John Divilly: When Roscommon beat Galway, their supporters could and would devour you

After defeating us in the 2001 Connacht championship, they were rumoured to have burned a Galway jersey outside a public house the following afternoon, writes John Divilly.

he Roscommon people are very proud of their heritage and rightly so. All the other counties in Connacht border them plus Longford, Westmeath, and Offaly. Queen Maeve ran her operations from Rathcroghan, outside Tulsk. The Rossies would say they are the real ‘Royal’ county.

The geographical centre of Ireland is in the townlands of Carnagh East, Co Roscommon, on the western shore of Lough Rea. Its nearest populated village is Lecarrow. I have frequented this village on many an occasion and nearly always for the same reason — soccer. I was a dual player, GAA and soccer. The latter was my first sporting love and I didn’t fully concentrate on GAA until John O’Mahony came calling. From the age of 16 until 21, when I had to choose between soccer and GAA, I usually chose soccer, or more precisely Kilkerrin United.