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Newry Seniors continued their long journey back to a settled senior squad with a tough day at the office against a talented Civil Service on Saturday.
With key players still gradually making their way back to seniors game time, Bruce Cornelius continued blooding young players and they took to the field aware of the strong challenge they faced.
Game time and seniors match experience is crucial for Newry at this stage of the season and while defeats are tough to take the Telford Park lads are making progress as they fulfil their fixture list.
Newry welcomed Steven Fearon back to the starting fifteen, in the backrow for the first time this season and he made a strong impression on the Blue and Whites' performance.
They enjoyed good spells of early possession with strong carries from Stephen Beattie and Sean McCaul and can count themselves unlucky not to score from a maul five metres out with Civil Service managing to hold the ball up.
There were impressive displays from young players Lorcan Comiskey and Nathan Hong who made his first senior league cap in the front row
Civil Service ran out deserved winners, off the back of a strong kicking game and set piece to take the game 52-0.
This season is about developing a seniors team for Newry and there are signs that with a little strengthening in a few key positions results will start to turn.
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Saval Gaelic Athletic Club are celebrating their 75th anniversary this year with many events held by the club throughout the year. Last week the club held a Gala Ball to celebrate 75 years of the club at the heart of the local community. A black-tie gala was held in the Canal Court Hotel 9 November 2024 with 400 guests to mark this milestone event.
Based at Nan Sands Park, northeast of Newry, Saval GAC was founded in 1949. The club boasts impressive football, handball and social facilities, and holds a core position at the heart of its rural community.
On the night Saval welcomed President of the GAA, Jarlath Burns; President of Ulster LGFA, Gerry Doherty; and Chairperson of Down GAA, Jack Devaney; as guests of honour. The event was hosted by RTE’s Marty Morrissey.
This milestone event for Saval was a celebration not just of the club’s footballing success throughout the years, but the important role it plays at the heart of the community providing physical, social and health opportunities for all, and formed the centrepiece of the club’s wider 75th Anniversary celebrations taking place this year.
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Cunningham have announced that they are sponsoring the Abbey Christian Brothers’ Grammar School’s MacRory Cup Campaign for the 2024/25 season. Through this partnership, Cunningham has provided team jerseys and kit bags, reinforcing the company's commitment to fostering youth development in sports and encouraging teamwork in the community.
Building and civil engineering contractors Cunningham have an office at Carnbane in Newry with their head office in Dublin. The Abbey have won the MacRory Cup a total of five times in 1954, 1959, 1964, 1987 and 2006.
Tim Cunningham, CEO of Cunningham, expressed his enthusiasm for the partnership, commenting, “We are thrilled to support the Abbey Christian Brothers’ Grammar School and its footballers. Working with local schools and young athletes is a fantastic way to give back to the community, and we look forward to cheering the team on as they compete for the MacRory Cup.”
This sponsorship underscores Cunningham’s dedication to nurturing young talent and helping young athletes in the local area reach their full potential, both on and off the field.
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Newry RFC Under 14s showcased grit, skill, and teamwork in a thrilling encounter against Academy at Telford Park, securing a well-deserved victory against tough opposition.
Played under bright skies in ideal conditions for rugby, this game will be remembered as a testament to the team’s character and ability to adapt under pressure. The first half saw moments of individual brilliance from Newry’s standout players. Early on, a dazzling solo run from the backline broke through the opposition defence, leading to the game’s opening try. Not long after, other players displayed remarkable footwork to slice through defenders and go down under the posts.
These flashes of inspiration provided the platform for Newry to take control of the match, despite the ferocity of the opposition’s challenges. As the game wore on, Newry evolved from individual highlights to cohesive teamwork. The second half was a masterclass in team rugby. Crisp passing, intelligent support play, and clinical finishing led to a series of impressive team tries.
