A different ball game

With three Munster crowns and two All-ireland titles, the period 1995-98 was the golden era of Clare hurling. It could all have happened nearly two decades earlier, however.

In 1977 and 1978 Clare won NHL titles but Vork prevented them from breaking their Munster SHC hoodoo. Cork goal-scoring corner-forward Deanie O’Leary, and veteran Clare corner-back Jackie O’Gorman recalled those days. Diarmuid O’Flynn listened in.

JOG: It was a different game then. It was far more of a hobby thing, you played just for the craic. It was a player’s game, but sure now it’s a media game, a supporter’s game, the player is only the pawn in the middle of the whole lot. Isn’t it analysed to death?

DOF: Would you like to have played in today’s game?

JOG: (vehemently) No, I would not. All-Ireland medals or not, I wouldn’t. It’s become too consuming. Would you, Sean?

SOL: Not particularly, the way it’s gone. The commitment required now is unbelievable - it is year-round dedication.

JOG: Imagine what it must be like for the lads going to college?

SOL: I don’t know how those fellas do it. A lot of them are playing hurling and football, Fitzgibbon Cup, Sigerson, National League, and they’re U-21 also, how do they manage their studies in all of that? They have exams in May, and nearly every team has a championship game in May. Then add in the club games and training as well.

JOG: It’s serious now, alright. I know we’re not comparing like with like, we were winning nothing, the current Clare team has been very successful, but from my point of view, it was better then. I played in six Munster finals, lost all six of them but it was no big deal.

You’d lost an oul’ game, the supporters would meet you on the way home, we’d all come home together. You’d be down about it alright, but only for a few hours.

DOF: Surely it hurt in 77, 78?

JOG: Yeah, you’d wake up on Monday morning, think, what day is it, what happened yesterday, but sure it was all over after a week, away you go again.

SOL: You’d get over it fairly quick, alright.

JOG: That was it, it wasn’t such a matter of life or death; it was still serious, but it was only sport, you could still enjoy it. Fellas would be slagging you alright, but you didn’t get abused or anything that time. Lads can hardly go out at night, they’re being abused and attacked.

DOF: I was talking to Gerry Quinn lately, he was telling me he can’t go out, word spreads fast. Four times he’s socialised this year, he reckons.

JOG: That’s right. He has a bad game then and someone is bound to say, ‘oh, I saw him out drinking last week.’ It might have been last Christmas he saw him, but that doesn’t matter, it becomes a story anyway.

You can see where the players are coming from. Dublin and Laois played in Croke Park there a few weeks ago in front of 82,000 people. U2 were there the following week and filled it as well. Bono got 18 million, the boys were probably lucky to get a cup of tea. Sure aren’t they training in October, for the All-Ireland the following year? Tuesday and Thursday, that was it for us.

SOL: And for us, from about six weeks before the championship; I don’t know if we even bothered training for the League, I can’t remember it anyway.

JOG: In 1972, we beat Limerick above in Ennis. They had a crack team, after winning the League. The Tuesday before the Munster final, I was bringing in the hay, Tony Considine’s father Tom was with me. He was a bit like Tony now, a witty character, but he was retired at this stage. We had a tractor with a front-loader, piling up the hay, Tom was tipping it off up top. It came to about seven o’clock, “Tom,” I said, “I have to go.” “Where are you going,” he says; “to Ennis, we have training for the Munster final.” “Take my advice now,” he says, “stay at the hay, there’s rain forecast.” I was single at the time, ignored him, headed off. It rained for a fortnight, the hay had to be pushed into the ditch, Cork beat us by 18 points. I was dreading running into old Tom again, but I did, eventually. He hadn’t forgotten. “You’ll take my advice in future,” he says, “and save the hay first!”

SOL: 1972, a wet day, that was the day Denis Coughlan was sent off, got it rescinded afterwards.

