An emotional Davitt Walsh who rescued the baby from the sinking Audi at Buncrana Pier. (North West Newspix)
FROM THE DEPTHS OF DEVASTATION – A TRUE HERO
On Sunday afternoon, Davitt Walsh lined out with Fanad United in their Ulster Senior League clash with Letterkenny Rovers. Just another day on the football field and, despite his team’s 3-1 defeat, another energetic performance by the Kerrykeel man capped by a well taken goal.
Had it been a Cup Final or a league decider and that goal had been decisive to the outcome, supporters would have hailed him as a hero. When he netted his first hat-trick in senior football for Finn Harps back in 2006, Finn Park fans would have lauded him likewise.
But as Sunday afternoon wound into fateful evening, we, not for the first time, realised in all too horrifying circumstances that true heroes belong well away from our sporting arenas – and Davitt Walsh was to belong in that courageous category before the grimmest of days was through.
It had, it appeared, taken him the fraction of a second to react to Francis Crawford’s request to swim out to the sinking jeep off Buncrana jetty. He just found the time to ask if there were currents and even when informed there was, he put it to the back of his mind, stripped to his underwear, and dived in to the waters that would prove so merciless.
Despite the interviews he has given since, none of can imagine what was going through his head as he swam to the stricken vehicle. But we can all imagine his thoughts when Sean McCrotty handed his baby daughter through the window and pleaded: “Take my child. Help my child.”
He wanted to stay to rescue the other members of the family, Ruth Daniels, Jodie-Lee Daniels, Mark and Evan McCrotty and their dad, Sean. Indeed he caught a brief hold of one of the boys but he slipped away from him.
With exhaustion setting in, Davitt made his way back to shore carrying baby Rionaghac-Ann above his head, the screams of the jeep’s occupants echoing loudly as they surely still do.
His girlfriend, Stephanie Knox, played her part too, removing the infant’s soaking clothes and wrapping her in her coat and turning on the heat in the car to keep the child warm.
Football would have long ago retreated into the recesses of Daviit’s mind as darkness fell in Buncrana but he would have realised later that it still had an all too grisly part to play – young Derry City player, Josh Daniels, losing his mother and sister and other family connections in the tragedy.
Davitt Walsh’s father, Billy, spoke of his pride at the unselfish actions of his son. “He’s a hero as far as we are concerned,” he said.
A hero to many more both inside and outside the grieving McCrotty family. A true hero who will never need achievements on a football pitch to be called so.
Those of us who love sport can only salute his courage and hope that he, and all those bereaved and the often unsung members of the emergency services who went to the scene, will somehow find the strength to emerge at the other end.
THE 87-MINUTE MATCH
A point at Sligo on Saturday night represented a decent return for Oliver’s Army particularly when it came courtesty of that late – and great – strike from Damian McNulty.
But come the end of the season and a scenario of either Harps or Rovers short off two vital points that would have kept them from slipping into the darkness of the First Division, will we be questioning the decision of the League of Ireland authorities to rubber stamp a result when there was still three minutes left to play plus stoppage time that could have changed the whole picture? Of course we will.
And should a team finish a solitary point behind either Rovers or Harps at the end of the season, will they have the right to challenge the decision?
Here’s one who, while happy that Harps prevented a third successive defeat, remains uneasy about that lost five or six minutes that means at least one fixture in the course of the Premier League campaign did not reach its completion when the rules dictate that each match is scheduled to run for ninety minutes and whatever extra-time is required.
McNulty’s stunning volley – already on the shortlist for ‘Soccer Republic’s’ goal of the season – offered the visitors the momentum going into those closing minutes and they could conceivably have gone on to secure all three points had a section of the lights at the Showgrounds not opted to take a dim view of the game.
The alternatives, of course, were twofold – bring the teams back to the venue to play out those remaining minutes on another date (probably as farcical as it sounds) or replay the entire fixture. There didn’t appear to be too much enthusiasm from either side for any of those alternatives and certainly not by those who rule on such decisions.
Result? 1-1 in the only 87-minute match you’re likely to see in the League of Ireland this season.
Social media had its say, naturally, and there were those who suggested that it could only happen in the domestic league. Not so as even the Premiership has fallen victim to floodlight failures. Indeed the World Indoor Athletics Championships run in Oregon over the weekend had its moment of the bulbs running low.
“PAY YOUR BILL, PAY YOUR BILL, PAY YOUR BILL”, the Harps fans chanted at the Showgrounds on Saturday night.
We can only hope that Harps won’t end up paying in the long run.
Meanwhile, Cockhill Celtic can consider themselves unfortunate not to have got a result from last night’s E.A. Sports Cup tie in Ballybofey.
The Inishowen men did just about everything but score as Harps held out after taking the lead through a spectacular goal from Ethan Boyle.
Lights out for Cockhill in this particular competition but a performance worthy of something more.
DONEGAL LOOK TO RISE AGAIN
It’s off to Dublin in the green and gold for Donegal this weekend and while the bayonets may not flash or the rifles crash, it still promises to be a hard fought battle on the weekend when the city commemorates the Easter Rising.
Traffic warnings are in place for those making the trip to Croke Park for Saturday evening’s game (throw-in: 7.pm.) but what will really concern Donegal supporters is whether it will be one way on the pitch after two comparatively disappointing displays – and certainly results – in their previous Allianz National League fixtures.
Rallying the troops has been Rory Gallagher’s task in the two week break but it will take a mighty effort to come away from H.Q. with the necessary result against Jim Gavin’s mix of skill, tenacity and experience.
But this is the sort of backs against the wall game that just might see Donegal produce an uprising of their own.
