Remembering Barrow Rovers '64 McCalmont Cup win

Sixty years ago a talented Barrow Rovers soccer team from Carlow town won the prestigious McCalmont Cup in Kilkenny and, to date, remain the only club from the county to have claimed this particular piece of sporting silverware.

Dermot O’Boyle, a member of that Barrow Rovers team of 1964 brought the sixty-year landmark to my attention recently. Dermot wore the No 7 jersey in the team’s 4-2 final victory over Green Celtic from Kilkenny. And ‘Nudger’, as Dermot is affectionately known, scored one of the goals on the day.

The final was played on the ‘Comer Road soccer grounds in Kilkenny, where the Newpark Lawn housing estate is located today. The venue on Castlecomer Road, Kilkenny was the home of Association Football in the Marble City from 1950 to 1973.

Barrow Rovers were a talented football side who played attractive football and scored plenty of goals. The 12-man panel - there was only one substitute allowed at that time - was made up of nine players from Carlow town, supplemented by three from Graiguecullen, Tom Hennessy, current President of St Patrick’s Boys in Graigue, the late Dominic Kinsella and Mickey Brennan.

In that 1964 winning cup run, Rovers played a lot of football, maybe six or seven games, with some going to replays, before they finally prevailed in the final.

In trying to pinpoint when exactly the final was played both Dermot and Tom agree that the game coincided with the Kilkenny Beer Festival. A little research revealed that the first Beer Festival took place from May 10 to 18, 1964, so the soccer final was played in mid-May.

The Rovers team which took the field against Deen Celtic was: the late Paul Donaghy, (long-time sports editor of The Nationalist); Tom Hennessy; Gerry Ruth, now resident in Limerick; Brian Doyle, a native of Kilcullen who worked with the Irish Sugar Company in Carlow; recently deceased Willie Purcell, a talented all-round sportsman; the late Enda Smith, a Meath native; Dermot O’Boyle; team captain Victor Noctor from Browne Street who is a long-time London resident; the late Har Donnelly, who played in the 1961 All-Ireland football final with Offaly; Ray Penny, an English native with no previous connection to Carlow, whose outstanding talent was spotted by one of Rovers players; and the late Dominic Kinsella.

Willie Purcell, who had been part of the team right through the campaign, was injured after some 20 minutes of the final and was replaced by Mickey Brennan, with Enda Smith moving to centre half and Mickey to wing half.

Tom Hennessy remembers that Rovers led all through the game and credits Roy Penny with two of the goals. Dermot O’Boyle believes Dom Kinsella was also on the scoresheet.

Barrow Rovers played in red and white jerseys, with a v neck, akin to the Manchester Undited strip of the day. And team members chipped in to purchase their playing strip and pay for transport costs.

There was a very big crowd at the 1964 final, with many travelling from Carlow for the decider. It was novel for a Carlow soccer team to be in a final as Gaelic games were the dominant sports in the county.

In 1964 the dreaded GAA Rule 27 was still very much in force and being applied. The ramifications of Rule 27 meant that GAA players could not play ‘foreign games’ which included soccer, rugby, cricket and hockey. The rule, known within the GAA as ‘the ban’ was abolished at the GAA Congress of 1971 in Belfast.

At that time a number of the Barrow Rovers squad were playing Gaelic football for Carlow clubs, so some players resorted to providing alias names for the purpose of playing for Rovers.

Enda Smith, played midfield for Tinryland and in the same position at senior county level for Carlow.

Dermot O’Boyle and Victor Noctor were the youngest members of the team and both were playing minor football for Éire Óg, while Tom Hennessy was lining out in the blue and white of Tinryland at the time. Noctor was generally regarded as Carlow’s best soccer player of that era in the 1960s.

So it was that these players, while always using their correct Christian names, opted for aliases when it came to surnames. So Tom Hennessy became Tom Henry, Enda Smith was Enda Sweetman and Har Donelly adopted the name Harry McHugh.

Roy Penny became Roy Carbery – he was best friends with Maurice Carbery from Carlow, now living in Dublin. Dermot O’Boyle and Victor Noctor did not adopt aliases.

Now resident in South Africa, Roy Penny is a significant figure on the South African Golf scene. He maintains contact with Maurice Carbery.

Dermot provided a nice footnote for the article when he told me that a Dominican Father from the Black Abbey in Kilkenny was a keen supporter of Barrow Rovers and attended all their games. The man of the cloth was impressed by the style and swagger that the Carlow team brought to their football.

So Barrow Rovers had God on their side when they clinched Carlow’s only McCalmont Cup sixty years ago!