JOG: Before the ‘77 or ‘78 Final, I forget which one, Seanie used to be travelling for some finance company, and I got a phone call one night, from the Limerick Inn, about a week before the final. Seanie. “Where are you,” I says; “The Limerick Inn.” “Call up to the house.” He did, Joan made the tay. I said we’d go for a puck in the Hollow, an ould field we had with a big high bank. Going up the hill anyway, Seanie stopped, “Jaysus I’m knackered”; “God” says I, “you haven’t a hope of keeping up to Johnny (McMahon) below in Thurles on Sunday!” “Ah,” he says, “for every three balls that come in, Johnny can have two, I only need the one!”

SOL: Go away out of that!

JOG: As God’s my judge, that’s what happened! We came out of the Hollow anyway, and we said we’d go up to Brandon’s, for a pint. That was no big deal that time, to have a couple of pints in the week of the match. We went in, sat down, had our pints, but I was watching the lads at the bar watching us, and I knew they were wondering, looking, sizing us up. Seanie went to the jacks, the owner came down, by-the-way collecting the glasses; “hi c’mere, the boys are saying that’s Seanie Leary, with you,”; “Who?” says I, “Seanie Leary? Sure what would Seanie Leary be doing with me and only a few days to the Munster final!” “That’s what I told them!” your man says (snorting), “the clowns!” Seanie came back anyway, I gave him the nod, “we’d better be moving on!”

SOL (laughing): That’s not true at all!

JOG: Oh it’s true alright.

DOF: Wouldn’t happen now?

JOG: Couldn’t happen now, but sure no-one thought anything of that then.

DOF: Is it still enjoyable for the players, Seanie? You were involved with Cork up to recently.

SOL: I think so, yes; if they weren’t enjoying it, they wouldn’t be doing it. They have a great bond, come to rely on each other and trust each other. The responsibility they have now, and they’re fully aware of it, is huge. They’re well looked after, but they put a lot into it, they’re very dedicated, it’s all training, they don’t do anything wild. But that’s what’s become the norm, that’s what they’re used to now; we were used to a different regime, and probably those who were there twenty years before us had it different again. You had training camps in the ‘40s and ‘50s, hadn’t you?

DOF: You had, my father told me of a few of those when he played with Galway. What was it like for the players in your day, Jackie, in Clare? Did ye meet much, as a group?

JOG: There was nowhere you could go in Clare that you wouldn’t be known, whereas a fella could have three or four All-Irelands in Cork, walk down through Cork city, and not be known at all. Even today, if I went back to Loop Head, I’d meet someone who would know me, it’s incredible. The place is so small, and there was such a small catchment area for the hurling, Newmarket, Clarecastle, Sixmilebridge, sure we were great buddies, all of us, fierce buddies. We’d all travel to the match together, in cars, we’d all stop in the same place coming home, there was no-one left outside, and no-one stood outside either.

SOL: We were more scattered. The fewer championship games you won in any year, the less you saw of each other, and we had a few lean years. In the good years though, we saw a lot of each other. We wouldn’t have been going out a lot together or anything, but we got a few good trips, the three-in-a-row team especially, lived in each other’s pockets a bit.

JOG: On the night we won the first National League, at one or two o’clock in the morning, we were in the pub, the guards came in, and we were all caught inside. Took out the book, all apologies, “I have to do this lads,” and took all our names.

DOF: That wouldn’t have happened in Cork.

JOG: Well it happened here. To make a long story short, we were all summonsed anyway; (Johnny) Callinan was a solicitor, and Fr. Bohan (Harry, a selector again this year) told us, “lads, do nothing, let Callinan handle it.” We went to court, and of course the judge knew the background to it all. Callinan stood up, explaining, we were after winning the National League that day, first national win for Clare at any level for fifty years, or whatever. The judge was looking at down at him through the whole thing, interrupted; “excuse me Mr Callinan,” he says (JOG affecting a Dublin 4 accent), “what will ye do if ye win the All-Ireland?” “We’ll get an extension me Lord,” says Callinan, quick as a flash! “Pound a head fine,” he says, “one pound a head!” None of us paid the pound, and the squad car had to come around to collect it. Pulled into our yard one evening, Joan says to me, “Jesus, there’s a squad car outside!” “What’s wrong lads?” says I; “That pound you were fined, we’re here to collect it!”

