12 months on, Teddy McCarthy will never be forgotten 

IT’S still genuinely hard to believe the great Teddy McCarthy is gone from us.

12 months today Teddy’s untimely passing shocked this great county of ours to its very core. While time has moved on, and they do say, time is a great healer, nothing will be enough to truly get over this terribly sad death of an icon and at the end of the day, a damn good human being.

Teddy had friends left, right, and centre and I was lucky enough to have known Teddy on a personal level having worked with him in Éire Óg and also given my job, I would always see him at games none more so than in the stand behind the dugout in Páirc Uí Rinn. He was always up in the corner.

I was covering a hurling championship game between Avondhu and Carbery when the news filtered through. There were five minutes left in the game and it was difficult mentally and emotionally to process the news. Luckily enough the match was in Cloughduv so I didn’t have far to travel home once I had everything completed with regards to the match report.

I hadn’t seen or spoken to Teddy in quite a while prior to his death. He was always at the end of the phone, whenever I wanted a contact number for a certain person in a club, he always was of assistance either passing on the number or guiding me in the right direction. He was one of the good guys.

ONE OF A KIND

I wasn’t lucky enough to have seen Teddy play, but from reading books, articles and clips on YouTube, it doesn’t take you long to know that this individual from Glanmire was one of a kind. The only dual player to win All-Ireland hurling and football medals in the same year. It’s very unlikely that his remarkable achievement in 1990 will ever be repeated.

I had known Teddy prior to him coming to Éire Óg when he took over the coaching position of the intermediate hurlers at the start of the 2014 season.

The hurlers were wounded following a heavy county final defeat to Kanturk in the IHC decider in November 2013, but the fact Teddy did not hesitate when talking to the club, jumping at the chance to coach the team showed the grá he had for the small ball even though he loved football too.

Éire Óg is my local club and I was honoured and privileged to have worked in the backroom team under the legendary Cork man during his two seasons as coach. 

I got to know Teddy really well during that period. The group didn’t achieve the ultimate goal of winning the county, but Teddy did progress the team in so many ways, achieving promotion from Division 3, a new way of thinking and also introducing a lot of young guns who would go on and become key players in the team that won the IAHC crown in the 2020 season.

He left a mark on the club like he did in every other club he was involved with. We would have great banter, talking about anything and everything before training. 

MODEST

He was always interested in people, and didn’t seek attention when he could have easily given his legendary status. He was so modest with what he won during his career.

A famous line of his that I will never forget while he was coaching Éire Óg, “Medals don’t be posted in the letter box on a Monday morning, you have to go out and earn it.” 

12 months on, Teddy will never be forgotten. Thoughts are with his family today and every day. There will never ever be another Teddy Mac.

Sleep well legend.