Loughnane’s legacy has not gone to waste
‘Twas one of the days of our lives.’ Nearly everything about Croke Park last Sunday was fitting, perfect, life-affirming.
Even the little touches in the match-day presentation were as delightful as those Podge Collins would display a little later on.
Of all days for Rob Heffernan to be honoured there for his exploits in Moscow, how magical it was that Croker was staging his own Cork.
But for us, even that heartwarming moment was eclipsed by the gesture paid to the stars of the 1980s and the ovation that greeted one Mr Ger Loughnane.
Loughnane was one of the wing backs on that selection comprised totally of players from that era who never won an All-Ireland. He was in fine company, with the likes of Leonard Enright from Limerick, Sambo McNaughton from Antrim and Martin Quigley from Wexford.
We could only smile when we saw PJ Cuddy wave to the crowd, unable to contain his delight that a Laois man like himself hadn’t been forgotten.
Yet as uplifting as it was to see those names from our childhood taking in the applause, there was a tinge of sadness too. It wasn’t that none of them ever won an All-Ireland. It was that men like Jim Greene from Waterford and Loughnane from Clare never even got to play a championship game in Croke Park.
For a couple of years in the late 70s Clare were probably the second best team in the land. They were twice league champions, twice Munster finalists. They had multiple All Star winners, bundles of charisma but sadly, little luck and, unlike this year’s two senior finalists, had no backdoor.
Instead, Johnny Callinan, Sean Stack and Loughnane had to wait until they were grey or bald-headed men for Croke Park to finally applaud them for their skills.
As Enda McEvoy wrote in these pages last week, that glaring gap in the playing CV would be the source of a hurt and yearning that would burn within Loughnane. In his 2001 biography, he would recall going to Croke Park in 1984 for a Neil Diamond concert with his wife. “We were sitting in the Hogan Stand and all around us were people from Clarecastle. This was obviously the Clare section. All I could think throughout the concert was ‘Jesus, what would it be like to be in a place like this and see Clare winning an All-Ireland.’ When the 90s came and we had success, it was like a dream.”
Such has been Kilkenny’s dominance in the Cody era, we can sometimes forget — and a generation may not know — just how colossal a figure Loughnane was.
I covered him and his team a lot in those years and even in the car down there was a sense when you crossed the county bounds that you were you now entering Loughnane Country.
He was their Fidel, their totem, their leader, and even in the air you nearly expected to catch a bolt of the madness and electricity he might generate. What was he up to this year? What was he going to say to you? With Loughnane, anything and everything was possible.
He changed the game. He changed the paths of careers — and lives, including mine. I developed such a grá for the county from that time, years later when I and my then fiancé were deciding to leave Dublin to buy an affordable first house, we opted for Clare.
Nine years later we still live there. Our two children were born in Clare. In June I brought six-year-old Aimee to her first championship game, me wearing the colours of my native Cork, her wearing those of her native Clare. Would she be a Clare woman if it weren’t for Loughnane? No. She’s another one of the Loughnane children.
There are many, including the current Clare team. They may play a different game to the more direct, combative style that his team played but their ambition and daring is very Loughnane.
The whole county has got its act together. There was a danger that the legacy he had created was going to waste. Now, as he said recently, the underage coaching culture and structure within the county is what he had “dreamed of 10 years ago”.
Loughnane had another dream. In his book he would remark, “I would love to be in the stand and watch Clare win an All-Ireland.”
Some doubted the sincerity of that when Clare contested the 2002 final but no one could now. He’s mellowed, possibly because of his health scare a few years ago. All of us should be glad he’s with us, which was why so many saluted him last Sunday.
Only for him, Clare probably wouldn’t have been in Croker and the rest of us wouldn’t have had one of the days and times of our lives.
