Leeside Legends: Young was at the heart of it all for Cork football

Tadgh Crowley and Eamonn Young in 1945 before Cork won the All-Ireland.
He started and finished his football career with Dohenys. Named for Michael Doheny, the Young Irelander who paid a fleeting visit to the town of Dunmanway while on the run from the authorities, it was the first West Cork club to affiliate to the new association in 1886.

Towards the end of his secondary education, the name E Young started to figure on Cork teams in both codes.

It was thought in the aftermath of that game that a breakthrough was coming but, following the Tipperary defeat, they found themselves back at the foot of the mountain in 1945.

In 1946, the Cork footballers became the first GAA team to travel on an airplane when they flew to London for a tournament. Some of the All-Ireland winning squad hung on to bring back the county’s first National Football League title in 1952 but the gap between the third All-Ireland triumph and the fourth would stretch 28 years.

In the 1980s, another generation of Cork sports fans got to know Young when he wrote an eclectic weekly column under the nom de plume of Rambler for the Evening Echo. Mostly confined to GAA matters, he would occasionally use it to point out the anomaly of Dunlop paying John McEnroe lavish sums to use their racquets while they were laying good Cork men off down the Marina.
