Wexford GAA - Gaelic Football

Gaelic Football

Wexford had one of the greatest football teams in the history of the GAA in the 1910s, winning six Leinster and four All-Ireland titles in a row. The team was trained by 1900 star James 'the bull' Roche - who had fought for the World Heavyweight boxing Championship, and featured Father Ned Wheeler, Aidan Doyle and the O'Kennedy brothers, Gus and Sean. The latter was the team captain. The six-in-a-row in Leinster was unequalled until Dublin's winning sequence between 1974 and 1979.

Wexford's last major football success was winning the Leinster title in 1945. From then on, hurling took precedent in Wexford and as a consequence, the Wexford footballers suffered and descended into obscurity for many years. More recently, Wexford have had a strong team. The team reached the Division 1 League final of 2005 under the management of Pat Roe but were beaten by a strong Armagh team that day.

In April 2008, in Jason Ryan's first year as manager of the team, Wexford beat Fermanagh to win the Division 3 League final. This proved to be the first success of what would be a historic year for Wexford football, as they reached their first Leinster final in over 50 years. Along the way they stunned favourites Meath by coming from ten points in arrears to win their Quarter Final in Carlow and then beat Laois comprehensively in the semi final. This was Wexford's 5th consecutive appearance in the provincial semi final, but their first victory. Unfortunately, the occasion of their historic Leinster final appearance was not a happy one, and they were thoroughly defeated by a strong Dublin team in the final, 3-23 to 0-9.

Dublin were well beaten in their All Ireland Quarter Final by Tyrone, while Wexford recovered from their humiliation and came through the back door, beating Down by seven points in a shock result to reach the last eight and a game with Armagh. From here, they produced one of the shocks of the championship, winning by 1-12 to 0-14 to reach their first All Ireland semi-final since 1945. Unfortunately that was as far as they went, as despite a brave effort they were beaten by 6 points by Tyrone, having been within two points of the eventual champions in the closing stages.