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Team Trainspotters...

From Castleisland, Co. Kerry, Ireland, the Trainspotters join together once a year to play in the annual Christmas Blitz......

The team itself was established in 1997 by Trevor O Donoghue as a means of getting all the lads together in order to go on the piss after each game.
The idea of winning was never brought up at this early stage, as we had no idea what division we would even be in!

The original trainspotters were: (if I forgot someone tough shit - it was 4 years ago)

As it happened we were put into Division 3 Men which we thought at the time was a bit unfair. There is still a lot of speculation over who was captain the first year the team was established but I think it might have been Peter Burke.

Daniel Shanahan and Mick O Donoghue, who couldn’t play with us because they were “too good” apparently, coached us. Anyway, whoever was Captain took us all the way to the final but unfortunately we were beaten.

1998:

After all the excitement the first year, we decided to make an addition to the team - Ivan “Ghetto Superstar” Stuart was introduced to add an outside threat to the team.

The year was 1998, and everyone was very excited at the prospect of being led out onto the court by their new captain Trevor O Donoghue. That year we wrote ourselves into the history books by entering the court at the Final with silver hair and two coaches in black suits and sunglasses. The biggest cheer of the blitz that year was indeed ours!

We shocked the Cordal boys in the final (Division 3 Men: Trainspotters 20 Cordal 16) and Kevin Lynch was named as MVP. They even initiated a new award for the best-dressed coaches, which belonged to Mick and Snuffy.

Also that year, two of the Trainspotters' greatest groupies won MVP awards. In Division Two Ladies Nora Buckley, despite losing the final, put on an almost flawless display throughout, and in the Senior Men division, Frank O'Rahilly secured the award after sleeping with most, if not all, of the judging committee.

That night out was definitely one to be remembered, even though I’m fairly sure not a lot of us do! The trophy was placed in the centre of the dancefloor and danced around by several men in dark sunglasses. As you can imagine, copious amounts of alcohol were consumed in the process!

1999:

Following this shocking result in Division 3 Men we were put up a division to Senior Men. This meant we would have to look the part so we got sponsorship off the River Island Hotel and after some thought we decided on purple and black!

Another new addition was made in 1999, Padraig Shanahan was brought in to bring .... em, .... something to the team. We also tried to bring his older brother and coach Snuffy to the team but the committee ruled that he was too good for Senior Men. Ivan Superstar Stuart was the captain for the year.

Unfortunately that year was an absolute disgrace as we lost our first game by a huge margin and needed to win our next game by a certain score. Our opponents did not turn up so we got a walkover and did not qualify. We were indeed “a disgrace to the jersey”.

2000:

The first Basketball Blitz of the millennium brought a new sense of purpose back to the team and with the team eventually having taken shape with the introduction of new players and the strengthening of the squad over the years, we looked like we could mount a serious challenge.

This possibility was greatly boosted with the introduction of Daniel “The Tan” Shanahan who had serious basketball experience and had played for Ireland underage. Another factor which would help us, was the naming of Kevin Lynch as Captain. Kevin had already won an MVP award for the team and had played in every blitz with the team.

We decided that we would film all the games on the video camera, but this idea was taken a step further when an infamous statement was made by Humphrey Shanahan and we decided interviews would be a lot funnier.

We were struck a blow by the organising committee who decided that after the previous years antics of having vodka in the water bottles, we would play our group games late at night and if we came down drunk we would be disqualified!!!!! This is how our Fixtures looked:

However, in the end we came out and conquered. After convincing wins over the Halfway and Scart we faced the Desmonds in the semi-final. They turned up with only 3 players and did not want to play! But we let them have Eoin O'Sullivan (who designed this website and the Kerry Gaa website - check out http://kerry.gaa.ie) so they would have a fair chance.

With only 4 players they went up 9–0 and we were shitting it. But 2 three pointers from Ivan put us back in the game. We eventually won 22-14, but certainly didn’t make it easy for ourselves.

Final Day, and there was only one way to top the previous final…everyone dress up ridiculously. And so we did, in fact once again we received a huge cheer and we were very well received by the crowd. If there is one sure-shot way to get a crowd behind you it’s to go out looking like a complete TIT! So the game was a physical one but in the end we endured and won out Senior Men by a score of 18-10.

2001:

Due to an ever expanding squad (and some ever expanding egos) we decided to take the unprecedented step and enter a second team for the 2001 Blitz. The two team were as follows:

The results from the Blits 2001 are available on the Results Page.

2002:

Not a great blitz, not great at all.

I said it from the start. :- firstly, 3-in-a-row has never been done and secondly we never win anything when we wear new gear!

