Introduction
Glenelly St. Joseph's serves the
parish of Badoney Upper, which includes the villages of Plumbridge and
Cranagh. Throughout its short history the club has had its ups and
downs, from being promoted to Division 2 after two years of existance
and then back down soon afterwards and has remained in Division 3 since
after many promotion battles.
Previous Clubs In The Area
The present club
wasn't the first football club in the area, as it was preceded by;
Plumbridge (1932-36), Cranagh (1932-39 and 1947-57) and Glenelly (late
1960's). Cranagh were finalists in the Junior Football Championship in
1948, 1954, and 1955. In the times where no team existed players from
the area played for Gortin, Newtownstewart, Strabane, Owen Roes and
Aughabrack.
A New Club Was Formed
The present club was admitted to the league in 1981.
More Information on how the new team was formed is coming soon.
The Club Name
It
was decided by the first commitee to name the club after the valley
that the two villages are located in. As there was no know Irish
translation of the Glenelly Valley that the committee could find they
came settle on Gleann Eallaigh. In the following years an Irish translation was found in the Annals of the Four Masters. This translation was Gleann Aichle.
The
Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, or The Annals of the Four Masters as
they are more commonly called, were compiled between 1632 and 1636
under the direction of Michael O'Clery, a franciscan brother in
Donegal. They are a yearly chronicles of major (and sometimes minor)
occurrances in Ireland from the Year of the Deluge (2242 A.M.) until
1616 A.D.
We will upload the relevent references shortly.
Promoted To Division Two
Within two years of
forming, the club found itself being promoted to Division two of the
county. That was in 1983, a great season which seen them finalists in
the Junior Championship only to get beaten by Dregish. In the
quarter-final they had beaten Newtownstewart, then they thrashed Eskra
by fifteen points in the semi-final. The team ended the year with
league playoffs, a chance that the didn't squander and for all there
hard graft they found themselves being promoted.
The Jim Devlin Cup
The club won the Jim Devlin cup in 1994.