HOMEBIRD SEAMUS SET TO FLY HOME (THOUGH NOT JUST YET)
Seamus Coleman has made it clear. There’s little chance of him doing a Damian Duff or a Keith Fahey and returning home to play in the League of Ireland but every chance Na Cealla Beaga or St. Catherine’s will see him lining out in their respective colours.
Either way, Killybegs can expect to see one of their favourite sons back in the home fold once he turns his back on his professional football career in England.
“I’m definitely going home. I’m a homebird. I’ll go back to Killybegs when I finish but I think it’ll be a case of playing for Killybegs G.A.A. and St. Catherine’s. I don’t know about the League of Ireland,” the Everton full-back and key player in Ireland’s Euro 2016 squad, told the ‘Irish Times” last weekend.
Coleman referred to Duff’s decision to take up an offer with Shamrock Rovers in the L.O.I. “Maybe he had that longing to go back. But I’ve played my 50 games in the League of Ireland. It could change, but I think I’ll play with friends at St. Catherine’s. They think I’m just saying that but that’s what I’m longing for, training on a Tuesday and Thursday night on the Astroturf or up on the Gaelic pitch with your friends.
“I was lucky enough to do that until I was 18. Hopefully I can go back and join in..”
Coleman insisted he is a “big believer” in the League of Ireland . ‘There are some top players and some top clubs in it.” But it’s unlikely Sligo Rovers – or indeed Finn Harps – will see him step out at the Showgrounds or Finn Park in the near of distant future.
Meanwhile, I liked the story he recounted in the article about his elder brother, Stevie, who played for Ireland in the 2003 Special Olympics. On a recent visit home, Seamus was reminded that his sibling was the first of them to wear the green jersey.
“’I’ve one thing you don’t have’, Stevie said to me. I said, what’s that?”
‘I’ve got an international goal, you don’t’. And I don’t so I need to score for Ireland to get back at him,” the younger Coleman insisted.
Look out for an even more determined Coleman than usual when Ireland face Switzerland in the first of a couple of friendlies this weekend.
ARRANMORE OUT ON THEIR OWN
It’s not too long ago that Arranmore United F.C. were on the brink of extinction. Almost thirty years in existence now they were, back in 2013, facing up to the stark realities of emigration and the devastation that can bring.
But the club has bounced back thanks to the dedication of a local group of people and last weekend, the only island club affiliated to the Football Association of Ireland, were celebrating another trophy in the cabinet – the Old Orchard Saturday Division league title.
A 1-0 win over nearest challengers Orchard United confirmed the championship flag will fly on the island for the coming year.
Back in the day, I can remember the likes of Patsy McGlanaghey displaying his range of skills in the Donegal League and the McGlanaghey name lives on the in the current squad. Indeed it was Gavin McGlanaghey who netted the only goal to clinch the title for Arranmore.
Five kilometres from the mainland, the island football club is, thankfully, much further away from the fears of three years ago when its very existence was at the mercy of an ailing economy and the well worn trail of our young to foreign fields.
PUTT IT THERE!
Good to see Darren Clarke and our very nearly own Paul McGinley have dispatched their five-year feud into the rough.
The Irish golfers iced up with one another after Clarke changed his mind about supporting the Dubliner-com-Donegalman in his bid to captain the European Ryder Cup team and then sought to nominate himself for the role.
The relationship subsequently fractured – not helped further when the Northern Ireland man subsequently suggested Colin Montgomerie for captain.
They were still on limited speaking terms until taking part in a tournament in Dubai – good place for drawing a line in the sand – last month when they got into conversation on the driving range. “We must have stood and talked for an hour on the range. He was giving me tips and advice about what he had done.
“We had a great conversation there and I apologised to him,” Clarke indicated in an interview in the ‘Mail on Sunday’ at the weekend.
“I have made my peace with Paul. We have buried the hatchet and we are moving forward.”
Goes to show that there’s always a potential patching up of differences within range. Or on one.
IF IT’S TRIES YOU’RE LOOKING FOR….
Another Saturday morning trek to Dave Gallaher Park in Letterkenny to watch the under-18’s scrape by in their Ulster Carpets Cup match against Dungannon.
Final score: 68-0 and to be honest, the visitors struggled to get the nil. But a word of credit to their good-humoured coach who kept encouraging his team from the sidelines and handed out the plaudits to his players when he could.
Losing with a smile on his face – that takes some doing particularly when you’ve lost as heavily as that.
For the Letterkenny coaching pair of Gordon Curley and Denis Faulkner there was relief that the team had got that League Final defeat against Armagh out of the system – and how! – and can now concentrate on a Cup run to ease that disappointment further.
Larne represent their opponents in the next round, also at Dave Gallaher Park, this Saturday. Kick-off 11.a.m.
DONKEYS FALL AT CHELTENHAM
So fourteen winners apiece for Britain and Ireland at Cheltenham. And not forgetting the two big losers from the festival.
Step forward – though preferably not near a balcony – Republic of Ireland internationals, James Collins and Samir Carruthers.
Collins, currently on loan with Northampton Town from Shrewsbury Town, and MK Dons midfielder, Carruthers, decided that a day at the races wasn’t quite enough for them and opted instead to get involved in a bit of drunken shenanigans. And then failed a urine test.
That test being to fill a glass with said urine and then promptly spill the contents over a balcony. And have the images of them doing so plastered all over social and general media.
“I don’t want to be known as this idiot that urinated in a pint glass,” Carruthers, who along with Collins had turned out for the Republic under-19 and under-21 sides, declared afterwards.
Probably a bit too late for that unless he breaks into the senior Ireland set-up and scores the winner in the European Championships Final.
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