The pack dominated the breakdowns, laying a solid foundation for the backs to exploit gaps, while the defensive line held firm under waves of opposition attacks. Newry’s ability to regroup and execute a more collective strategy in the second half was a clear highlight. The lessons learned in earlier phases of the match shone through as the boys demonstrated discipline and unity to close out the game on a high note.
This hard-fought victory not only reflects the skill and determination of the players but also provides valuable lessons as the team continues to develop. Special mention goes to with Mackenzie Sheffield on getting his first try in the blue and white of Newry.
Congratulations to the squad on a fantastic performance and a memorable win.
Final score Newry 43- Academy 12.
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A well disciplined senior PSNI squad saw of Newry's challenge last week. Newry are continuing their challenging road back to competitive fixtures but there are glimpses beginning to show that the Blue and Whites will have better days this season.
Gareth Lawes and Dylan McIlroy made their first start of the season with John McKevitt making his first start in two years follow his return home flagon London.
Cathal O’Neill controlled the game well from 10, especially with his kicking game from hand with Chris Hanna and Micheal McCreanor effective ball carriers in the midfield.
Gareth and Ruben O’Rourke also carried well in the front row and Newry were unlucky not to score after being camped in the PSNI 22 for a sustained five minute spell.
Andrew O’Donnell and Thomas O’Neill put in a big defensive effort, covering a lot of ground in the backrow, but PSNI were clinical in possession and robust in defence and ran out 45-0 winners.
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Newry City AFC are looking your views on the potential development of Newry Showgrounds.
New initiative 'Newry City AFC: Your Club, Your Future' is their commitment to engage with fans, local residents, and stakeholders to envision a stadium that reflects the needs, aspirations, and pride of the Newry City community.
If you would like to share your views you need to submit them no later than Friday 20 December 2024.
It's a chance for you to share your insights and help shape the future of Newry City AFC. Your responses will guide their planning and ensure that this project benefits the club, our fans, and our city as a whole.
Go to the Survey at forms.office.com
The club will also be hosting a public consultation events.
If you require any further information please contact richard@thirdsectorconnect.com
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The Ulster Rally will return to a two day format in August 2025 forming part of a new-look NAPA Irish Tarmac Rally Championship (ITRC). Once again it will be based in Newry with Modern Tyres the principal sponsor.
A Friday-Saturday itinerary has been rubber stamped for the Ulster Rally by the organising Northern Ireland Motor Club. As one of only two international-status events currently in the whole of the UK, it is set to take place on the weekend of August 15 and 16.
This year’s instalment saw the Irish pairing of Keith Cronin and his co-driver Mikie Galvin emerge triumphant on the Newry-based meeting in their Ford Fiesta Rally2 – a result that paved the way for them to wrap up the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship Fisher Memorial Perpetual Trophy for the second time in their careers. Their first title was sealed in 2016.
For the 2025 Ulster Rally, only a single special stage will be carried over from this year's itinerary, with more than one hundred competitive miles awaiting crews. Night stages – a signature of the Ulster Rally for almost half a century now – are also going to feature.
The Ulster Rally’s returning Clerk of the Course, Wayne Turkington, said: “I am pleased to confirm that we are returning to a two-day format in 2025, with more than one hundred stage miles planned – approximately 50% for each day of this popular Tarmac meeting.
“The current rally plan contains several completely new stages that are going to be mixed with some that have not been used for many years, so that will really add to the challenge. This decision is influenced by the positive feedback we received from crews this year.”
The Ulster will also be a counting round of the ultra-competitive and highly prestigious European Rally Trophy (ERT).
On Modern Tyres returning for a fifth year as the headline sponsor, Wayne added: The entire organising team is once again delighted to have the support of Modern Tyres and we plan to be based at their world-class warehousing facility in Newry next August.”
