The day the Kingdom crumbled

WHEN the truth becomes legend, print the legend.

That old advice from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance applies to a Munster senior football championship tie played fifty years ago tomorrow, when Waterford turned Kerry over in the Sportsfield in Waterford city.

The legends started at the final whistle and haven’t stopped growing since. Kerry were so short for the game they had to ask the bus driver to line out; they were on the drink the night before the game in Waterford; they togged out a journalist; the Waterford side was picked in the back room of a bar in Dungarvan; one Kerry player forgot to bring his boots and an official turned Waterford upside down trying to replace them; Tom Cunningham’s winning point came as the referee inhaled to blow the final whistle; the crowd doubled in size between the start and end of the game. Take your pick.

What’s beyond debate was the level of unrest in the Kingdom camp. The captaincy of the team was in the gift of South Kerry, and the automatic candidate was one Mick O’Dwyer of Waterville, but it was his debut and more experienced leadership was sought. The result of a vote on the issue disgruntled goalkeeper Marcus O’Neill to the extent that he didn’t travel for the Waterford game. Sean Murphy was studying for exams, and Tom Moriarty was injured. When the panel disembarked from the five cars in Waterford they had sixteen players.

“Tim Barrett from The Kerryman played in goal for Kerry,” says the Waterford goalie of the time, Gerry McCarthy, “But he’d played in a minor All-Ireland final for Kerry. They were short Sean Murphy, Marcus O’Neill, maybe one or two more, but that was it. They still should have been good enough to beat us.”

Waterford were in rude health. They had a rugged defence, captained by Con Crowley, a Bandon Garda stationed in Waterford city, as well as Kenmare man George Whyte, who’d played minor for Kerry three years previously, and the late Mattie Lonergan.

Other omens looked good for the home side before the game. One of the Waterford defenders opened the door of the dressing-room to let out the searing heat generated under a corrugated-iron roof and saw Tipperary man Sean Hayes walk out onto the field in the referee’s strip.

The appointed official was Sean Cleary of Clonmel, a stickler against whom many of the Waterford backs had clashed when he’d been a Tipperary wing-forward. Hayes was different — “a laid-back fella,” says McCarthy — who was far more laissez-faire with the whistle. This tendency was duly noted by the home side.

Kerry had the upper hand in the first half, and led by six points at the break. They got two quick points on the restart (0-8 to 0-2) but Waterford were defending the city end and had the wind behind them.

“It’s a funny thing,” says McCarthy, “Some months the wind blew into the city end goal, and some months it blows away from it. Like June.”

However, they needed goals to have a chance. Across five decades the memory of those vital scores are still green to Gerry McCarthy. “For the first goal, the Kerry ‘keeper dropped the ball,” he says, “The ball hopped up and Noel Power, our centre-forward fisted it downwards into the net.

“The second goal wouldn’t be allowed nowadays. The Kerry ‘keeper caught the ball and started moving out towards the left corner back position, but Jim Timmins took off and met him with knees and everything and drove him over the line. That was allowed then. Another referee might have blown up, but not Hayes. And that was the equaliser.”

Then came Tom Cunningham’s immortal point on the final whistle, just as a draw looked imminent, giving Kerry no chance to rally. Or at least that’s how the story goes.

“Oh no, Kerry had at least one attack after that point,” recalls McCarthy. “I had to kick out at least one ball after that. I remember putting Tadhgie Lyne over the sideline out by the corner flag, he got in behind the backs. He could have scored from anywhere so I took off and ran straight at him and the ball ran out over the end line.

“I didn’t even know we were in front, there was no scoreboard — when the crowd were shouting at me to slow down I thought it was because it was a draw. I was thinking ‘we’ll have a weekend in Tralee for the replay’. I’d go back to the wall for my run-up to kick the ball out, and Fr Quinlan, a curate from our place, was sitting inside the perimeter and he was shouting at me to take my time.”

McCarthy confirms the yarn that the crowd grew during the game: “There were about 3,000 there at the start, but a racket was coming from the Sportsfield when all should have been quiet, and people living near the ground — the top of the town as it’s called in Waterford — started coming over.

“The gates were open to let people out but people start coming in, and there was definitely nearly twice the number inside at the end.”

When the final whistle went McCarthy still didn’t know Waterford had won, only finding out as he approached the dressing-room and steward Sonny Whelan threw his arms around him.

Some found the news difficult to swallow: McCarthy’s father had gone for a stroll around Kilmeaden and when the first cyclist flew past with the news, he didn’t believe it. The Munster final didn’t go well — Cork beat Waterford handily — but there were bright times ahead for some of the Deise players. Seamus Power, Michael O’Connor and Tom Cunningham went on to win All-Ireland senior hurling medals two years later; captain Crowley saw his daughter Carrie host the Eurovision song contest.

One of the best-known stories surrounding the game arose when a Kerry official said ruefully after the game that the panel would have to wait until after dark before going back to Tralee. That wasn’t true for all the participants.

On the homeward journey the South Kerry car detoured to Youghal and analysis of the defeat carried on into the small hours, or at least for some. Teetotallers Mick O’Dwyer, Mick O’Connell and Ned Fitzgerald sat outside in the car. By the time they got back to Kerry the sun was coming up, and they came home in the cold light of day.