From The Avondhu 1st April 2021
In our previous reviews we looked at hurling and sporting activity in the 1920s and 1930s. In the first of these we saw that, in the early years, Upper Glanmire school had amalgamated with Riverstown for the more formal school shields competitions and played under the Riverstown name. In the 1940s they continued in this tradition. In 1948, for the East Cork schools shields final it was interesting that they took the name of Glanmire Area schools. Perhaps this was acknowledgment that Riverstown was not the only or indeed dominant school in the district. However, at that time , Sarsfields were the only club in the parish with White’s Cross’ formation a decade away and the various Upper Glanmire teams having folded a decade previously. This meant that side wore the colours of Sarsfields for their competitions and it would be widely accepted that they were the underage wing of that club. The East Cork final of 1948 did not go well and they were beaten narrowly by Youghal on a scoreline of 6-02 to 5-01. Unfortunately, the following year the same two sides met in the final and again it was again Youghal that would prevail, this time on a bigger 11-03 to 8-01 scoreline.
In 1950 following victories over Carrigtwohill, Glounthane the side finally buried the Youghal hoodoo in semi-final victory in a game played in Midleton. This set them for the third consecutive final and a tie versus Killeagh.
There was a huge crowd at the final in Castlemartyr which saw both sides battle out a keenly contested game which Glanmire lead for the game. They had to withstand a late comeback from the Killeagh lads to see them home on a 6-02 to 5-01 scoreline. Having lost the previous two finals, they may have been happy with their lot for the year. Nonetheless, there was still a county championship to play for. They duly qualified for this final and a meeting with city side Greenmount who had also qualified for, and lost, the equivalent football final against Macoom. In the hurling final it was the Glanmire side that made the early running and lead at half-time on a score of 4-01 to 2-02. At the start of the second period, Glanmire with two further three-pointers put them firmly in command. Greenmount rallied late on and got three late goals but Glanmire withstood the pressure and were crowned county champions on a scoreline of 6-01 to 5-02. This would be the last time that a team from the parish would win the East Cork school shields championship for 17 years or the county for 18 years. We have covered the exploits of the these late 1960s teams and their White’s Cross GAA influence in previous editions of the Avondhu last year.
However, many of this particular 1950 winning side would go on to make their own sporting mark in later years. A number of this winning team would play a part on the Sarsfields team that won the county senior hurling championship in 1957 including Niall Looney and captain Rob Lotty. 1957 was also the year that White’s Cross was founded and three members of that county under 14 winning side were key to the formation of our club. They were Denis ‘Dinny’ Noonan, Eamon O’Shea and Liam Browne. They were members of the committee and were key players in the early years of the club. Other Upper Glanmire school pupils that were part of 1950 county winning side – namely Michael Twomey and Niall Long – were not involved with our club at its foundation but they or their family members would get, and indeed still are, involved with White’s Cross GAA in later years. This is the clearest link to date between the schools GAA and the club. We will explore other links in the coming weeks as we await a return to action on the playing fields.