Medal presentation for Mayo boys
There will be a medal presentation on Friday evening in Breaffy House Hotel, Castlebar, for the Mayo team that lifted the Jim Cashin Cup as 2017/18 Under 12 SFAI Subway Inter-league champions.
The medals will be presented by the Cathaoirleach of Mayo County Council, Councillor Blackie Gavin, and one of the county's finest sporting servants, Alan Dillon - a man more associated with Gaelic football but who also played soccer for Mayo in the Kennedy Cup as a young teenager.
Walter Barrett, Ollie King, Declan Leonard, Thomas Dempsey and Cormac Henry formed the management team and emulated the feat of the 2014/15 set-up, when Mayo captured the Jim Cashin Cup for the first time ever under the stewardship of Joe Kelly, Kieran O'Hora and Keelan Moran.
The 2017/18 SFAI Subway Inter-league campaign saw Mayo earn group stage wins over Longford (5-0), Roscommon (5-1) and Galway (1-0) before a draw with Athlone & District (2-2) left them top of the table and in the national semi-final against Donegal. That last four game finished 2-2 after extra time but Mayo won the penalty shootout, setting up a final against Dublin & District Schoolboys League.
The final, played in Mullingar last May, looked to be slipping away from them as they trailed one-nil with time running out but an equaliser five minutes before the end was quickly followed by a second goal for a lead that the would hold on to in the closing stages, though DDSL rattled the bar soon after Mayo had gone ahead.
It was a high quality game and a fitting finale to a epic journey for the Mayo team, which was characterised by great skill allied to huge levels of determination.
There will be the stars of the show at Friday's ceremony in Breaffy House Hotel, Castlebar, which gets under way at 8 p.m.