Conversation during the Louth Meath match on Sunday:
‘Do ya see that fella grinning like a lunatic there?’
‘Yeah, is it a Louth fan gritting his teeth in advance of the inevitable Meath comeback?’
‘No, it’s a Longford fan.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Well, the jersey’s a dead giveaway, obviously. I mean, it’s still damp from Newry last night. I bet he
had to dry it out the window of the car on the N4 this morning.’
‘He’ll catch his death of cold.’
‘But boy, will he die happy? Look at him, he’s grinning from ear to ear….’
Non-Longford Person trying to make conversation with a Longford fan after the Louth Meath match:
NLP: ‘Did you see the whack the referee got? Wasn’t that awful?’
Longford fan: ‘What whack? Where?!!’
NLP: ‘On the pitch, after the match. After the goal that wasn’t a goal…’
Longford fan: ‘What goal? Where?!!’
NLP: ‘During the Louth Meath game – the senior final?’
Longford fan: ‘God, was there a second match? I only saw Longford win. After that…. Well, everything’s a blur…’
Such was the joy, the sheer unabated happiness and delight of Longford fans in
The grins said it all – absolute bliss.
They say revenge is a dish best served cold and Longford certainly proved this is the case on Sunday.
The 22 point beating from Offaly was still fresh in their minds and, if any of the rest of us had forgotten it,
the official programme helpfully included the match report from that sunny April day with the score line screaming: Offaly 2-19, Longford 0- 3.
Indeed Dylan Quinn twice referred to, what he termed, the ‘trouncing’ Offaly had meted out on them in April during his acceptance speech. This match sent Longford on the circuitous back door route, where they dispelled with Wexford, Carlow, Westmeath and Kildare until they found themselves facing Offaly once again, in the Leinster Minor Final in
And so less than three months after Offaly had beat them by 22 points, Longford turned around and beat them back.
There is something special about a team that does this.
A team that ‘gets over’ a 22 point defeat in the first round and grabs their second chance with both hands.
A team that goes out on a sunny July Sunday midday onto the pitch in
A team that doesn’t let the occasion of
A team that comes out and delivers a hearty, gutsy performance and wins a
That’s a very special team.
Longford fans, parents, friends, family, who followed the team in the past few months were paid in full for
their efforts. So too, the diehards who had travelled to Newry the night before and returned miserable,
wet, defeated but who had still made the journey to
Longford fans often tell themselves that they’ll get their reward in Heaven but they got their own little glimpse of Heaven on Sunday. And it made them smile, all the way out
Next up, is the All-Ireland quarterfinals on the August Bank Holiday weekend but for now, Longfordians
are still grinning, walking around in a happy daze, remembering a very happy day.