It was however the first year we launched the taboo subject of a ladies team and whilst we had in previous years been associated with the Chemical Sisters, there was nothing formal there. So we decided to launch a ladies team, comprising mostly of Donoghue cousins, all the girls were from Killarney so once again the slack-jawed yokels of Castleisland and the surrounding parishes have something to thank the spotters for - fresh meat! The girls did ok and whilst none of them stuck to the g-string rule, a semi-final was a good showing for their first year.

There was also a lot of talk over what to call the Trainspotter B Team for the year. In the end we decided on Wasters because it just really summed up the caliber of messers that have found they're way into the Trainspotters.
However, with a semi-final placing and being led out onto the court by the man who would later be crowned the *Best Looking Trainspotter*, by the end of hard fought campaign they had proved they're metal (without winning a single game!!). Especially after some questionable scheduling organized Pub Golf the night before the semi-final - "What fucking chance have ye of getting to the semi's?" they said.

And finally to the Trainspotters Senior Team. Disgraceful. 1 day, 2 loses, one by 11 points, one by 14 points. It was truly an awful day to be a Trainspotter.

To add insult to injury, a group of imp-faced tossers (a.k.a. the non-alcoholic trainspotters apart from other things) tried to take our gimmick of dressing up for the final. The may not have won the blitz but they learned a valuable lesson (one that if they had paid more attention to the trainspotter ethos they may not have had to learn), if you're going to dress up for a final - DON'T LOSE THE FUCKING THING!!!

Ye may try to be the Trainspotters from now on but always remember - we've never lost a final, ye've never won a final, henceforth and therefore ye've never won the blitz, henceforth and therefore fuck off and try being original next year.

So to summarise, on-court action was poor, (However, the last time this happened we came back to win 2-in-a-row.)

.... but as for activities off the court... there's only one word for it. Stupendous!!

2003:

The teams for Blitz 2003....

It's been an eventful couple of weeks! There's been a bit of basketball played, a bit of beer drank, a few birds and a lot, quite a lot, of messiness!

It all started Christmas Eve, when spotters from all over the globe converged in Castleisland for the season of blagarding that was about to ensue. The Ass Coach decided that it would actually be a "good idea" for us to get some training in so we headed out to the basketball "arena" in Ballymac! This was comical, farcical, even dangerous!

With lads looking like Titanic survivors after 15 minutes of running around, I decided that the best form of relief was light relief - something funny! I then gracefully took to the court, in my new "Jordans" and absolutely nothing else! No-one would pass me the ball, no-one would mark me, a suggestion that perhaps we should do this before the final was met with a stern "No".

With this shambles of a training session behind us, we all met up for Christmas Eve and then went our separate ways for Christmas dinner.

Then the games began on Stephens Day with the match that we knew would determine our entire blitz!

The Godfathers, or the Mickey Mouse Mafia, have some lovely gear, they have the shooter tops, the have the jerseys, the shorts, the hoodie's, etc. They are missing only one thing - Basketball. They would like you to believe that they are the Trainspotters, however they could not be further from it! The match started well for us taking a 7-2 lead as I recall.

The MMM had nothing really, Brian Shanahan was too busy trying to do it all himself after Snuffy put a €50 bet with him that we'd beat them by 10 points, and after Snuffy and Padraig had both riled him physically he grew that all too familiar scowl all over his face and was out of the game really.
Pierse McCarthy was their other only real threat, and for a man that looked like he was after one too many Happy Meals throughout the course of the year, he was moving Coast-to-Coast fairly gingerly.
The Don, Charlito, Vito and many other such… gimps were nowhere to be seen really. Pat Fitz (Vito by the way… it's so obvious now that I think of it!) was lorded by Peter Burke under the boards and was never really a threat.

But the real highlight of this game for me came when the Don tried to throw his weight around the place. Darragh "Too Tall for his Haircut" McCarthy was impeded by the don after winning a rebound and the don tried to pull him to the floor, Darragh brushed him aside and the don saw red.
Did he "pop a cap in his ass"? No. Did he put him in cement shoes? No. Did he leave him swimming with the fishes? No. "What did he do?" I hear you cry. Well, he became very brave and ran up behind Darragh and shouldered him in the back! HARD! As he was then running past Darragh, staring him out of it - hard as nails now mind! - Darragh drew a kick at his legs and swept them from underneath him. I just remember watching his face, hard as nails staring Darragh out of it, next thing… woops, hit the ground.

The funniest part of the whole thing was that these boys are "big men" when they're out and about downtown, however as soon as something might even come close to kicking off, I hear Brian Shanahan saying to the ref - "He kicked a little boy!" I nearly keeled over when I heard it! Big Men when they're out, Little Boys when they're down! What age is he, 19 or something, for fuck sake!

We won by 8 points anyway, not enough for Snuffy to claim his €50 but at least we kept an unbeaten record against these pretenders.

So it was on high spirits that we headed for town on St Stephens night.

