Newry Bosco GFC - History

History

St. John Bosco Gaelic Football Club, was originally founded in 1952 by members of the St. John Bosco Youth Club. The original squad was managed by the late Gerry Brown. It included such names as Paddy Lambe, P Grant, P McAleavey, F McCaul, A Ruddy, E Campbell, J Pearce and J Bannon. An enthusiastic backroom staff included Maurice Mathers and John McAleavey. The club won its first silverware shortly afterwards, when an under 21 team entered and won the Fitzpatrick Cup, a competition run by the Dromore Diocesan Youth Council.

However, in 1956, because of age restrictions at the Youth Club, it was decided to change the name to John Mitchel GFC and remove any connection to the Youth Club.

The name of St. John Bosco was missing from Down football for a number of years. However, in 1963 the club was reformed under the inspiration and guidance of the then Youth Club Chairman Father Bradley. To mark its resurgence the Bosco organised a first class inter-county tournament at the Gaelic grounds (now Pairc Esler), with teams from Tyrone, Monaghan, Armagh and Down competing. The newly-formed club also enjoyed success in the Newry and District Schoolboys Gaelic Football League, capturing the League and Championship. Managed by the late Jack Mackin, after whom our present pitch is named, this squad included the likes of Frank McDonald (now a GAA inter-county and FIFA referee), Con Davey, Francie Rafferty, Sean Flanagan, Martin McConville and Kevin Woods.

The new club had men like Jimmy and Eddie Heaney, Joe Fearon, Peter McParland (RIP), and Jack Mackin (RIP) at the helm. Other players included Paddy Fox, Tom Tumilty (former club Chairman), Seamus O'Hare, George McAteer and Eddie Rocks. Bosco won the Junior League in their first year of football and were promoted to the Intermediate League. Around the same time the club committee purchased land from Henry Cole (RIP) with the intention of building a Youth Club and pitch. Unfortunately, only the Youth Club was built and the football field was never developed. Jenning's Park was the Bosco's home pitch until Jack Mackin Park was developed by Newry and Mourne District Council.

Success on the field eluded Bosco until the 1970s.

The South Down Under 16 League was won for the first time in 1972. Three years later, 1975, St. John Bosco GFC had its most successful year to date on the football field. Managed by the great John McCann, our minor team won the County Down Minor Championship for the first time beating a strong Burren team at Newcastle. A few weeks later they completed the double by defeating Warrenpoint to win the South Down Minor League. Interestingly, the sons and nephews of several members of this team repeated the success in 2002, but more about that later.

Many of the 1975 minor team also helped the Under 16 team complete their double of County Championship and South Down League. Two members of this team, Raymond Tumilty and Francie Rooney, who both also appeared on the club's minor team, helped Down to All Ireland success at Minor level in 1977.

Unfortunately, St. John Bosco failed to build on this unprecedented success. More years in the wilderness followed until the Under 12s stepped forward in the early 1980s by claiming the South Down Championship in 1980 and 1981 and the County Championship in 1981. Many players from this team, such as the Jackson brothers (Brendan, Collie and Raymond), the Rooney brothers (Raymond, Colin and Maurice) Neil Patterson and Brian Irwin provided the backbone of the Senior team, managed by Aidan Mulvanney, that uniquely gained promotion from Division 4 to Division 1 in three consecutive years in the late 1980s.

The All County Reserve Championship was collected for the first time in 1990 in the same year that the senior team finally reached the top flight in Down football. The senior team, containing several members of the 1975 Minor and Under 16 teams (such as Aidan Mulvaney, Gerry and Francie Rooney, Aidan Shields and Raymond Tumilty) managed to retain a foothold in the top two divisions for a decade. The county Intermediate Championship was won for the first time in 1996, making up for the defeat in the previous year's final. Two members of the senior team, Brian Irwin and Kerry McVeigh, were squad members in the Down All-Ireland winning team of 1991.

As mentioned earlier, the Minor double success of 1975 was repeated in 2002. The County Championship and South Down League were won in convincing style. The County League was added for good measure. The connections to 1975 are as follows: the 1975 captain was Aidan Mulvanney, the 2002 captain was his son Rory; two Rooney brothers (Gerry and Francie) played in defence in 1975, two Rooney brothers (Mark and Neil, twin sons of Francie) played in defence in 2002; finally, Raymond Tumilty starred for the 1975 team, while his nephew Neil starred in the 2002 team.

Bosco's under-age development programme, started in the 1990s, is now finally beginning to pay dividend. Since the start of the new millennium Bosco has attained success at Under 11, 12, 14, 16 and minor level at South Down, County and provincial level. The county under 16 champions of 2001 followed up that success by becoming Ulster Under 17 champions in 2002. The minor team of 2002 narrowly failed to match this achievement by losing in extra-time to the Tyrone champions in the 2002 Ulster Minor final.

Bosco Ladies Football

Iveagh Ladies GFC were part of the first Down Ladies league that started in 1994. Prior to this Down clubs played in the Armagh league since a Down league did not exist. Initially Iveagh started out wearing the red & black colours of Down. Their name derived from the Iveagh townland between Glenn & Saval since most of their players came from this area or had contacts there. The majority of Iveagh's home matches were played in either Glenn or Saval and this continued when Iveagh joined the Down league.

In 1998 Iveagh linked up with the St. John Bosco club in Newry and began playing as Iveagh Bosco. They played all home matches at Jack Mackin Park and continued to play in the red & black. Soon after collocating to Bosco the ladies designed a new strip to represent the various home clubs of the players on the team - the new colours were yellow, red, green & black. A new crest was also designed.

In 2002 the ladies team amalgamated fully with the Bosco and dropped Iveagh from the name. Then the team played under the Bosco colours, blue & yellow.

County representation

Bosco Ladies provided 8 players to the Down County Ladies panel who were then competing in Division Three of the National League. Bosco always provided players to the County panel, most notably, 9 players who were part of the 2000 Junior All-Ireland winning team.

And two of the Bosco senior ladies' team, Michaella and Aoibheann Downey, have been selected to represent Ulster in the Senior Ladies Inter-Provincial Tournament.

Off-field

Off the field Bosco obtained a new playing field developed by Newry and Mourne District Council, named Jack Mackin Park, after the much respected Warden of the Bosco Youth Club.

The social club moved to new premises in the 1990s, relocating to the former St Catherine's Band premises in Upper Water Street.