The Nominative Case

The officers of the Club in 1955 were, Chairman, Paddy Keamey; Secretary, Tommy Mullen; Treasurers, Jim Haughney and D. McDonough; Captain, Connie Kelly.
The Secretary, Tommie Mullen unfolds the Nominative Case. 1955 was a year when Oldcastle had to win or else! Players were coming to the end of their playing days and had not achieved anything worthwhile. The first game was against Millbrook on a snow covered pitch. Two goals by Pat Smith of Farnaglough set Oldcastle on their way to the Junior final. This they won in January of the following year.

The semi-final was played against Ratoath in Navan. This match Oldcastle won, but Ratoath objected to the Oldcastle win because Frank Remicks, the referee signed his name on the referee’s report in English, so the game had to be played again but this time Oldcastle lost. One wonders at the stupidity of a rule which deprived a team of the winning oi a match because someone over which that team had no control, signed his name in the wrong language.

As I said Oldcastle lost and we had only one day in which to lodge an appeal against the Co. Board decision on the objection. This meant driving to Ferns, in Wexford, to Michael O’Neill, Sec. of the Leinster Council on Sunday evening to be on time with the appeal. At the Leinster Council meeting, the Oldcastle delegates, Paddy Kearney and myself refused to proceed with the appeal until the Chairman of the Meath Co. Board left the meeting, as Meath already had two delegates there. We won the appeal because the injustice inflicted on Oldcastle was plain to all the delegates but we decided to play Ratoath again so that we could not be accused of winning at the table.

The match was won with the help of Peter Tuite, a student at Dalgan Park who replaced Battie McEnroe. Oldcastle then played Nobber in the final and we won this match. But in the course of the match, the Nobber goalie suffered a broken leg and Connie Kelly was taken to hospital suffering from concussion.
This dampened the celebrations in Oldcastle that evening. Later on we played Nobber in a charity match for the Nobber goalie and this time we celebrated.

Oldcastle went to the semi-final of the Intermediate Championship in 1957 when they played Carnaross, but the referee allowed a goal, which
was scored after the final whistle, to the opposition. A row broke out and an Oldcastle supporter took the law into his own hands and struck the
referee. So we were back at the County Board fighting again. This time we were not so successful.

After this, most of the players retired and we were left with about seven players to build a team around.

From: “The History of Oldcastle GAA Club 1884-1984” – Editor: Tommy Sheridan