Memories of a lifetime are made in Manhattan
Mayo supporters making their way to Gaelic Park ahead of the Connacht SFC clash with New York. The contest itself was one-sided as expected, but the trip as always is one Mayo fans will never forget. Picture: INPHO/Emily Harney
There were no tears and the thousands flew not sailed, but Mayo folk certainly raised their glasses – and dozens more besides – and danced up and down Broadway and all around Times Square on another quite remarkable takeover of The City That Never Sleeps by the greatest supporters known to the GAA.
It was a weekend that began with an earthquake, the largest experienced on the USA’s east coast in 140 years they say, and ended with their first total solar eclipse in centuries, one where locations along a 124-mile path across the Tri-State area were forecast to fall into darkness for over four minutes. In between, there was a contender for the largest-ever gathering of Mayo folk outside of Ireland. Oh, and a game of football.
The match at Gaelic Park was quite ordinary in comparison to everything else that Mayo’s five-day invasion of the Big Apple had offered. But did anyone really expect anything different?
Jack Reilly, the only Mayo man on the New York panel, had declared in his player profile that hunting was among his favourite hobbies. Unfortunately for the 27-year-old from Charlestown, it was his team of exiles and homegrowns who became easy prey for a Mayo side that remained true to their manager Kevin McStay’s vision of this being a championship match to be treated with the utmost seriousness. Even more unfortunate for Reilly was that his manager never even threw him for a few minutes.
Mayo scored more points (27) than there are stops (25) on the No.1 subway between Van Cortlandt Park station on West 242nd, where stands Gaelic Park, and Times Square on 42nd Street, the place where Mayo fans held an unofficial World Convention on the eve of the game, with estimates of anywhere between 3,000 and 4,000 flooding what is undoubtedly one the most iconic landmarks anywhere on the globe. They came from Toronto and Tourmakeady, Chicago and Castlebar, Boston and Ballina, Pittsburgh and Partry, London and Lahardane, all to watch a game everyone knew was destined to end only one way. But that wasn’t the point.
The majority had begun to arrive on Thursday and maybe it was that some of those early arrivers were still shook after their first night on the town – and the jetlag – that they didn’t even realise the city was shaking to a 4.8 magnitude earthquake at 10.23am local time on Friday. I did actually feel it while waiting to cross Madison Avenue, just that I had thought it a subway train passing beneath until learning very shortly after that the earth really had moved. The only concern among the masses of Mayo fans already flooding all four floors of Connolly’s Bar on 121 W 45th Street – the unofficial HQ for the weekend – was that the biggest aftershock wouldn’t be of the football variety when Mayo took to Gaelic Park for Sunday’s championship showdown with the boys of the Big Apple. They need not have feared.
In truth, anything other than a routine Mayo win was always going to be hard to envisage, particularly as of the 26 players in the home team’s panel for Sunday’s match, so few as six had any involvement in New York’s breakthrough victory over Leitrim last season. Year on year, never perhaps had the turnover of players been so severe on the Exiles.
It was little wonder then that there was no shortage of pessimism among the home support, some of whom we encountered on a trip north of Manhattan to Yonkers and the famed McLean Avenue on Saturday night. Their suspicion – rightly or wrongly – was that a major cause of the opt-outs from the New York squad this year was that some players wanted to avoid the embarrassment of a hiding that a Division 1 team like Mayo had the potential of providing – just like Galway had done when trouncing London by 27 points that day. But those who did wear the Star Spangled Banner jersey last weekend did their flag proud.
It should be said that there can be no two more Irish streets outside of Ireland than McLean and the adjoining Katonah Avenue with more pubs in a five-minute radius than the whole of Castlebar – and business couldn’t have been any more brisk there on Saturday as the parish held it’s St Patrick’s Day Parade three weeks after poor weather had forced it’s cancellation. Local fears materialised however, as that turned out not the only parade, with Mayo marching into a 12 points by half-time the following afternoon.
Five times the teams had clashed in the Connacht SFC and before last Sunday, the least the Big Apple boys had ever lost by was 12 points, which was on the occasion of their inaugural meeting in MacHale Park back in 1999. What a coincidence then that on Sunday I sat beside the manager of that team, Leitrim native Frank Brady, in the press box.
Since then Mayo had prevailed by 26 points (2004), 15 points (2009), 22 points (2014) and 21 points (2019), with New York ever only scoring one goal. That they scored two in the second-half alone last Sunday spoke volumes about the resilience that new manager Alan O’Mara has been trying to instill ahead of their entry to the Tailteann Cup later this summer.
Ultimately though, Mayo still managed to improve on their lead in the second-half. They would have run out much more comfortable winners had Paddy Durcan not blasted against the butt of an upright after only four minutes or had their overworked goalkeeper Joey Grace not denied Ryan O’Donoghue a second first-half goal or saved from Aidan O’Shea and Paul Towey after half-time.
This all played out in front of an attendance the likes of which Gaelic Park has perhaps never seen. All sorts had arrived – the Mayo boys on tour, the Mayo girls on tour, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, grandparents, grandchildren, families and couples, the fella who wished he was with the boys on tour, the wife who has seen Mayo play more times in New York than she has in the National League.
Among them were plenty of ticketless, with Mayo supporters seen turning up and queuing outside Gaelic Park as early as 9 o’clock on Sunday morning (the game was at 3pm) in the hope that New York GAA’s midweek statement of the match being a total sell-out was only a red herring and that the real truth was Connacht GAA’s – that tickets would be on general sale at the ground.
It seemed horribly unfair – and unnecessary – to inflict such uncertainty on the travelling hordes. Two queues were in operation on Sunday, one for those with tickets and one for those without, and a quick peek outside the ground about 20 minutes ahead of throw-in revealed that hundreds were still trying to gain entry. Thankfully, it seems everyone who wanted to get inside was finally squeezed into that which doubles as the home of Manhattan College Athletics.
The rumour is that this might actually have been Mayo’s final trip to the Empire State, at least for championship, and that Connacht GAA will be terminating the arrangement of sending its teams at the end of the current cycle. It’s hard to see who that benefits but if true, one thing is for certain – the supporters saved their best trip until last.
