Snapped - the image of Teddy McCarthy that will be immortalised

“Teddy used to joke with me – ‘I made you!’” laughs Des Barry.

Teddy McCarthy obviously made his own name too, but Des’s famous picture of the dual star rising high to collect the sliothar in the 1993 NHL final replay served as the ideal shorthand for the type of player he was.

It’s fitting that, on the weekend of another league final involving Cork, the statue of Teddy, based on Des’s image, will be unveiled at Sarsfields Hurling Club, following a luncheon at Vienna Woods Hotel.

For Des, who retired as a photographer for the Echo and Examiner in 2016 after 44 years, to be associated with such a memorial is a great honour.

“Teddy was great for us,” he explains, “he was the only player I ever remember that, not only could he jump so high, but he could stay up there – an extra split-second, but that gave us a bit of extra time. I knew I had captured him going high, but it wasn’t until later I saw that he had the ball in his hand.

“Back then, you had to focus the camera and had to shoot it and hope you got your timing right. Now, you can see instantly on the camera what the shot is like but, back then, you had to go back to the office, into the dark room, develop the picture and see.

“We got some magnificent pictures of Teddy, in hurling and football. I always got on well with him – I was often down at training taking snaps and he’d come over and sit down alongside me and be asking how I managed to lug the heavy long lens around.

“I told him it was like him with his hurley – you needed it to get the job done.”

A native of Mayfield, Des won a B-grade league and championship double in both hurling and football with the local club at minor level as well as being a talented rugby player.

“We had a lot of rugby lads at the time and we even had a team in the office,” he says.

“One Saturday, we played the Army down in Crosshaven and about six fellas got badly injured. We were called in on the Monday and told that it had to stop or there’d be nobody left to work.”

With that obstacle overcome, it was all about honing the craft.

“I used to do inter-firm soccer matches down on Centre Park Road on a Sunday morning at half ten.

“There were no buses down from Mayfield at that hour so I had to walk down in all kinds of weather, get a picture of each team and three action shots.

“I had no long lens, so you had to wait and wait and wait for action. Then walk into town and see what you had. I fell in love with it.

"My favourite sports picture was taken by Louis MacMonagle - Ned Power, the Waterford goalkeeper, catching the ball with Christy Ring swinging. It was three images in one - Ned, Christy and then the crowd. That's what you were aiming for."

On Monday, May 17, 1993 – the day after Cork and Wexford had drawn for the second time, with the Rebels going on to win the third match a week later – the image was the centre-piece of the first page of the sports section in the Examiner, with the caption recording McCarthy “rising majestically”.

“I got a few calls about it at the time,” Des Barry says, “and it’s great to be able to look back at it now – fellas still talk to me about it and it was how long ago, 32 years.

“I pass by Sars regularly and it’s fantastic to think that Teddy will be remembered in such a way.”