Fintown native Neil McKelvey honoured for his work with Lucan Sarsfields

At their Awards Night on Friday night last, Lucan Sarsfields honoured Neil McKelvey for his long years of service to the club by inducting him into their Hall of Fame.

A native of Fintown, McKelvey had a very successful underage career with Donegal at minor and U-21 before he moved to work and live in Lucan in Dublin in 1970.

Renowned as a high-fetching midfielder or full-back, McKelvey was full-back on the Donegal minor team that won back to back Ulster Minor League titles in 1962 and 1963 and then agonisingly lost the Ulster Minor Championship final to Down in Breffni Park, in 1963.

He had earlier won a Donegal minor club championship with Glenties in 1962 before losing in the final to Ballyshannon in ‘63.

Looking back on that great run, which also included three Ulster U-21 titles in four years, McKelvey says the minor loss in ‘63 was a very big disappointment.

“We won the Minor League in 1962 and 1963 but we lost the Minor Championship in ‘63. We were going well but a fella called Val Kane, who was on the Down senior team, came on and he literally won the game for them. I can’t remember if he scored the goal or if he made the goal but he made the difference.

“Ah, we should never have lost that final. We were away better and it was very disappointing.

“It was a great team. We should have won an All-Ireland. I’d say it was a matter of not having the belief that time. We had won nothing so we had no belief.

“The preparation was almost zero. We did a little bit of training for that in Letterkenny. But that’s the only training sessions we ever had with the county. There wasn’t any training.

“The first day I went out at minor level I wouldn’t have known many of the team and I never really got to know them really, to be honest.

“I knew the Ballyshannon boys well because we played them a lot, but outside that I wouldn’t really have known too many at all.

“The fellas I knew mostly were Declan O’Carroll, Pauric McShea and Mickey McLoone. They were the three that were on most teams that I was on. I played against them and for them,” says McKelvey.

The Fintown man’s reputation was for high fielding, which was very much part of the game at the time.

“That would have been my strong point. I liked fielding the high ball.”

That group of players from the minor teams of 1962 and ‘63 were dominant in Ulster football for a period then at U-21 level.

“After ‘63 I was on the U-21 team for four years, ‘63, ‘64, ‘65 and ‘66. We won three out of four of the Ulster championships. We were beaten in ‘65 in the first round and I don’t know why. I think we were a bit of slack or something.

“We had a great team as well and it was the same nucleus as the team that was the minor team.”

There was a call up for senior duty but McKelvey says he was never properly prepared when the call came.

“I had a few matches at senior level but I’ll tell you, I was never in shape when I was called up. I remember one year in particular I played championship against St Eunan’s in Ballybofey. I was playing for Naomh Conaill in Glenties. I had a great game, a terrific game. That was early August, maybe the first week.

“Then the league started in the middle of October and I was picked. Sure I hadn’t kicked a ball from early August until October. I was totally ill prepared and I didn’t do well at all, naturally.

“And every time I was picked that was part of the problem. I think I had three or four outings with the seniors but I don’t remember that much about them.”

One of the outings was against Fermanagh in the National League in 1965 played in Letterkenny. “I was in at corner-forward. That time if they were doubtful they always put you at corner-forward. Last on and first off,” laughs McKelvey.

The Fintown man went off to university in Galway from 1964 to 1966 and finished his education in UCD from  ‘66 to ‘68. His first teaching post was in Ballyshannon from 1968 to 1970 along with his good friend, Cathal Greene.

From  there he moved permanently to teach in Lucan in Dublin in 1970 and that is where he made his home.

“I played for UCG in the Sigerson. I was a sub in both years, but that was the golden years of Galway football and the three in-a-row. If you weren’t from Galway it was very hard to get in there.

“I wasn’t the only one; there was a few of us on the line who should have got a chance. I remember Liam Higgins, a fella who played for Kerry and Jimmy Hannify who played for Longford. He was on the line. But that’s the way it was,” said McKelvey, who added that he still enjoyed it.

The other big football year for McKelvey and Glenties came in 1965 when they almost caused the shock of the century, taking St Joseph’s to a replay in the county final in their first year at senior level.