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This is an extract from a book called 'Remembered Fragments: A Memoir' by former Newry resident Stephen Shellard. IT's a great record of Newry in the 1960's and 70's. You can purchase the book via Amazon
The Beautiful Game
In my middle teenage years, I had a girlfriend, Emma, but it was a short-lived affair. She was a year below me in school but, though I liked her and was grateful for her interest in me, I never really settled into the relationship and my involvement, consequently, was half-hearted. Unsurprisingly, we drifted apart.
Part of the problem, perhaps, was that the fate of those in Newry High School who were “going steady” in the late 1960s seemed to be to spend their breaks and lunch hours standing in the school yard, lined up along the red brick wall of the old High School building, in — what seemed to me — an enchantment of mutual admiration. I really couldn’t visualise myself in this amorous company and was mystified as to how this practice could be sustained over months, if not years. But there was, so far as I was concerned, a further problem with the wall of love: lunch hour was for football.
It was the chance of a game before school which got me there early most days, and the opportunity for a further game at the end of the day which kept me late most evenings; but that was clearly not enough, and I was unready to sacrifice my lunchtime to anything other than football. Football — soccer that is — occupied a unique position in the culture of Newry and District for it was not an official game in any of the schools, whether Catholic, where Gaelic football and hurling were played, or state schools, such as Newry High School, where the official sports were rugby and hockey. I’d played both of these in my first year and opted for hockey, which I enjoyed; but my first love was “the beautiful game”.
My passion for the game was a common one amongst my friends and so we sought opportunities for a more organised expression of this shared interest. This we found in the Carnbane League, a phenomenon of voluntary organisation worthy of an OBE, though I suspect that those who might have been offered the award, would have felt it necessary to decline it and the accompanying trip to the palace.
My friends and I entered teams in the appropriate age groups in the Carnbane League over several seasons. The sides that I played in were conspicuous only by their lack of success. The team names in general were like those I see listed today: Camlough Rovers; Rossowen Celtic; Millburn United. On one occasion I persuaded my friends to enter a team under the name of River Plate, which I knew to be one of the top Argentinian teams. I knew nothing about them, but I was very taken with the ring of the name. It must have been a knockout competition, for I remember playing only one game as River Plate in which we were well thrashed, 6-1. In this particular match, however, somewhat to my own astonishment and late in the “second moiety”, as the man from the Newry Reporter would surely have recorded the moment — had he been present — I shimmied past a couple of players and slotted the ball into the corner of the net for our only goal. I watched the Newry Reportervery closely that week on the day it came out, to see if the panel who awarded “goal of the week” had heard of the glories of my own effort. Apparently, no one had seen fit to pass on the good news.
The fact that football has such a strong cross-community profile in Northern Ireland made it all the more mystifying to me that the national soccer team was, and continues to be, divided, a Northern Irish team and a team for the Irish Republic. This does not mirror the situation in other sports such as rugby and hockey, where a single team represents the island of Ireland. In my teenage years, this was a matter of distress to me. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, George Best was indisputably the greatest player in the world. Newry’s own Pat Jennings was a goalkeeper — the Newry Reporter would have called him a “custodian” — in the very top rank. It seemed obvious to me that if we could just add John Giles of Leeds United and the Republic of Ireland, we would have a midfielder of world class who could stitch the whole team together. With these three very great players and the best of the rest, there was no doubt in my mind that — to paraphrase Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront — “we coulda been contenders.” I don’t just mean that we could have got to the final stages of the World Cup; this was a once in a thousand-year opportunity for a small nation to go all the way, squandered, as far as I could see, on the altar of an archaic squabble.
A Legend in Blue and White Stripes
In August 1983 my eldest brother Michael and I set off to watch a pre-season friendly between Newry Town and Shamrock Rovers. As a teenager I had occasionally joined the small crowds which went to the Showgrounds to watch the Town play. Regardless of their lowly status in the B-Division, I knew that my footballing talents would never win me a place in the team but that didn’t prevent me from daydreaming occasionally that I might become their manager and lead them to promotion to the Irish League and then eventually glory in Europe — but let’s not get carried away with this fantasy.
