100% accurate] show that the 70’s had the biggest turnover of players and the recent decade, to probably no one’s surprise, the lowest. Remarkably the years 2012 to 2018 incl. had only three debutants each year. 2011 and 2019 both had eight newbies.
The figures were 70’s – 70 debs, the 1970 starting team all had at least one year under their belt. The 80’s had 49 starters, the 90’s had 50, the 2000’s had 58 and the hectic 2010′ had a mere 41.
A few questions arose during the exercise. According to the archive two Moynihan’s made a start in 1975, T Moynihan and C Moynihan. The latter I know was from Ballaghaderreen and on the 1974 minor team. Would T Moynihan by any chance be a typo? In 1976 P Dixon and M Dixon are both listed. P Dixon I am almost certain was Garrymore. Same question arises re M Dixon. In 1980 M Webb is listed twice, or was there two M Webb’s? Then in 2002 P Coyne and P Coyle are both listed. Again is it a possible typo?
Finally in 1998 no Mayo man made his debut in Senior Championship football – at least for Mayo. It was not a great year either from a Mayo point of view, at least if you exclude John O’Mahony.
Congrats Cillian, well deserved.
Intelligent, dedicated, focused, tough warrior, leader and role model in the Mayo jersey.
Wishing you continued success on and off the pitch.
So proud of your efforts with Mayo, thank you.
We miss the Mayo team, management and games but far more important you, your families and Mayo supporters are well for when we get to travel again.
Looking forward to meeting you after games, always so generous with your time.
Stay safe.
Cillian epitomises ballintubber, it’s obvious the red and white Jersey means so much to him.
One game which stands out in my memory where Cillian stood out as a cool-headed young man was a League game in Páirc úí Chaoimh. I can’t remember the year (maybe someone can enlighten me). We were in danger of losing our division one status, and would have on a wet, cold afternoon but for the Ballintubber man.. Late in the game Cillian kicked two line balls over the bar, one from either side. It was early in his career, but what a cool young man!!!!!
That was 2013 Umpire. Found it on YouTube here – https://youtu.be/W2wa4CvzxtE
Skip 58 minutes into the game. I still think Cillian doesn’t get the recognition he deserves outside the county. Everyone went crazy during last year’s league when Sean O’Shea scored a sideline, comparing it to Maurice Fitzgerald. It wasn’t near as important a score as those 2 from Cillian.
That was a special day alright in 2013. I recall we out-numbered the home crowd there by at least 5:1 and those final minutes in the game were like the Alamo. I still don’t know how we managed to hold out. Cillian’s two points, from either side a long way out, shifted us from getting relegated to a place in the top four in that year’s Division One!
Yes Willie Joe. It was a magical afternoon on Leeside. And thanks a million Wide Ball for the link. Thoroughly enjoyed watching it again and glad that it was as I remembered.