April 2004

Football Reunion - 30 years on

The Glory days of 1975 when a group of 'rejected' footballers confounded the doubters to reach a local soccer cup final were relived in Moville at the weekend.

The Moville team enjoyed a reunion on Saturday night to remember the golden summer nearly 30 years ago, when they beat off stiff competition to reach the final of the Eamonn Gillen Memorial Cup.

Their success was all the sweeter because they were the wild cards - former Moville Celtic players who had given up the game for one reason or another. "We were all between the ages of about 20 and 28 but we had stopped playing football for a variety of reasons such as getting married or going away to work and one thing and another, but we wanted to play again so we organised ourselves and decided to have a go.

The committee thought we were joking and didn't even charge us an entry fee. They thought we would be knocked out early on. We called ourselves the Moville Rejects," one of them remembered on Saturday night.

What was to follow was to become one of the fondest memories in the lives of the makeshift team. The boys invited Jim Harkin to coach them after Moville Celtic's first team were knocked out of the cup. "He was the first team keeper and when they were knocked out of the competition, we asked him to coach us. We had some good training with Jim all right," reminisced the former 'Reject'.

As the team ploughed through the competition the town of Moville rowed in behind them in true supporter style. "The town got behind us, it was great craic and a real talking point around the place."

To reach the final against Clonmany Shamrocks, the Rejects beat Westbrook, the Buncrana Team who knocked Moville Celtic out of the Cup of the quarterfinal stage.

As excitement and trepidation grew in the Foyleside town, the wild cards togged out again for the nail-biting Sunday final. "There were brilliant gates in those days with very big crowds. We took the lead with 1-0 and nearly had the game, but them with only five minutes to go, Clonmany equalised."

They had to get ready again for the following Saturday's reply. When to the disappointment of the crowd, they were beaten 3-1. Despite the defeat, however, the brave Rejects became local heroes after serving up one of the best soccer summers in local history.

Saturday's reunion at the Foyle Hotel was organised by Eamon Farren and Hughie Craig and was a triumph of fun and magic memories. Hubert Cavanagh team centre-forward in '75 was a huge success as MC on the night with fellow 'Rejects' joking he could have a new career ahead of him. While their legs might not be as pacy as they were in 1975, the 'Rejects' joked they might still have a testimonial in them!

Back Row, left to right: Seamus Doherty, Martin Farren, Paddy Craig, John McDermott, Billy Doherty, Hughie Craig, and Jim Harkin.
Front row, left to right: Kevin McDaid, Hubert Cavanagh, Eamon Farren, Martin McGuinness, John McHenry, and Michael Gillen

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