The Pitch Trail – from Rea to Rea!!!

The Club went through a somewhat nomadic existence in the eighties using a number of pitch locations as our home venue. Following the early legendary bouts, in the Creamery Yard, commencing in the summer of 1966, the Club moved to Ryan Vora’s paddocks, where the graveyard is now located.
The Ryan Vora Family knocked two boundary ditches at their own expense to provide a pitch for the Club, which was used for the next ten years or so. Earlier encounters had taken place on the concrete yard in front of the new School. A game against Glosha was played in Caplis’s field, with entrance at the side of Collins Shop and a clash with Urlingford took place in Quigley’s field behind the new School, these were both “jumpers for goalpost” affairs.

The Club entered the North Tipperary & District League in 1983. The need to comply with pitch size regulations forced a move to Quigley’s field directly across from Kennedy’s Bar & Shop. Our maiden campaign in the NT&DL was played at this venue including a memorable summer Tournament in 1984. As housing construction was about to commence on the site, the Club re-located back down (to)behind the Rising Sun Bar, but to an adjoining field where a stream had been re-routed by Club members during the summer months. Deteriorating conditions during that campaign saw the Club take to the high road and set up home in a field owned by Larry Ryan(C) and which is now under plantation.

A number of successful campaigns were played at this venue before we moved back down to the village, where PJ Caplis provided a field opposite Dinny Kennedy’s house on the Newport Road out of the village. This was an era where changing rooms & showers were certainly not the norm and boot of a car was as good as it got!
With improving NT&DL standards in terms of pitch regulations, the Club travelled southwards to Bilboa in 1989. Whilst the distance from the village was not ideal, the move presented the Club with the opportunity to play in what was one the best, if not the best venue in the NT&DL at that time. Bilboa Sports Club was to become home arena for Rearcross FC for the next eleven seasons, which included a temporary move up to Walsh’s field during pitch development works and a trip back to Kennedy’s “Hurling Inch” in the townlands of Foilduff, where Tournaments were played in 1993 and also the opening game against Borrisokane in the NT&DL.

After playing at venues on the four exit roads out of the village, the Club eventually arrived back home to Rearcross in the millennium year, with our first game taking place on the 25^th July 2000 and ironically back to the location where the original player gatherings took place in 1966

Written by Ger Kennedy (July 2016)