Shane Walsh living his dream with resurgent Tribesmen
Shane Walsh was a seven-year-old boy when Galway last met Kildare in the football championship. That was the 2000 All-Ireland semi-final. Prior to that, there was the ’98 decider between the counties. Both games, though you’d hardly believe it, are as clear in Walsh’s head as last Sunday’s grind against Kerry.
Walsh, who top-scored with five points during Galway’s Super 8s victory over the Kingdom, was football-obsessed growing up. His parents, to this day, continue to tell him he arrived into the world with a football in his hands.
The Galway forward was five when the county progressed to the 1998 All-Ireland final, their first appearance in the September showpiece since 1983. Deemed too young to be brought to Croker, Walsh watched the game at home in Clonberne. That triumph, along with the 2001 success, prompted, in part, a video which chronicled the highs and lows of football out west. Titled The History of Galway Football, the video was, of course, brought into the Walsh household and young Shane began to live the ’98 win over and over and over again.
I’ve watched that video over 1,000 times. Every day after school, I used to go home and watch The History of Galway Football I could probably relay the whole video back to you,” he says.
“That ’98 win was massive. I’ll always remember going to my national school and meeting John Divilly, Derek Savage and Shea Walsh; I’d be related to Shea.
“I remember we were all parked up on a trailer singing ‘The Fields of Athenry’ inside in Tuam when the Galway bus came along. Those memories will always relay back to me.”
For the 2000 final against Kerry, Walsh, now seven, got as far as his uncle’s house, which is but 10 minutes from Croke Park. His standout moment from that particular campaign is Michael Donnellan’s free late on in the semi-final against the very county they’ll lock horns with this Sunday.
“It was, literally, the perfect free: Outside of the posts and curled in at the last second. Those days will always stick in my head, because I live and breathe football. It’s something I’ve done since I was born.
“The video brought me up to the end of 2001, when Galway beat Meath. They wouldn’t even bring me to the 2001 All-Ireland. It was actually hard to get tickets. I remember watching the game and it was hard to believe, given how the first-half went, that Galway would go on to win so handy. If only it would ever happen to us so handy.”
Asked for his heroes from that golden era for the county, the 25-year-old jokes that, for brownie points, he has to include current manager Kevin Walsh.
There was always three players that stuck out in my head: Padraic Joyce, he was so efficient in front of goal that it was just a matter of how much he was going to score; Ja Fallon’s ball-winning ability, that jink, the sidestep; Michael Donnellan, you see him tearing up through Croke Park as if to say, ‘I’m just going for a stroll up through the middle of Croke Park, here, and lay off scores and take on a score or two’.
The county hadn’t won a championship match at Croke Park since 2001 before last Sunday. That was also the last time the county was involved at the semi-final stage.
It goes without saying, therefore, that it’s well overdue for a Galway team to come along and create the moment and memories which Walsh reared himself on.
“I’d love to be involved in something like that,” said the Kilkerrin-Clonberne clubman, who yesterday picked up the PWC GAA/GPA player of the month award for June.
“I feel we are making the right steps. We’re starting to see the fruits of the hard work we’ve been putting in over four years under Kevin.
“It’s another year for us that we’re making ground; we stayed up in Division One, we got to a Division One final, we’ve got to another Connacht final, we’ve won the Connacht final, we’ve turned over Kerry in Croke Park. This is all new territory for us and we’re hoping that that experience will keep leading us on to something in the future.”
Walsh, who kicks frees off either foot, refuses to identify one as stronger or weaker than the other. Having started off kicking with his right, he credits his primary school principal Peadar Brandon for developing his left.
“When I was in second class, we used to play the senior girls in school. I was always scoring goals and points off my right. Then, when he came over to watch us one day, he said: ‘I’ve seen how good your right foot is. Why don’t you go home and practice off your left foot. I’ll give you a couple of weeks and then when I come back to you again, I won’t allow you to kick off your right foot.’
“As I said, I live and breathe football, so I went home and over the next few weeks broke many windows in the house practising with my left foot.”
