Christy O'Connor: St Nicks and Glen Rovers on march together again recalls golden age of Christy Ring

Nine days before the 1948 Munster hurling semi-final between Cork and Limerick, Christy Ring found himself doing something that the majority of Cork GAA supporters would have thought was outlandish full stop, never mind doing that something so close to a big championship match with Cork – Ring was kicking football.

Ring was in Douglas watching St Nicholas play UCC in the City Division Junior football championship when a St Nicks player picked up an injury and had to retire from the match. 

Since St Nicks had only brought the bare 15 players to the game, Ring offered to tog off and bring the side back up to full strength.

Trailing by six points at half-time, Ring’s unscheduled debut for the football wing of his club saw him make a monumental impact; Ring scored two goals and created two more as Nicks won by four points.

Ring had been playing with Glen Rovers since 1941 but he had never togged out with St Nicks until that evening. He didn’t play football again that season, but, he played in almost all of St Nicks senior football championship games for the next eight years between 1949-'56.

St Nicks were extremely competitive during those years, reaching three county senior finals in five years between 1950 and '54. After narrowly losing the 1950 and 1951 finals to Garda and Collins, Nicks hammered Clonakilty in the 1954 decider to secure their third senior title.

Ring featured in all St Nicks' games in 1950 and 1954 but he didn’t play in the 1951 final. 

Double delight

The 1954 win was all the more special again for Ring as it secured his only double. It was the third time in their history that St Nicks and Glen Rovers completed a senior hurling and football double.

Ring’s last football championship game for St Nicks was in the 1956 quarter-final against Millstreet in Macroom, a bad-tempered match during which Ring had his jaw broken.

As Ring left football behind to focus on hurling, St Nicks’ greatest days arrived during the following decade. 

As well as securing successive titles in 1965-’66, St Nick’s became the first Cork club to win a Munster club football title, defeating John Mitchels in the 1966 final by one point.

After agonisingly losing the 1969 county final to UCC by one point, St Nick’s never reached those heights again. The following four decades were a struggle but Nicks still continued to proudly remain in the senior grade, a status they had first secured in 1937.

There were sporadic good days this century; the club won a Premier Minor title in 2003; three successive wins against Carbery Rangers, Aghada and Carrigdhoun saw Nicks reach the 2007 senior semi-final where they were well beaten by a Nemo Rangers side en route to bagging the four-in-a-row.

Nicks didn’t win a first-round game again over the following eight seasons after 2007 but successive wins against Clonakilty and Dohenys (after a replay) saw them reach the 2015 quarter-final, where they were hammered by Nemo.

Drop zone

St Nicks kept hanging onto their senior status by their fingernails until a restructuring of the championship saw the club move to the newly created SAFC in 2020. However, three consecutive relegations saw St Nicks slip into the Cork Premier Junior championship.

They’ve been there ever since but the club have been steadily building to try and work their way back up the gradient. Finalists last year, St Nick’s defeated Kinsale last weekend to book their place in the Premier Junior semi-finals.

The stage is vastly different now but a number of those St Nicks players who will line out in Sunday’s Premier Senior hurling semi-final against Midleton are following a rich tradition set by some of the club’s legendary predecessors, including two of Cork’s greatest dual players in Jack Lynch and Denis Coughlan.

Lynch remains the only player in history to have captained both senior inter-county hurling and football teams in the same year while Coughlan was the first man to captain Cork to the Munster football championship twice. 

As well as captaining Cork in the 1967 All-Ireland football final, Coughlan captained the Cork hurlers for two seasons.

St Nicks have always had an incredible history when it comes to inter-county captains. James 'Jas' Murphy, who captained Kerry in their 1953 All-Ireland football final win against Armagh, played for St Nicks in the 1947 county final, which they lost to Clonakilty.

Rob Downey, who captained Cork to the 2025 Munster title, scored a crucial 1-1 against Kinsale last weekend. Naturally, Downey’s primary focus is on trying to win a first county title for the Glen in ten years. That wait has been even more torturous with the Glen having lost three successive finals between 2019-’21, as well as being relegated from the senior grade for the first time in 97 years in 2023.

And yet, Downey, his brother Eoin and a host of Glen Rovers players still have the passion of their illustrious predecessors to play both codes for their club. Huge battles lie ahead, but it’s possible that the Glen and St Nicks could achieve a glorious ‘double’ yet this season. 

It wouldn’t be anything like the historic doubles of 1938, 1941 and 1954, but it would still rekindle memories of that glorious era for the club.

Whatever happens, a cohort of players from the Glen and Nicks continue to honour a rich legacy and lineage of history, heritage and tradition handed down by some of the greats – including the greatest of all.