Happy Christmas

Willie Joe

Christmas tree 2015

After another eventful year for Mayo GAA it’s time once again to shut up the shop, crack open the craft beers and enjoy the festive season.

Before signing off, I’d like to thank everyone who stopped by the site this year, whether you were reading, commenting or penning a guest piece. It’s been a truly mental twelve months on the site and it’s all set to start up again early in the New Year, which makes the break between now and then all the more special.

Wherever you are, or are headed to between now and Friday or over the holiday period, I hope you have a happy and relaxing time this Christmas and New Year.

50 thoughts on “Happy Christmas”

  1. And a happy, peaceful and moderation free Christmas to you and yours, Willie Joe. Just occurred to me that you must have a remarkably patient and tolerant woman by your side or this site could not be what it is.

  2. WJ thanks for your efforts and time put into this great project. In my early teenage years (and that’s not today nor yesterday) I would collect all available newspaper articles on all things Mayo GAA. Mostly Western People and some Indo articles on the Monday after a game. Sunday papers etc. All were carefully cut out and stuck onto a scrap book. It was read, reread and added to. From Willie Magee to Willie Joe they were all recorded. That was my own personal GAA blog. What you have set up here is my effort times 1, 000. And unlike my paper version which is long gone, this will remain as a definitive record for the future. History in the making.
    Best Wishes to you and your family WJ and to all our loyal supporters.

  3. WJ. Thanks for all the effort you have made on this blog. Have a great Christmas and best wishes to you all you family for 2016.

  6. A Happy Christmas to you Willie Joe and your family and to all on this wonderful site.
    Here’s hoping 2016 will be our year.

  7. A big thank you Willie Joe for taking us through another eventful and very busy year, and best wishing to you and your family for a very happy Christmas. And to all Mayo people where ever they may be, a safe and peaceful Christmas to you all.

  11. Happy Christmas and New Year Willie Joe and to all on the Blog. It has been a bizarre year surely.
    Keep up the good work and momentum into 2016 and beyond.
    Until the New Year folks…

  12. Go raibh mile maith agat ar son do chuid oibre annseo WJ.

    Nollag shona is bliain nua mhaith dhibh go leir.

  13. Happy Christmas to you and yours, Willie Joe. Thanks for all your efforts over the last year and here’s to another hectic and eventful year for Mayo GAA in 2016.

  14. Willie Joe Happy Christmas to you and all your family. Many thanks for all of your great effort on this blog over the year, your hard work is appreciated. Happy Christmas to all bloggers on this site.

  17. Thanks WJ for another great year on the blog. One of the best sites around. Heres to the lads bringing Sam home on a big year coming up. MaighEo abu. Happy Christmas all

  19. Happy Xmas to my fellow Mayo fanatics. Some day they will find a cure!! Great presents from my better half – ‘a season of Sunday’s’ and ‘ the White Heat by Tomas o Se’,

  20. Happy Christmas WJ and to all.

    Despite all the dark days over the 27 years we have been together and having no interest whatsoever in the GAA, Santa brought me a spanking new Mayo Jacket to keep me warm for the weeks and months ahead.

    I love Santa and if Santa still believes, all things are possible.

    Lets just do it, for all the Santa’s out there.

  23. To Willie Joe and all the good people of Mayo I hope your Christmas was one to remember for all the right reasons. May 2016 be a healthy and safe one for you all and may the Championship light up your lives like only it can do. With only four dawns remaining in 2015 the New Year is almost upon us, I hope all your troubles will be light and all your exploits following your team will be bright !!
    Well with one scenario excluded of course,, !!! God bless and good luck,,

  24. Gamechanger 10 Many thanks for all your contributions and very best wishes to Kerry fans everywhere for the New Year

  25. Just booked tickets for the game v Cork. 10e on tickets.ie. General admission. Looking foward to it now.

  26. Wishing everyone a happy new year!! Looking forward to 2016…big year coming hopefully!!!

  27. Big year surely for us! Only 6 days till it all begins again. Are there many here planning on going next Sunday? I hope to be there meself, if I’m still alive! (5 or 6 bucks in the local last night decided to book for London. When their wives find out they’ll string me up from the nearest lamppost :-0 )

  28. Happy New Year to WJ and all the other fanatics who have given me so much pleasure with their contributions over the years. We’re blessed to have such a great source of news and debate for Mayo Gaa. It’s brightened up manys a dull Monday morning.

    I think Santa will be in Red and Green next Christmas, think we have a serious chance ! It’s not Sam or Bust, it’s just Sam. Roll on 2016.

  29. I always said you were a bad influence Mayo Mick!

    Hope you’ve all had a lovely Christmas, not least yourself and your lovely family WJ.

    Thoughts are turning to Sunday now and the year ahead. We go again!

  30. To those of you heading to th u21 on Sat, it’s Belleek, not Belcoo according to Mayo GAA website. Time 12.00

    Hope everyone had a great Christmas and may 2016 bring us all our wishes…yes you all know what I’m talking about! 🙂

  31. With the weather being what is is and likely to be for the next few days I would not be too confident about any venue for the weekend. A job for checking on Saturday morning before heading off. Incidentally Fermanagh website never confirmed a venue, just saying “Fermanagh venue” and there is still no confirmation there.

  32. Belated thanks to you, Willie Joe for another fantastic year’s hosting of the best site around. Thanks also to our wonderful team. It speaks volumes that they were dissatisfied with the overall outcome in a year where they end the season ranked number 2 in the country ( see Irish Independent of earlier this week ) behind a side with infinitely more resources.

