Joe Carroll's Curiosity Corner: What was the last newly built County GAA Ground?

KNOW YOUR INITIALS

It’s LF this week

1: Dundalk FC fans knew him as ‘Pop’
2: How a GAA player, wearing No 4, might be feeling after a big meal
3: The horses are inside this when a race is always decided
4: You’ll hear it said during a tennis match at Wimbledon
5: The Kop
6: He captained a Kilkenny All-Ireland senior hurling-winning side
7: Sam Mulroy
8: It attracts followers to pubs
9: A player might get it if his team is well behind coming towards the end of a match
10: Mayo won it this year

OOPS!!

Murphy’s Law, I suppose you could call it. A photo of the Louth minor team of 1963 appeared in the Inside Track column a few weeks ago and had a name missing from the caption. Who should it be only PJ Loughran’s, a long-time pal of the writer and a member of the good old Dundalk Gaels.

PJ was a left-winger – of the sporting kind – and was what you might call nifty, with an eye for a score. He had a particularly good game against Kildare at Croke Park in the ‘63 campaign.

There must be some kind of jinx in the photo in question. When it was previously published here a number of years back, Jimmy McClean, standing in the back row, was squeezed out.

Jimmy played for Clan na Gael, and was included when the Castletown club played Newtown Blues in the 1964 county final.

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CAN ANYONE HELP?

A reader asks: The new Louth county grounds will be the first to be built countrywide since when? He explains: ”I don’t mean refurbished, but built from the ground up.”

Curiosity Corner is stumped. The likes of Newry’s Pairc Esler was one of the most recent to be upgraded, but there was always a pitch there, and, in fact, Down played home games on it.

Same, of course, with Mullingar, Tullamore and Portlaoise, all of which have undergone huge improvements to make them the fine stadiums they are today.

CC wonders: Could our own St Brigid’s Park be the answer? It was opened in 1960 and for a time was either the county grounds or shared the distinction with Drogheda’s Gaelic Grounds and Ardee’s Pairc Mhuire.

Any advance of that? If anyone has, get in touch.

VERSATILE GEORGE

Further to an article which recently appeared on this site, the one that dealt with prominent players who saw service in goals and outfield, Aidan King writes to say that George Brennan fits the bill perfectly.

Like Aidan, George first saw the light of day in Dunleer and also played with Lannleire. He began as an outfield player and was well above the ordinary from an early age.

His talent as a half-forward won him a place on the 1940 Louth minor team, which, having come through a difficult Leinster campaign, had an easy 3-8 to 0-3 All-Ireland semi-final win over Monaghan.

There were even more Louth goals in the final with Mayo, five in all, and as many points, giving the young Reds a seven-point win. Brennan scored two of the goals. Like his half-forward line colleague, Peter Corr, that day, he changed codes – and positions – in the latter part of the decade.

Goals became his new berth, and he graduated to League of Ireland football, playing with Dundalk in the 1949/’50 season. He travelled north after that, and was in goals for Glenavon when they became first non-Belfast team to win the Irish League.

ANSWERS

Know Your Initials: 1 Leo Flanagan, 2 Left Full, 3 Last Furlong, 4 Love Forty, 5 Liverpool Fans, 6 Liam Fennelly, 7 Louth Forward, 8 Live Football, 9 Losing Feeling, 10 League Final. They Play Cricket Here: Trent Bridge.