Hurling means everything to the north Cork village of Ballyhea

In the past number of weeks, club PRO, John Mortell, has been posting pictures from the last 50 years to entertain the club’s legion of faithful and his efforts have been received very well in the Avondhu area.

“The reaction, locally, has been brilliant, especially for the old pictures going back 30 to 40 years ago; those ones really did bring back some great memories for people of some really good times.

“We have been blessed, here in Ballyhea, to have had more than our fair share of wonderful days. We think of days like, in 1976, when we won the county junior. Then, in 1980, we won the county intermediate and then made it all the way to the senior final in ’84; there are obviously going to be some great memories from those times.

“On the pages (Facebook), at the moment, we are covering 2001, which was the year we won the U16 county premier, which was an unbelievable achievement for us, beating Glen Rovers, and that year we also won the county minor: They were all great times for us.”

“The museum is there all the time and we are delighted with it. We have an awful lot of old photos and old jerseys from special days, and from special players, up there and we are very proud of that."

“There is no doubt that we have done a lot of work here in the last while. We got a new pitch 12 years ago and we recently put in a new hurling wall. Now, we have the indoor alley and, upstairs, there is a gym, so as well as all the good work that has been done on the field, there is plenty of work being done off it, too. All those things go a long way to becoming and, hopefully, staying, a successful club.”

It is a club with a small, but dedicated, population and it strives to be the best it can be, game after game, year after year, and decade after decade, to judge by some of the photos that have been published recently.

Ballyhea will again show the hurling world where it is going when the shutdown ends, but until that day comes, check out their Facebook page to see where they have been.
