The night a pig really flew on drive home from GAA victory
Back in the 1880s, when there was a bit of a schism in the Association here on Leeside, three different and rival ‘County Boards’ were in existence for a few years.
Those were troubled and tumultuous times in the fledgling GAA, with the political Parnell ‘Split’ resonating right throughout Irish society.
The roles of the clergy and the so-called ‘physical force’ elements within the GAA led to major disputes and threatened the very existence of the organisation. Thankfully, it survived and prospered and, as was noted a few short years later, “the GAA spread like wildfire through the country”.
In this area football and hurling were equally strong and after a Football Club and a Hurling Club were initially set up within a short time, it was basically the same 21 players that played both codes. In fact, the only Senior County Championship to come to the parish was the 1889 Senior Football County title - under the auspices of the ‘O’Brien Board’ – the Cork Board and the O’Connor Board were the other two governing bodies!
How oft do my thoughts in their fancy take flight to the autumn of 1972 when I attended my first ever All-Ireland? Kilkenny beat us that day by 3-25 to 5-11, the Cats scored 2-10 in the last 15 minutes of one of the few 80-minute All-Irelands. Mick Crotty, who died this week, was wing-forward and hit two points.
Yes, that was September all of 52 years ago, and it was earlier that year I went to my first ‘big’ football game.
Back then, the Railway Cup competitions were still going strong. Since the retirement of Christy Ring, the St Patrick’s Day Inter Provincials had seen a declining attendance, but 25-30,000 was still a massive crowd in mid-March.
Begun back in 1927, the annual hurling and football series between the four Provinces grew in stature, especially after the war. Crowds flocked to Croke Park on the national holiday to see the cream of Ireland’s hurlers and footballers.
Truthfully, I didn’t realise the importance of the Railway Cups until I met Jimmy Smyth. A native of Ruan in Co Clare, he hurled for 19 years with the Banner with little major success.
Myself, Jim Cronin and Brendan Barry worked with Jimmy publishing a collection of Cork GAA ballads in 2001. Jimmy explained that, as a Clare hurler, he could win All-Ireland, Munster, National League, Oireachtas or Railway Cup medals. Clare were not a major force in his time, with Cork, Tipperary and Waterford dominant in Munster.
Smyth said his eight Railway Cup medals won with Munster meant so much to him - playing with Ring, Doyle, Cheasty, and so many hurling greats.
Well, the Railway Cup in football was dominated by Leinster and Ulster right through the ’50s and ’60s. Munster won in 1949, and on March 17, 1972, looked like losing to Leinster until a huge free from Mick O’Connell was kicked over the bar for an equaliser. No extra time or penalties back then!
The GAA fixed the replay for the Cork Athletic Grounds on Sunday, April 23. 8,500 paid in, and as a 15-year-old I was one of hundreds or more juveniles who got in free.
I knew the names and faces of the Cork players, Billy in goals, Kevin Jer, Frank Cogan, Donal Hunt from Bantry, the captain, Denis Coughlan, and Ray Cummins, but to see Mick O’Dwyer and the massive Jim Wall from The Nire in Waterford at full-back, wow!
Of course, at midfield with Frank was the great Mick O’Connell. I’d seen him on our black and white telly a few times, but here he was now, no more than 30 yards away from me.
O Connell soared time and time again to collect the leather and set the forwards in motion - Donal Hunt got two goals, Micko sent over four, two beauties from play and two from frees. Babs Keating was corner forward and he too raised a white flag.
Offaly had won the All-Ireland the year before for the first time ever, they had nine on the Leinster side. I was anxious to see Tony McTague, Willie Bryan, Paddy McCormack, ‘The Iron Man from Rhodes’, Nicholas Clavin, and of course Martin Furlong.
Munster won by double scores, 2-14 to 0-10 to end a 23-year Railway Cup famine.
I had always admired Donie O’Sullivan and Tom Prendergast - he won a Cork Junior Football medal with Fermoy two years later.
Gaelic football was the winner that April Sunday, and I was thrilled as I left the Athletic Grounds with Dave.
Now, Dave never drove a good car – there was no NCT in those days! It was getting dusk as we left the ground and Dave was in mighty form after the game.
An unfortunate sow crossed the road in front of us and we going down an incline. Dave hit the animal full on, sending her soaring in the air - way higher than Micko had jumped earlier that afternoon!
Eventually, the All Ireland Club Finals took the ‘star billing’ in Croke Park on the national holiday. The Railway Cups became bewitched, bothered and bewildered with no venue and no date. They were played in December, in January, at provincial venues on a Saturday and Sunday – I was at the 2009 Final in London.
They lingered on in some kind of a way until 2016. Players lost interest and other provincial secondary competitions were introduced. A pity really, but the GAA schedule is grossly overcrowded.
This weekend, we might once more see ‘the light of other days’ as the Inter Provincials are back - for one year at least.
Jim Gavin and his committee have been tasked with improving the rules of Gaelic football in order to make it a better game for both players and spectators. In the last decade, football has become ultra-defensive with managers and teams setting out to stop the opposition rather than playing their own game.
Of course, all sports evolve, but the recent evolution we’ve been served up is not what Gaelic football was ever meant to be. So, to ‘trial’ Jim Gavin’s proposals, the four provinces come to Croke Park tomorrow night. Leinster will play Connacht, followed by Munster and Ulster, with the winners and losers playing each other on Saturday.
Wouldn’t it be great to see goalies kicking out the ball for all their worth, and then let the best man win it fair and square?
‘Some folks say that I’m a dreamer’... and you know I often dream about that great match in the Athletic Grounds over half a century ago.
App?
