The first official game played by the club took place on Sunday September 16th at 12.00 in West Park in Galway City.
Castle United were a Galway City based team, the game was played in West Park Renmore. For this season Kiltullagh played all home games at this venue as Castlepark at the time was not suitable for league games.
The line up for this first game was :
Paddy Duane
Sean Lawless
Liam Lawless
Joey Murphy (RIP)
Paul Lawless
Stan Lawless
Fintan Lawless
Gerry Murphy
Tom Hanlon
Martin Donoghue
John Whelan (RIP)
Subs
John Leahy for Joey Murphy
Christy Corcoran for Tom Hanlon
First Goal scored:
The first goal scored by Kiltullagh Pioneers in a competitive game was scored by John Whelan on Sunday 21st October in a game v Lavally in Tuam. John finished joint top scorer for the first season with 5 goals and continued to play for the club for a number of seasons. He later immigrated to the United States and tragically passed away in October 2011. Another club player from that first season Joey Murphy is also sadly no longer with us having passed away in September 2002.
Gerry Cannon
Kevin Kelly,
Christy Corcoran,
Kerrill Hanlon,
John Martyn,
Tom Hanlon,
Seamus Cannon,
Michael Martyn,
Kevin o Connor,
Gerry Murphy,
Liam Lawless,
Martin Kelly,
Martin Donoghue,
Frank Duane,
John G Duggan,
James J Duggan,
Kieron Jordan,
Kevin Jordan,
Sean Lawless,
Fintan Lawless,
Paul Lawless,
John Lawless,
Stan Lawless,
John Whelan (RIP),
Joey Murphy (RIP),
8/9/1979
John Leahy,
Paddy Duane,
Noel Murphy,
Noel O Connor
Along with playing games in the Galway FA leagues the club also ran a very competitive indoor soccer league in the Temperance Hall Gym in Loughrea and a series of Discos held in Kiltullagh hall in order to find raise for the newly formed club.
Kiltullagh Pioneers was founded in August 1979 by a group of local people interested in taking part in the local Galway Football Association leagues. At the time in Kiltullagh there existed a progressive group called Kiltullagh Sports Centre which organized and ran a number of local activities such as Kiltullagh Tennis court and a wide range of other activities for the youth of the area. Looking to advance the range of activities a group met in August of 1979 to look into setting up a soccer club. At a well-attended meeting Kiltullagh Pioneers AFC was created with the first set of officers elected
Chairman: Michael McGloin
Secretary: Patrick McGloin
Treasurer: Nora Gibbons
Committee: Christy Corcoran, Seamus Cannon, Stan Lawless
We as a club are lucky that the original minute’s book exists and we can draw from it when detailing the birth of the club.