  33. The weather pro make a mess of the fixture list I wonder who Stephen have as captain interesting times ahead.

  35. We’ll I’ m not a man for bringing up old gripes I saw something posted here this evening I can’t help help thinking about J O Ms last term I am following Mayo since 1962 and I was in Longford that fateful evening and I have to say it was the lowest we ever went the team were badly prepared and there was no dicsipilne players arguing with the ref and anybody thinks there was’nt a political angle we’ll take off your blue tinted glasses on a brighter note James Horan built us A team to to be proud of I’ll have to say H and C we’ll there intentions were good At least we have A new man in place we have a great bunch of players all wee need is a rub of the green

  36. Politicians like the flu will always be with us, mainly with the same draining effects. O Mahony should not have taken the Msyo job in ’06. He nearly finished the county off and no amount of rewriting history and spin will change that. It’s risible and laughable that he built for the future. He double jobbed and certainly in the football , he was a miserable failure.

    His teams embarrassed the county in two league finals. The treatment meted to Ciaran MacDonald bordered on disgraceful. The last three games in 2010, league final hammering by Cork, insipid performance v Sligo and a surrender in Longford , encapsulated a man whom the team and county long had switched from taking seriously. Building for the future?? As Jim Royal might say…my Arse.

  37. Johnno interview was very open and honest , I don’t see any spin in it. When asked by Donal Carey about the double jobbing .

    “JO’M: It didn’t in one sense, because I had committed at that stage to the political career, and the [Mayo] job emerged after the final in 2006, which I didn’t envisage after the great [semi-final] win against Dublin. I was convinced myself that I could do both, but … it didn’t work out like that. Now to be honest, I think whoever became manager … would have [had] a particularly difficult job [even] if they … were full-time managers. Because we were entering a phase where a Mayo team was going to go naturally into transition, big-time.

    That’s not spin , he admits he was partly wrong ” it didn’t work out like that” .

    Surely that team was in transition , 06 under 21 s and lads like AOS and Cillian to come in later on , that team was not going to be ready till 2012 .

    The next man that came in done a mighty job but by god it’s fine lines , if we had of lost in London which we so nearly did , I’d argue the horan era might never of been.That year we were steeped in luck in CF , Donie shine forgot his shooting boots but Cillian brought his ,otherwise Nestor was staying in Roscommon for another year . Cork victory was massive and the birth of this era albeit we were fairly stuffed by Kerry in semi final .

    2010 was a horrible year and I will never forget that feeling in Longford , semi final v Cork in 90s was embarrassing , 2001 defeats to Roscommon and Westmeath were horrible too . But no Mayo man went out to lose any of them games and that includes John o Mahony .

    i often think it must be a brave thing to do to take on a role as a manager , mentor , player for something you have a passion and love for . What if it goes wrong , your love and passion is still the same but the wider family now think you failed and some bizzarely think your intentions were not good ones.

  38. Thanks for the mighty service here Willie Joe year round.
    There is one more game ye can squeeze into ye’re 2015 calendars 🙂

    Tonight in McHale park there is a contest which could prove to be a great game.
    McHale Park 18:30 Aghamore versus Moy Davitts in the U21 A final.

  39. We all suffer from short memories, but describing 2010 as the lowest ebb ignores the period 1970-1984 when we won one Connacht final! The beatings by Roscommon in 1980 and Galway in 1982 were particularly bad.

    The period 1993-1995 was worse than what happened in 2010. I thought leaving the Cork match in 1993 that a new low was reached, but the following year againt Leitrim and the 1995 beating by a rotten Galway team had me thinking again.

    The point is that after those lows we came back, as we always do. If JO’M is blamed for Longford in 2010, then he has to take equal credit for 1988-1989.

  40. @ JP
    Mayo GAA just announced a change of venue for u-21 final this evening on twitter.

    Mayo GAA ?@MayoGAA 1m1 minute ago
    U21 A Football Final Change of Venue: Aghamore v Moy Davitts has been moved to Connacht Centre of Excellence, Bekan at 6.30pm this evening.

  41. Thanks for the update Mayo.Mick To paraphrase Apocalypse Now, “Bekan, Bekan, why am I here in Bekan? (punches cars wing mirror glass)”
    The match is also covered by local club streaming site, hopefully that will still be possible. Won’t include link as Willie Joe would have to admin the link. The link if want to view it is on the Moy Davitts twitter feed.

  42. I don’t think they are able to stream the match from Bekan, audio only I think they tweeted earlier. Broadband must not be up to it there?

  50. John Cuffe,

    I don’t know what world you live in when not in this one but you might not have noticed that most team managers are double jobbers – they have to earn a living as well as manage. Only those like John Evans who are able to retire on full pension in early middle age can avoid double jobbing. Certainly all Mayo managers have been double jobbers.
    And thank God for politicians, even if they are not all perfect. No better than the rest of us in fact. After all why would they, we choose them. And, thankfully, can unchoose them. The only alternative I can think of is going back to a medieval type society where “his lordship” made all decisions for us. Our ancestors did not seem to find that a very satisfactory situation.
    I would also remind you that there was almost universal approval for the appointment of John O’Mahony in 2006, even if some did wonder about combining the political and managerial roles. Hindsight is always 20:20 vision but I cannot in sincerity say that 2010 was worse that 1980 v Roscommon, 1982 v Galway or 1993/94 Jack O’Shea era. Or the 1992 Brian McDonald era when the ref in our Galway games told me that the Mayo players seemed to be managing themselves, paying no heed to the sideline. Or what about 1976 when we managed to lose to Leitrim in a replay, a Leitrim team which would lose to London the following year. If you want low points in Mayo football history there is a large selection and it’s hard to pick one above or below the other. But we survived each one, will survive the next one and go on to rise again.

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