The next day (Saturday) we played the Barbarians. An awful shit-kicking altogether (29-12) and I'd say the most points we've ever put up in any division or in any game! Usually scoring even close to that is kept to the semi-finals. A few three pointers from Ivan left us all knowing that he would be missed in the semi.

The Liabilities were fantastic on the day in question and after a disappointing start in the early game they lost 12-6 after playing some super basketball for a bunch of lads who were pretty much all tattooed the night before. Also the turn up was fantastic, 9 lads at 10.30am was unprecedented! I even made it down myself.

I've also decided that the white side of the jerseys is bad luck and will never see the light of day again.

Once the Liabilities pulled on the sweat covered jerseys for the third game of the day, the blue side made all the difference. The lads were superb, and every one of them got in on the act. Liam the Liability (or Liam Lord of the Liabilities) was on the score sheet, Lyons with what he tells me was his first score ever in the blitz, and all the lads were great on what was the first win for the B team in the blitz. Well done lads, full marks to Snuffy aswell for his coaching efforts.

& that evening, finally… it was time.... Pub Golf tee-off ! - & for photos and a full review see the Pub Golf 2003 section of the site.

Sunday was a day off at the blitz. Don't remember what happened that night, anyway, we definitely went out and I'm sure it was fairly messy!

Next day (Monday) was a semi-final and our first meeting against the Thirsty Scholars (who have a great web site by the way) and we definitely didn't want to lose to another, lets face it, group of pretenders! Needless to say, we pissed on these lads, they were a bit better than the Godfathers alright, and actually took a bit of a lead at the start, which was the necessary kick up the hole we needed. I went in, crashed the boards, dominated, call it what you will, I was fantastic!

Unfortunately, it was after this game that the rigorous schedule of being a Trainspotter kicked into gear again. Photo shoots, Interviews, it's all just part of being a Trainspotter! Tired after an exhausting game, as can be seen from the photo on the St Marys website where Snuffy's jersey is soaked through, and mine… well looks like it was pulled out of the dryer moments before! We were exhausted, but still, obviously, able to belt out the one-liners faster than Pat Hartnett could jot down so we said "Listen, gimme that piece of paper and I'll give you an interview!" So we did, just to get out of there, just hectic again really!

For those of you who haven't seen this rare interview with the Trainspotters, check out www.stmarysbasketball.com for their website and check out the "Christmas Blitz", then try "Trainspotters".

Tuesday, Final Day...

"We have never lost a blitz final and we're not going to start now", that was pounded into our heads before the game, that and tactics. I don't' know, I don't ever really listen to the tactics, but I'm led to believe that this year they were fantastic! Full court press was our chosen weapon on the day, we always seemed to discuss defensive stuff but never really offensive stuff. I guess that's because really its just magical when we step onto that court, the scores just come from somewhere.

We didn't do anything for the final this year, that was part in protest for those imp-faced-tossers from the Mickey Mouse Mafia stealing our bit last year, and partly because I think this year people saw a more mature Trainspotter team in front of them this year.

We decided to let the basketball do the talking this year and really, to put a smile on our own faces. And believe me, we were grinning from ear to ear when we beating a scoreless, even hapless, Shanahans Bar team at half time! No score by them in 10 minutes of basketball.

We didn't keep them scoreless anyway, but we did win the game. Snuffy was fantastic and got MVP, and was well deserved of it. He was chosen as vice-captain before we went out because he had been brilliant throughout the blitz, and he earned it out on the court putting in a great performance that was rewarded by the blitz committee with the award.

Then, after the game, it all kicked into gear again. Photo shoots, interviews, autographs and of course the paparazzi were all over the place! I could barely get into my car and drive away without hitting one of the fuckers!

The black tape! What was the black tape for? Why did ye wear the black tape? Will you sleep with me?

These are just a variety of the questions that were put to me in the hotel that night after wearing a piece of black tape on our jerseys. The answer is quite complicated, it was basically just because we knew that the spotters who are away would see pictures of the final and we just wanted to let them know that we were thinking of them. Even Ivan ALL the way up there in Dublin, who was unable to be there due to a scheduling conflict. It turned out to be a bit more than that on the day but few of us were aware of that until well after the game.

That night the merits of being a spotter were there for everyone to be seen, Paul was "worming" his way around the dance floor, Snuffy's pants were unfortunately kept stead fast around his waist as Relationship Dan was in full effect, Burke was once again in "deep conversation" with a certain lass and too busy to talk to the lads, I was FUBAR as par the course - fucked up beyond all recognition, Lynch was pissed on the smell of it again, don't remember too much about the night as a whole!

Anyway, that's all for now.

Basically, Trainspotters, Christmas, Blitz, Lots of Drink, Frankfurt, New Years… (whistle)!!

2004.....the Legend continues.... !

:-Team Profile by Trevor O'Donoghue-:

If you have any comments or messages for the Spotters email us at: islandspotters@yahoo.ie