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Wednesday, April 07, 2010
‘Lucky’ Lindsay rekindles fond memories
By Michael Gallagher
SPORTING minds were easily pleased in the seventies and eighties.
There was no Sky Sports, no in-depth analysis of Super Sunday football games, block-busting boxing matches, carnivals of Twenty20 cricket or feasts of club rugby to fill every waking minute.
How scattered souls from those ancient decades managed to emerge into adulthood in a relatively unscathed manner is a mystery to the youth of today. But we did make it through somehow.
I spent many nights tuning a radio into BBC coverage of famous fighters such as Dave Boy Green he of the ‘muck-spreader’ punch, Alan Minter, Tony Sibson and Charlie Magri. They were interspersed with descriptions of the movements of footballers such as Liverpool’s super-sub David Fairclough, Ian Callaghan, Pat Rice, Sammy Nelson, John Devine, Peter Withe, Gary Shaw, Remi Moses, Ricky Villa and Ossie Ardiles. They danced across the crackly airwaves like a breeze, which fanned the creative embers of the soul.
During the daylight hours when the radio was involved in other operations such as spewing out speeches about the state of the nation, Foster and Allen ditties or relaying a Taoiseach’s comments that we were ‘living way beyond our means,’ I moved onto other means of sporting education.
Books, magazines and newspapers were invaluable. Their words transported the reader to stadiums, boxing rings and running tracks all across the globe and I gladly went along for the ride. They may not have been at the standard of today’s productions but I devoured every word like a famine victim who had come across a seven-course dinner.
My dad had, and still has, a collection of sports pages stretching back to the forties and in quiet moments these often brought sporting heroes from other eras into our conversations. Fading pictures and yellowing reports of All-Ireland finals were read with great reverence as we wished for modern day heroes to step forward.
Then, on a cold December day when amazingly, somehow, that morning’s Irish Independent came to the house, we had another magical moment to pore over.
The writer had been at the previous day’s national football league game between Mayo and Down in Castlebar and described a goal scored by Mayo’s Joe Lindsay as ‘the goal of the decade.’ Of course, such a statement caught the eye and the words described how the Kiltane man went on a mesmerising run before lashing the ball into the roof of the net during Mayo’s one point win.
The article found its way into my mind and never escaped, so when I got the chance to speak to Joe last week I asked him about the wonder goal and he recalled it with great clarity.
"I don’t say much about it. Those football days are a long time ago, but I remember it well. It was the goal of a lifetime I suppose. You could hit that shot a million times and it would miss by miles but that day it went in. I was lucky, just lucky," the Kiltane man explained.
Lucky or not, the goal is one that remains etched in the memory of those 3,015 patrons who paid £4,230 to see the Red and Black on their first ever trip to Castlebar.
Mayo were awarded a free just a few yards inside their own half. Jimmy Browne popped it to Lindsay who was in space in front of him four or five yards in from the old stand and he took off like a train. He headed infield soloing with his left foot as the Down men backed off expecting him to pass it to a colleague.
Ross Carr sensed the danger and took off in chase of the Kiltane man who was haring towards the Down goal. Mayo were three points down and in urgent need of a reviving score. As Lindsay arrived 30 yards from the posts the Down men sensed calamity and three of them drove towards the attacker, a moment well recalled by the man with the lighning feet.
"Out of the corner of my eye I could see an army of them catching up on me so I let fly. The ball could have gone 20-yards wide but it flew towards the goal and dipped in over the goalie’s head. As I said, it was lucky, just lucky."
The goal enlivened Mayo and they were a point clear in injury time when a scuffle broke out in the middle of the pitch. The referee, found himself in the middle of it and failed to see the Ulster team score what would have been an equalising point. Therefore Lindsay’s goal had helped Mayo to a memorable win over the Red and Black.
In his match report in that week’s Western People, Christy Loftus, gave an insight into the aftermatch atmosphere. "It was good to see Mayo captain, TJ Kilgallon, was prepared to let bygones be bygones after the game and that he approached DJ Kane to shake hands. It was a pity that the gesture wasn’t reciprocated," Christy wrote.
The man who rattled the net on that cold November day now patrols the sideline for his beloved home club. On odd occasions he comes across someone who’ll ask him about the day that he scored the goal of a lifetime and he tells them he was ‘lucky, just lucky.’
*******
IN reply to a query from J. Cosgrove of Castlebar. Johnny Carey was indeed Mayo’s first All-Star when he recieved his award in 1971. Between 1963 and 1967 players received what was known as the Cú Chulainn award and Mayo players, Seamus O'Connor, Joe Langan and Joe Corcoran were selected but the records of the GAA state that the official annual AllStar Awards began in 1971.
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