SUNDAY’S ULSTER FINAL is expected to be a sometimes fraught encounter between Donegal and Clones, but it’s unlikely to be as troubled as their meeting in Ballybofey in 1973.
‘A violent hour’ was how the banner headline in the following week’s Donegal News described what had gone on during a game won by Tyrone 0-12 to 1-7.
The Donegal Democrat went one better, reporting on its front page that Donegal County Board officials were considering leaving Ulster and seeking to compete in the Connacht Championship.
Picture caption: The Donegal team that played Tyrone in Ballybofey in 1973. Picture from Irish Newspaper Archives
The then Donegal secretary, Frank Muldoon, confirmed as much to the newspaper.
‘As a result of their experiences in recent cross-border games in general and last Sunday’s deplorable scenes, in particular, Donegal County Board of the GAA may seek to leave Ulster and affiliate with Connacht’, reported the Democrat.
Neilly Gallagher doesn’t remember all of the ill-tempered encounter.
The Gaoth Dobhair man was back in the Donegal shirt after a couple of summers away. Donegal were Ulster champions for the first time the previous summer, but their crown was taken by the Red Hands on June 24 1973.
Gallagher spent the night in Letterkenny General Hospital after being put out cold by Mickey Joe Forbes after only 15 minutes.
“He just drew out and hit me,” Gallagher later recalled.
[adrotate group=”79″]“I was facing him at the time and wasn’t expecting it. He caught me totally by surprise and I went down and the next thing I knew I was being carried from the field. They took me to a cafe in the town and an ambulance came and took me to the hospital in Letterkenny.
“I got seven stitches and I was concussed. I spent the night in hospital and that is all I remember of the game.”
Gallagher had posted three long-range scores before his afternoon was unceremoniously ended.
‘Gallagher was laid low with a cowardly attack that left him with a severe gash along his left eye,’ the Donegal News reported.
[adrotate group=”78″]‘The concussed Gallagher had been struck while the play was at the other end of the field. The referee questioned an umpire, but seemed unable to take firm action against the attacker. The game went on again after a four-minute delay’.
Not long afterwards, Seamus Donaghy was sent off by the busy referee Hugh McPolin from County Antrim – described on the day as being ‘out of his depth’ – after he struck out at Andy Curran.
When Tyrone forward Patsy Hetherington was laid out on the Mac Cumhaill Park turf, it was the cue for bedlam on the terraces.
[adrotate group=”79″]‘In flew the cans and bottles as the crowd shouted angrily,’ was how the Donegal News reported it.
‘What a violent hour was perpetrated at MacCumhaill Park, Ballybofey, on Sunday under the name of ‘sport’.
The grounds, overcrowded with its biggest ever attendance of more than 12,000 was enveloped in the very atmosphere of violent feeling.
[adrotate group=”43″]‘The fact that it was a home game for Donegal meant noting. By far the bulk of supporters came from Tyrone and sported their county’s favours. A large section of them were robust in language, seething with excitement and ultra-partisan in their behavious.
‘It was an exhibition on the field and in the crowd that those genuinely interested in Gaelic games will with to forget’.
So bad were the tensions in the ground, several of the many bars in Ballybofey and Stranorlar closed up shop following the game.
[adrotate group=”53″]Muldoon conveyed his feelings to the Ulster Council secretary, Gerry Arthurs, the following day, but nothing became of Donegal’s move to Connacgh and Donegal returned the following summer to lift the Anglo Celt again – defeating Tyrone at Healy Park along the way.
Kieran Keeney came off the bench and scored a goal for Donegal in Ballybofey to put them 1-7 to 0-9 ahead, but with Frank McGuigan and Hetherington in sparkling form, it was Tyrone who took the win.
“Most of the Donegal players wanted to just get the game over and get out of the ground and Ballybofey,” was how Keeney remembered a day that saw him fist home from Joe Winston’s centre.
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