Andy Whelan was a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

er from

County Laois County Laois ( ; gle, Contae Laoise) is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and in the province of Leinster. It was known as Queen's County from 1556 to 1922. The modern county takes its name from Loígis, a medie ...

. He was a native of the

Kildare Kildare () is a town in County Kildare, Ireland. , its population was 8,634 making it the 7th largest town in County Kildare. The town lies on the R445, some west of Dublin – near enough for it to have become, despite being a regional cen ...

border village of Jamestown, near

Ballybrittas Ballybrittas (, IPA: �bˠalʲəˈbʲɾʲɪt̪ˠaːʃ is a small village in the northeast of County Laois, Ireland situated on the R445 about 5 km SW of Monasterevin, County Kildare. Formerly on the N7 Dublin - Limerick road, the village is ...

. He played as goalkeeper when Laois won the

Leinster Senior Football Championship The Leinster Senior Football Championship, known simply as the Leinster Championship and shortened to Leinster SFC, is an annual inter-county Gaelic football competition organised by the Leinster Council of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA ...

final against Kildare in 1946."Leinster Senior Football Finalists"
''Leinster GAA'' (2000). Retrieved on 26 February 2019. Laois didn't win the

again until 2003 when

Mick O'Dwyer Michael O'Dwyer (born 9 June 1936) is an Irish retired Gaelic football manager and former player. He most famously managed the senior Kerry county team between 1974 and 1989, during which time he became the county's longest-serving manager an ...

led them to victory and another Ballybrittas native,

Fergal Byron Fergal Byron is a former Gaelic footballer for Laois from Ballybrittas. A goalkeeper, he won a Leinster Senior Football Championship medal with Laois in 2003 and picked up an All-Star award in the same year. He also won a Leinster Under 21 F ...

was goalkeeper.

References

Further reading