SOL: (laughing): What about the Players’ Fund, wouldn’t that have paid it?

JOG: Yerra sure it was past time to go home anyway. Whether we’ve all got a criminal record or not now, I don’t know!

DOF: That was big, that League win?

JOG: Big? There was more celebration of that League win in Clare, than there would have been in Cork if they’d won five-in-a-row. It was incredible; in Clare, whole generations had never seen Clare in a national final, of any description. Thirty or 40 thousand as well, at that final. That made the championship defeats in ‘77 and ‘78 extra disappointing. Power being sent off in ‘77; in all fairness, we often criticise the referee, but he definitely made a boo-boo that day. What happened, happened, but it was a thing of nothing, in fact I’d nearly say it was my fault. Cummins was after winning a ball, I said something to Jim, “shape up Jim!” or whatever.

SOL: Are you sure that was what you said? I thought I heard you saying something stronger than that!

JOG: I think Jim fouled Cummins, who won the free. Ray turned into him, and this is my vivid memory of it, he gave Jim a small kick into the shins, and Jim reacted, touched him with his head. It was nothing, Mickey Mouse stuff, Ray didn’t make a meal of it or anything like that, the referee should just have told them to stop the messing. But he sent him off, after ten minutes of the match, 55,000 people after paying their money! Wasn’t the gate money stolen the same day? That’s the only consolation we have, the real robbers were robbed themselves!

SOL: It was either that day, or the other final.

JOG: That was it, game over. It had been shaping up to be right old battle, but after Power was sent off, what chance had we? Charlie, Cummins, Seanie Leary, meself and Johnny McMahon trying to mind those three? Who do I take? Where do I go? We only lost it by four or five points, but we were never going to win that day.

DOF: Would ye normally be on each other?

SOL: Invariably.

JOG: I used to be in the other corner, Johnny McMahon in the left, a lovely hurler, dandy player. They decided that himself on Charlie (McCarthy) would be an ideal combination, he’d have been too fast for me.

SOL: Are you saying I was slow?

JOG: No, Seanie wouldn’t be going out 40 yards for a ball; he’d stay inside, poaching. He was almost impossible to watch, and you couldn’t afford to let him win the ball. If he got it, it was almost definitely a score, because he’d either score it himself, or win the free. He had this way of dropping the left shoulder into you, and he’d be shaking it then, like this, like ‘twas the way you were holding him when it was actually the other way around, “he’s holding me, he’s holding me!” You know the way they’re at it in the football now, well Seanie was doing that 25 years ago.

SOL: I did that, alright, make it look good, but you had to do it on the right side, on the side away from the referee, the goal side.

DOF: Did you have any special plan for him?

JOG: No special plan, but if you could keep him talking, you’d be flying.

DOF: How was Jackie, Seanie, was he hard?

SOL: Oh yeah.

JOG: How could I be hard? I was only 10 stone 10.

SOL: But look at the height of you!

JOG: I was only 5ft 10, sure Cummins was six-two or six-three.

SOL: Ah I don’t know, you were six in those days, you must have shrunk a small bit! He was the same as he is today, pulling you by the shirt, getting in the nudge, bones everywhere, but he was as good as anyone around the place, the hardness, the toughness, you couldn’t hurt him, no matter how you hit him, you couldn’t get to the end of him. He was never down on the ground, never rolling around looking for a handy free, it was flat out for the whole match, but when the match was over, that was it.

JOG: We’d be under constant pressure, in the full-back line, they’d be getting so many balls in from midfield, there was never any let-up. Being dominated around the middle of the field, we were always on the back foot.

SOL: Your midfielders won’t be very thankful to you for that comment!

DOF: Will you be going up on Sunday?

JOG: I am, this year could be our last hurrah for a while, we mightn’t be getting there again for a while, there isn’t a lot coming through.