The Holy Ground

WHERE does the time go? Seems like yesterday Jim Purcell was giving a pal a dig out, walking divots back into the Semple Stadium turf.

The Loughmore-Castleiney man had been working on farm relief but it was the eighties and that was slack, so he was at a loose end.

His career had included football with Loughmore and a little junior hurling, but he knew the land well and they kept him in Semple Stadium. Now, 21 years on, he has a head full of memories.

Take the young ginger-haired lad from over the road who spent hours hurling the ball up against the stadium gates. Jim used to run the youngster out of it then, a memory which comes back to him when he sees Tipp captain Redser O’Grady swamped by autograph-hunters at Tipp training sessions.

“He broke my heart that time,” says Jim. “But he’s the nicest fella you could meet. He doesn’t have to play outside now any more — he comes in through the gates now and I’m delighted for him.”

As a young man growing up in sixties Tipperary, Purcell was no stranger to Semple Stadium, cycling the eight miles down from Loughmore to watch the blue and gold machine training.

“I’d say the first big game I came to here would have been Cork and Tipperary in the early sixties. John Doyle, Liam Devanney of Tipperary, Christy Ring and Paddy Barry playing for Cork.

“I always find the Cork supporters great, but then the Tipp-Cork banter is great. For 70 minutes fellas are riled up but you can see them down the town afterwards then having the crack with each other, it’s great.”

One man central to that crack for nigh on 40 years will play a pivotal role tomorrow. Purcell goes back a long way with the Tipperary manager.

“I get on great with Babs. He does his own thing. He’s fair to the players. If he wants something done he wants it done for the players, it’s not just because he’s the manager.

“I was a sub on the Loughmore team years ago when he was playing, and he’s the same now as he ever was. When he took over this year I met him coming into a league game here and he said: ‘Jim, am I a fool or what’, about taking the job on again. I said to him, ‘Babs, you’re the only one that I could see that’d take the job’. That’s the way he is, but he has the whole thing turned around again. They were bad in the league but here they are again, in a Munster final.”

Purcell opened the gates and put on the boilers for another county when they were in their nineties pomp. Unlike 99.99% of Knocknagow, he got on well with the Clare team and manager, but then he was probably the only Tipperary man allowed anywhere near their training sessions. He can still remember the clash of hurleys echoing up in the empty stands when the Banner had a pre-championship training session in Thurles.

“Ger Loughnane I got on great with. He was a great manager and I found him very down-to-earth. Clare often came up here for training sessions with him and you’d hear him saying: ‘I don’t see any hurleys broken tonight, lads’. He wanted to toughen them up. He mightn’t have been a popular man in Tipperary, but I got on well with him.”

Tomorrow Purcell will man the tunnel to the dressing-rooms. Having opened the stadium at 8am for the television cameras, he’s around in mid-afternoon to see the teams fly past him and out onto the field. Sometimes they fly back in a little earlier than expected.

“You’d see teams going out and you’d have an idea whether they’re going to go at it — Clare and Waterford looked fairly sharp back in 1998, I remember.

“I lock the dressing-rooms when the teams go out. I could get a call after that on the walkie-talkie that one of the players wants to go back in for a helmet or hurley. Some of them would want to go in for something else — to go to the toilet. A lot of lads go out for the puck-around before the game but then it hits them, and they have to come back to go to the toilet. You’d be surprised by some of the players who have to come back in for the toilet — some big names.

“It’s a Munster final. The place will be full, with 53,000 people, and when the teams go out they hit that roar and it’s something else.”

At the final whistle he sees both sides coming back in, winners and losers.

“You’d see teams shattered after losing when they come in. They try to keep the good side out, but you can see they’re down. The crowd might be waiting for them to come out for autographs and the team might ask you to let them out a different way, because they want to get away as quick as they can. But in in all my years I’ve never seen a player refuse to give an autograph, even when they’re down and out after losing a Munster final.”

Talking to Jim Purcell isn’t easy on the week of a Munster final. Time is short, his phone is busy and two members of his crew have questions. He’s keen for everyone to share in the limelight — Jackie Cooke, Billy Hayden, Philly Butler, Bobby Mockler and Mick Farrell, Jim Max. Mick Carroll, the agricultural instructor, the FÁS lads — given the workload that everyone shares. The field takes a lot of work. Lining the field is a meticulous operation, which isn’t surprising for a man who brings his work home.

“The pitch isn’t lined until the Tipp lads have had their last training session on Tuesday night. It’s cut on Thursday, lined Friday and cut again on Saturday. If I was watching a game on telly I’d always look to see how far apart the two 65s are, and from that I’d nearly judge the length of the field. Thurles is longer than Croke Park, but Croke Park is a yard wider. This pitch is 160 yards long and 87 yards wide; Croke Park is 159 and 88. I’ve seen teams coming up to train but putting out cones to train on a narrower pitch they know they’re coming up to play so they put it into the players’ heads to spread out more when they’re playing the full-sized field.”

It hasn’t just been hurling in the last two decades, of course. Tipperary fought Cork to a draw in the 2002 Munster football final, and the Dublin-Kerry tussles the same year were pretty memorable. Then there were the Féile concerts of the nineties.

“They were very enjoyable,” says Purcell, “But we had to replace some turf out towards the sidelines on both sides and there was some damage by the stage at the Town End.”

Just when the explanation seems a little prosaic, Purcell lets something slip.

“We take pride in the field — during winter, local championship games and Munster club games, we look after it. The one thing about the Féile was the middle would have been covered by a sound stage, so that was protected. It’s the same turf there now as when Jimmy Doyle and Christy Ring played on it.”

Holy ground. Maybe that explains it.