Throwback Thursday: Remembering Midleton’s 1987 Munster hurling success

THIRTY FIVE years ago this week, Midleton beat Cappawhite and won the Munster Club Senior Hurling Championship for the second time in their history.

The Magpies 1-12 to 1-11 victory at Fitzgerald Stadium marked the midpoint of a hurling renaissance on the east side of Cork.

That piece of silverware joined three others at Clonmult Memorial Park and another treble was to come for the parish.

In addition to their domestic and provincial honours, Midleton were also Cork minor hurling champions, and they were about to win the All-Ireland Club Hurling Championship alongside the local school lifting the Harty Cup.

The club would also win the Cork Under-21 Hurling Championship later in 1988, and that brought all the major trophies available to Midleton.

It was the kind of clean sweep that some clubs in Ireland could only dream about, and Mildeton did it over two years.

Their provincial success, achieved by a solitary point, was the exact midway point in one of the greatest sporting stories in the history of Cork hurling.

HARD WORK

It was also a realisation of years of hard work done by the people of Midleton, a group who lifted the club out of the intermediate grade and won county titles at U21, U14, and U13 level in 1983.

They were clearly building, with a clear end goal in the minds of everyone at the club, and the 1987 Munster final was the beginning of that plan coming into fruition.

Midleton’s success was also a tale of vengeance, as they were beaten in the 1984 All-Ireland Club Senior Hurling Championship semi-finals by Gort.

That ended a long year for the club, who were denied a chance of winning the ultimate prize by four points.

The Magpies clearly wanted to write this wrong and to achieve this they had to suffer through a quarter-final defeat in the 1984 Cork championship and a loss to Blackrock in the following year’s final. 1986 was a false dawn as they were beaten in a replay of the Munster championship semi-final.

The following year everything came together, a process that began with a 2-12 to 0-15 victory over Na Piarsaigh in the Cork Senior Hurling Championship final at Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

Midleton moved onto Munster a month later and their campaign started with a semi-final clash with Sixmilebridge at Clonmult Memorial Park. The Clare side were no match for Midleton as they won by five points.

It was Cork hurling icon John Fenton who made sure that his club were Munster champions for Christmas.

The midfielder, who won three All-Ireland medals and five All-Stars, was just after finishing his final season at inter-county level. He left the highest level with almost every medal from every grade in his pocket and it was time for another legendary showing in black and white.

He was a player who personally knew how to win big games, as he showed in the 1986 Munster final by scoring 0-8 against Clare.

Fenton had done everything up until that point with Midleton, a run that included the club’s promotion to the top tier of the Cork hurling championship in 1978. Over the next nine years he won the Senior Hurling Championship on three different occasions and one Munster medal.

An All-Ireland title was what they all wanted, and to get into the final four, he had to nail a late 65-metre free.

Everyone inside Fitzgerald Stadium was staring and watching, holding their breath as a routine set piece was set to decide the destination of the O’Neill Cup.

Up until that point, it had been an even game between the two provincial rivals. Midleton were boosted, by goalkeeper Ger Power.

The shot-stopper acted as Ger Cunningham’s understudy with the Cork senior hurlers, and he possessed a wealth of experience from two victories campaigns in Munster and one All-Ireland triumph.

This was very much needed against a free-scoring Cappawhite team that was averaged a goal a game in the Tipperary championship. They were also fresh from downing local kingpins Thurles Sarsfields and Roscrea, a major statement from a club on a journey towards their first senior county title.

Cappawhite were unpredictable and Midleton had their work cut out on the afternoon of December 5, 1987. With the two sides deadlocked, Fenton buried the free and crowned Midleton Munster champions.

The victory was a cause for celebration all across the town in the days leading up to Christmas.

It also lit a spark in the wider hurling community in the Rebel County as it ended three years of misery for Cork clubs in the Munster Club championship.

Most importantly, Midleton’s success gave them a gateway back into the All-Ireland series and a chance to win the biggest prize in club hurling, a feat achieved on St Patrick’s Day against Athenry.