The real thrill of the match in question was that, in the twilight of his career, George Best had been inveigled, for that game only, into playing for Newry Town. I believed this coup had been the work of the club chairman, John Grant. I remembered John from when he had been a technician in the chemistry lab at Newry High School. This was not a position greatly respected by High School pupils, but John had defied all expectations by becoming a significant figure in the world of Newry’s hospitality industry, first of all by helping to run the Copper Grill on the corner of Sandy Street and Downshire Road, and then as manager of the Ambassador Restaurant in Hill Street. In the years before I was of age to enter licensed premises I had whiled away many hours in the Copper Grill in the company of friends drinking coffee and eating sugar lumps, the latter being provided gratis for the customers in little bowls placed conveniently on each restaurant table. I don’t imagine this type of custom was either particularly welcome or a significant contribution to John’s rise in Newry’s business world, but we were tolerated and grateful for the respite from the cold on winter evenings.
It seemed hardly believable but, on a lovely summer evening, Michael and I turned up at the appointed hour to watch as Shamrock Rovers warmed up at one end in their green and white hoops and at the other end in the blue and white stripes of Newry Town was George, swapping passes with his temporary teammates. He was perhaps carrying a little more weight than in his heyday and who knows what he had been doing earlier in the day by way of match preparation, but he seemed in good shape.
I have searched hard on the internet to see if I could find the result of that game, but though the event is noted in various places, I have been unable to confirm a final score, suggesting, perhaps, that was the least of anyone’s concern. Surely the man from the Newry Reporter was there? My own recollection is 3-2 in favour of Shamrock Rovers, with the Town’s first goal being scored by George from the penalty spot. But maybe I am just imagining that.
What I do remember was that in the second half George’s progress towards goal was halted by an over-enthusiastic tackle just outside the right-hand edge of the penalty area, not far from the touchline where Michael and I were standing. The whistle blew for a free kick. It was a position where a shot at goal would have been possible, but a little too close to curve a ball over a wall of defending players. George had another idea; almost in the same moment the kick had been awarded, he had taken it, gliding the ball across to a player in blue and white who stood loose at the other corner of the box and who had time to calmly fire a shot low into the back of the net past a wrong-footed defence and a bemused keeper. It was an unspectacular assist but nevertheless a little piece of magic which I felt privileged to witness.
These are slightly edited extracts from my recently published memoir, Remembered Fragments available on Amazon as both an e-book and paperback. Whilst I hope these extracts may interest you in reading the full memoir, you should probably check the synopsis on Amazon before purchasing. It’s not all about football!
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Newry City AFC have bolstered their squad with two new signings and the return of a familiar face as the January transfer window kicks off.
Striker Brian Healy has been recalled from a prolific loan spell at Ballyclare Comrades, where he netted 10 goals this season. First Team Manager Darren Mullen expressed his excitement about Healy’s return, stating, “Brian comes back to us after doing really well at Ballyclare and he has matured into one of the best forward players in the league so we are delighted to have him back.”
Joining the ranks at The Showgrounds is promising young goalkeeper Lorcan Donnelly, who arrives on loan from Glentoran until the end of the season. The 19-year-old has already gained Premiership experience and represented Northern Ireland Under-17s. Mullen remarked, “Lorcan is a young lad with huge potential… I know they have high hopes for him at Glentoran so he comes to us pushing for the No.1 spot.”
Completing the trio of arrivals is Jamie Doran, a 20-year-old midfielder on loan from Glenavon. A former Northern Ireland Under-19 international and Ballyholland native, Doran brings energy and technical skill to Newry’s midfield. “Jamie is a player I’ve tried to sign on a few occasions, so I’m delighted to finally get him to The Showgrounds,” said Mullen.
With more transfer activity expected, Mullen is optimistic about the impact these early moves will have. “It’s a good start to the window and will hopefully give the fans a bit of a lift,” he added.
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