John Horgan on hurling: Always special when city clubs collide in the final

ANY Cork senior hurling final featuring two clubs from the city takes on that greater bit of significance and generates huge interest inside and outside the county.

For the older generation, the senior citizens, a category that this observer is now a member of, an all-city final brings back a thousand memories of bygone days when you could have 30,000 and many more crammed into the old Athletic Grounds.

That was the story when the big three clubs from the northside and the southside went into battle and when the bragging rights sustained you throughout the long winter nights that were ahead and further beyond.

The expectation is that when the Barrs and the Rockies collide next weekend in their first final in direct opposition since 1982, there might well be close to the attendance figures of yesteryear.

The fact that as well as having two city clubs in the final, the hugely attractive curtain-raiser featuring Castlemartyr and Inniscarra in the PIHC final should bring a very sizeable set of supporters from east of the Lee, a similar hotbed of hurling.

As double-headers go, this one has huge potential. More often than not when a double-header takes place, the vast majority of those supporting the teams in the opening game make their exit when it has concluded.

That surely should not be the case on Sunday week whether your team wins or loses the opening encounter.

When the four teams arrive for the final, they will be entering a stadium that we should all be very proud of, an arena that now ranks as one of the best you will find anywhere in any code.

What it is now is in stark contrast to what it used to be when the big games were played out in the old Cork Athletic Grounds and when the big three in the city, Barrs, Rockies, and Glen battled ferociously for the great prize of winning what used to be affectionately known as ‘Cork’s Little All Ireland’.

Not too many present next Sunday might remember that old ground but those of us that do have our own fond memories of the place.

Somebody once penned an article that the famed coliseum in Rome didn’t stage contests as epic or as dramatic or at times as blood-stained as Cork’s Athletic Grounds.

You had Cork and Tipp in titanic Munster championship battles, Cork and Kerry in the bi-annual football showdown, and then you had the Barrs and the Rockies, the Glen and the Rockies, the Glen and the Barrs, and so on.

WELSH COAL MINE

Firstly, to the dressing rooms in that old place and one player described their location under the stand. He said that they were the nearest thing to a Welsh coal mine with the associated pools of darkness, dripping water and dust falling from the roof when the crowd got over-excited.

Having been in that stand as a young child, one can empatise with those sentiments.

Returning to the dressing rooms in those days at half-time and full-time, the players had to walk through the supporters in the VIP section known as the ‘Cage’ and if your team had not performed ... well you knew all about it.

But for all its faults, the Athletic Grounds was still a place we loved to go to, it had its own unique atmosphere, the players loved playing there and on those county final days it was electric, all the more so when the outcome hung in the balance until the dying embers.

Back then there were no crowd restrictions and the long walk down the Centre Park Road past Fords and Dunlop’s had a buzz all of its own.

Yes, that was then and this is now and in Togher and Church Road for the next week the preparations will intensify and at the same time wind down.

No doubt, their last final meeting of 1982 will be fondly recalled, more so in Togher as the ’Barrs emerged victorious to retain the title.

That ’Barrs team contained some of Cork’s greatest ever club hurlers, men like John Cremin, a current selector, Eamon Fitzpatrick, the late, great Christy Ryan, John Meyler, Jimmy Barry-Murphy, Tim Finn, among others.

Ray Cummins, Pat Moylan, Tom Cashman, Danny Buckley, Pat Kavanagh, Der McCurtain, all lined up for the Rockies.

Barry-Murphy pounced for one of the Barrs’ two goals that day while, despite securing a hat-trick of goals for the Rockies, Ray Cummins ended up on the losing team.

It’s almost impossible to imagine that they haven’t met in a final since that October Sunday of 40 years ago.

Since then the Barrs have been victorious only three times on final day while the Rockies have been winners on five occasions.

Those stats illustrate how the senior championship landscape has changed on Leeside, the dominance that city clubs once enjoyed is not what it once used to be.

That situation applies in a lot of other counties too, former powerhouses are finding it harder and harder to rule as they did before. 

In Tipperary for instance, famed Thurles Sars went from 1974 to 2005 without winning a title, a title they have won 36 times in total.

It is what it is, as they say, and when the opportunity presents itself again to try and enter the winner’s enclosure you must do everything in your power to try and lift the old trophy.

That opportunity might not come around again as quickly as you would want it and the Barrs will be all too aware of that.

But for now, the old order has been restored, two legendary Cork hurling clubs back together again on the last Sunday of the season.

It is a fascinating prospect and, no doubt about it, many of the old ghosts from a long time ago will once more be keeping a close eye on the proceedings.