“Yeah, sure we won the minor championship in Glenties in 1962 and we won the junior championship in 1964. Then we met St Joseph’s in the senior final in ‘65 and we drew. And then they beat us, I think by two points, in the replay. It was very competitive and it could have gone either way.

“I was young enough. Most of us were young. Frankie Campbell was the main man we had; Leo (McLoone) snr, Pauric Bonner, Terence Craig. There were some great players. We had a great run that time and we beat most teams.

“The Joseph’s team that time was practically a county team. They had a fantastic team and I don’t know how we got so close to them. 

“But like everything else, it was the first time for us. We were  never in the senior championship before that.”

FORTUNATE

McKelvey refers to two events that changed his life for the better. “There were two very fortunate things that happened in my life. I got to go to St Eunan’s College. There were 11 of us in the family and living out in the middle of nowhere in Fintown, there was no school. If you didn’t stay somewhere, you didn’t go to second level.

“The teacher convinced my mother that I should go to St Eunan’s in Letterkenny. That was a very lucky break because no one else in the family got it.

“Then meeting my wife, Jacinta, was the second lucky break. That was the first night I came to Dublin I met her,” says McKelvey, who had secured digs in his future wife’s home.

It was natural that McKelvey would become involved with the local club, Lucan Sarsfields and that involvement continued at many different levels.

“There was a couple of years I stopped playing and I never really got back to where I was before, fitness wise. We won a Junior League with Lucan Sarsfields in 1980 but I played a good few matches without winning a lot.

“I took an U-10 team, my oldest son, Reamonn, was on it at the time and I took them to U-18. Then I was helping out with other teams, mainly with the girls teams in later years.

“My two daughters played and I was helping out. It was only last year that I stopped.”

Apart from the football, the other big involvement for Neil at Lucan was his set and ceili dancing lessons.

“I taught that in the club for 10 years or more. We had a class once a week and we had a ceili once a month. It was the first time that crowds came to the club, the ceili would be packed out.

“It was a trait of the McKelvey clan, all good dancers. I don’t know why but we were,” says Neil, who said he probably got taught by his older sisters.

“It was the thing to do back then. The pub wasn’t near as important that time that it became later on. The bands were excellent even if they get slagged a bit now by the modern ones.”

Neil’s youngest son, Aiden, was an accomplished footballer who he thinks would have made it if he were in Donegal.

“Aiden was quite good now. If he had been in Donegal he would have made the minor team. But it’s very hard to make a Dublin minor team. He was on the Dublin U-16 team but got injured. Then he won an All-Ireland medal with the Dublin Vocational School team that defeated Tyrone in the final. I was a mentor with that team, helping out. There were four members of the team from Lucan Sarsfields, which was exciting at the time.”

His daughters also played for Lucan and they have medals at county and provincial level.

“Aoife and Orlaith were on the Lucan Sarsfields junior team that won the Leinster Championship about 22 years ago

“They went up to senior level but they didn’t have enough players and came back down again. My youngest daughter Orlaith is still playing.”

Hall of Fame

McKelvey says he was taken by surprise when he was presented with the Hall of Fame award on Friday night.

“I was totally surprised. You see, my family convinced me to go up for the night and they were all there and I never twigged what was going on. They were half-way through the speech when I realised it was me they were talking about.”

As for following Donegal, it is something he has always done, and there is a family connection at present with his late brother’s (Josie) grandson, Jeaic lining out at present (and scoring the Donegal goal on Sunday last against Louth).

“I don’t go up to Donegal matches now as I’m getting a bit old for that. But over the years I have been to a lot of Donegal matches, up in Ulster and any time they came in this direction.

“It’s a huge commitment now. But in our day it’s a huge pity we didn’t have a panel and regular training sessions. It would have been a totally different situation if we did. But nobody did at that time.

“In that Ulster minor final that we played in, the seniors played in their very first Ulster final the same day. And on paper they had a great team, but they were hammered. Down, of course, were very strong at that time.

“Again they lacked belief. When you are going into something for the first time, you need to win comfortably to win at all, you will never win by a point or two,” says McKelvey.