Kiskeam v Glen Rovers: Cork GAA Jersey Wars

WE want to know what your favourite GAA geansaí is.

From here until the end of August, your votes will decide the best design in our Cork GAA Jersey Wars competition.

Our resident jersey expert Denis Hurley compiled a list of 32 clubs, based on those involved in the senior tiers and a selection of wild cards. We put them in alphabetical order and paired them up and we're now down to the last eight. 

Full details of the competition are here.

Voting will run from 8am each day for 24 hours on the link below:

KISKEAM

IT'S perhaps unsurprising that the New Zealand rugby team should provide the inspiration for Kiskeam’s colours, though for the first 20 years of the club’s existence, they lined out in a blue jersey with yellow sash.

Founded in the mid-1940s, Kiskeam did win the Duhallow novice title in 1947 but otherwise success was hard to come by for the club situated close to the Cork/Kerry border.

Having reached the 1960 Duhallow junior final, Kiskeam enjoyed an eight-point lead over Castlemagner at one stage but lost out and then, following a heavy defeat to the same opposition in 1963, one Kiskeam player walking off the field suggested that the blue and yellow jerseys should be burned.

Whether or not the garments met such a fiery fate is unknown, but what is certain is they were not seen again as the colours were replaced. Prior to the start of the 1964 season, a change was afoot, as then-club treasurer and current president John P Murphy told The Echo’s John Tarrant in 2020.

“It came up at a club meeting,” he said.

We needed to turn matters around, somebody spoke of the All Black rugby success in their familiar colours. Though there wasn’t too much money in the kitty, it was proposed and accepted to opt for a black jersey.”

The transformation in fortunes was immediate as the club won the Duhallow title for the first time in 1964 and went all the way to county glory. A period competing at intermediate level followed and, while they did drop back to junior, the 1990s saw them regularly challenging for divisional honours.

In 1994, 1996, 1997, 1999 and 2000, they won the Duhallow junior football title, reaching the county final in 1994, 1997 and 2000, while there were divisional final losses in 1991 and 1995. Eventually, they went all the way in the county in 2002 – reaching the Munster club final – and when the intermediate grade was split in two for 2006, Kiskeam were placed in the new premier intermediate championship.

Ten years later was to prove to be a memorable one, as the club achieved a place in the senior championship with victory in the PIFC. After a first-round defeat to Na Piarsaigh, Kiskeam regrouped with wins over Castletownbere and Mallow before turning the tables on Piarsaigh at the quarter-final stage.

Another win, against Béal Átha’n Ghaorthaidh, set up a final clash with Fermoy, who also wear an all-black kit, trimmed in amber. The North Cork side wore red and white for the final while Kiskeam donned a reversal of their usual jerseys, white with black accents, but it didn’t affect them unduly as they triumphed by 2-12 to 0-14 in Páirc Uí Rinn.

Wins over Aghada and Carbery were highlights of the first year up while there was a memorable victory over Mallow in 2019, but the end of that year saw a restructuring with Kiskeam placed in the new Senior A grade, from where they will look to progress in 2021. Public house The Harp & Shamrock provide shirt sponsorship.

GLEN ROVERS

THERE are few sets of colours that are as unique and easily identifiable as those of Glen Rovers.

Apart from the English rugby union enthusiasts for whom Northampton Saints would spring to mind, the combination of green, black and gold is unmistakeably Glen. Of course, there is unfortunate circumstance linked with such an occurrence.

When the club formed in 1916, the colours chosen were green and gold hoops, the same as Blackrock, but black was added as a tribute to those who fell in the fight for freedom. In a 1954 article, the great GAA journalist John D Hickey identifies founder member Mick O’Connell as the man who made the suggestion, which was unanimously welcomed.

The club competed at junior before making the jump to intermediate after winning the 1924 county title and they romped through the second tier at the first attempt to secure senior status for 1926, remaining there ever since.

They soon became established as one of the foremost clubs in Cork, winning 24 county SHC titles up to and including 1976, while that victory was followed by their third Munster club championship and second All-Ireland.

That ’76 victory was notable because it came over Blackrock, who were always able to retain their green and gold hoops when the sides met by virtue of being the older club. Usually, the Glen donned the black and white of sister football club St Nicholas but in ’76 they wore gold jerseys, black shorts and green socks. By the time the clubs made it back in 1978, the ‘older club’ rule had been dispensed with and so Blackrock also had to change, wearing green jerseys with gold trim.

Gold jerseys remained the Glen’s back-up choice until the millennium and black shorts were sometimes used in games against the likes of northside rivals Na Piarsaigh. When the Glen met Blackrock in the 2013 county minor final, a jersey with thick green and black hoops was used while the following year the seniors wore a Kerry-style green with gold hoop but with black sleeves against Ballymartle. Then, in 2019, against Newtownshandrum, an all-black kit was used.

For 2020, the club entered into a new agreement with McKeever Sportswear and wanted to honour the centenary of the birth of Christy Ring on their new jerseys. A watermark of the great man was overlaid on the hoops and, when the Glen reached the county final against Blackrock and lost the toss for colours (both clubs’ alternatives were too similar), an all-black version was worn.

The Ring jerseys proved to be incredibly popular, with more than a thousand sold by the club, and they will continue to be used in 2021. While the Glen went without a shirt sponsor for almost a century, Blackwater Motors are now on board.