‘Kerry might be too good’

On the eve of yet another Kerry/Cork Munster final, former players Weeshie Fogarty and Mick O’Loughlin recall epic battles from one the GAA’s greatest rivalries. They spoke to Diarmuid O’Flynn.

WEESHIE FOGARTY: Cork started off the 60’s very badly, ye were beaten by Waterford in 1960.

Mick O’Loughlin: And beaten by Limerick in 1965. Cork were at a very low ebb after that, but funnily enough, that’s how we all got on then in 1966, all the U-21’s, about six of us came on together, including Billy Morgan.

Diarmuid O’Flynn: The same year the young hurling team came through, and won the All-Ireland?

MO’L: That’s right, Gerald McCarthy’s team. But that was our first Munster football final for years.

WF: It was, since 1957. From 1958 on Kerry won eight Munster championships in a row, right up to 1966. Kerry were completely dominant in that period.

MO’L: Funnily enough in 1966, when we beat Kerry in my first year on the team, I was stationed down in Thomastown in Kilkenny, and I trained myself. There was no such thing as collective training that time! I used to train with Tommy Walsh, the Kilkenny hurler – he lost an eye afterwards, in Croke Park. We’d go down to the field there every day, training in hurling and football. Eamonn Young came on the scene for us then, he was an army officer. He was a great footballer, I think he was on the 1945 team that won the All-Ireland – he was a brother of Dr Jim’s. He gave great service to Cork.

WF: I remember he was in charge of the very first gaelic football coaching course to be held in Munster; Johnny Culloty, Donie Sullivan and myself used to travel up to Clare every Saturday, giving football lessons to the young fellas.

DO’F: So a Cork man coached Kerry men on the coaching of gaelic football?

WF: He was in charge of them anyway!

MO’L: But he was a great trainer, a great motivator also, he did a terrific job with us those two years.

DO’F: How close were ye to doing the double in 66?

MO’L: Ah we should have beaten Galway. That was the last year of their three-in-a-row, but we had them for the taking.

WF: Was that the year that Niall Fitzgerald got the chance of a goal, to win it?

MO’L: That’s the year – another army man, by the way, and another Kanturk-man! His father was a guard there, and he was born in Kanturk (Mick is also a Kanturk native, but so was Weeshie’s mother, it turned out during the conversation; his father was also a guard in Kanturk, and Weeshie Fogarty, quintessential Kerryman, was actually born in Cork!).

WF: I remember it was at the railway end in Croke Park, he got a ball, from here to there to the goalkeeper (indicating a gap of about six yards) – what did he do?

MO’L: He tried to place it but it just dribbled wide. We were only beaten by two points. As a matter of fact, I got a goal myself that day, a rare occurrence for me! I was marking Paddy Donnellan in the middle of the field for that game but I was moved in to corner-forward. A high ball came in, I heard Geraghty (Johnny, the Galway keeper) saying to Bosco (McDermott) – ‘Leave it.’

I knew he was off his line then so I jumped, just got my hand to it, flicked it into the net.

WF: The first time I ever saw Kerry beaten was in 1956. There was a draw in Cork with Jim Brosnan got a last-minute goal for Kerry, and the replay was in Killarney. Time was almost up, it was a draw again and Cork were attacking the entrance goal, at the dressing-room end. Niall Fitzgerald got the ball, staggered through, fellas hitting him left, right and centre and he just poked his leg at it and the ball went over the bar and Cork were champions. But! A few years ago in the Bons in Cork I had a hip replaced, and when I came around after coming out of the operation, I opened my eyes and the fella in the bed alongside me says – are you from Kerry? I am, I said; you must be a football man, he says – I am, I said. Who was he? The very same Niall Fitzgerald. I had never met the man, but the name stuck in my mind, all those years. A small world. The great Tom Long was at centre-back in that match, and the story always in Kerry was that his man had got that winning point. I met Tom one day in Jimmy O’Brien’s pub in Killarney, a big crowd there, and didn’t I say it to him.

‘The one thing I want to say to us is this,’ he said – ‘I was NOT marking Niall Fitzgerald! I was after being moved out to centre-field, so it wasn’t my fault Kerry were beaten!’ This was nearly 50 years after the match, but the memory was still raw, and he was determined to set the record straight!

MO’L: Niall is another man who gave great service to Cork, and he’s still around as well, living in the city, like myself. I finished up in Gurraneabraher, the best seven years of my life. I have great time for the people there, I must say I got on very well with them. I finished there three years ago, enjoying my retirement. I’m still involved with the football, a selector with the U-21’s this year, we won the All-Ireland after being beaten in the last two finals. Give us another few years now, when this current Kerry team drops off, and we’ll be over Kerry again in the seniors!

WF: Then there was 67 – you had a blinder that day Mick. There was great atmosphere in the old Athletic Grounds; I remember I was sitting in the far side, on the embankment on an awfully wet day. Time was almost up and ye were leading, eight points to seven. The late Eamonn O’Donoghue – a forward all his life — was in goal for Kerry, how, I don’t know. Kerry got a free, about 45 yards out, on the wing; they had missed a load of frees all day, so they decided to bring Eamonn out to take the free, took off a forward, and put a man by the name of Josie O’Brien, the sub-goalkeeper, into goal. Eamonn took the free, sent it wide; Cork took the kickout, the full-time whistle went. Josie was the Kerry junior goalkeeper but as soon as he crossed the line that day, without even kicking a ball, he was now deemed to have played in the senior championship, was disqualified from junior. The Munster junior final was on the following week, I was picked in goal, and didn’t we win the All-Ireland!

So Mick – thanks for that junior All-Ireland, I wouldn’t have it only for Cork!

But there was another memorable day in the Athletic Grounds, in the 60’s, 1962 I think it was.

MO’L: Oh that was a tough match, all hell broke loose.

WF: Noel Lucey was put off anyway, I remember that. All the crowd behind the goal starting throwing scraws (piece of earth), big huge scraws, at the Kerry players. It was so bad – and Johnny Culloty told me this – that he had to get the umpires to come into the net to protect him. A few years before that in 1959, I played in goal for the Kerry minors, against Cork in Killarney, in the Munster final. Jesus, the place was packed! Patsy Harte, the hurler, was playing full-forward for Cork, and a big high ball came into the square. Alan Conway, Lord have mercy on him, was full-back for Kerry. I said – ‘Alan, your ball!’ Alan went for it, misfielded it and it fell to Patsy. He turned around, and like Moss Keane, he headed for the goal-line. Two or three of us got him, threw our arms around him, tried to drag him to the ground, but he dived across the line, the ball in his hands and actually touched it down! I was lying on the ground, under Patsy, looked up at the umpire as he was waving the green flag – Christ almighty, I said, you can’t give that, that’s a free. I’ll always remember, he looked down at me, still waving the flag – it might be a free down here, he said, but in Clare, where I come from, that’s a goal!

MO’L: Did you ever get involved with teams, after you finished?

WF: I went refereeing, spent 14 years at it. I did two All-Ireland semi-finals, National League final, Railway Cup finals.

MO’L: It’s very difficult for referees today, so many televised matches, so many camera angles, but overall they do a good job.

WF: Gaelic football is the hardest sport in the world to referee. There are so many rules and regulations, you can not get uniformity. I got anonymous letters threatening all sorts of stuff. I got abuse on and off the field, I was assaulted twice — knocked out above in Cork. I won’t say who it was, but he had big money on the game, Cork had been beaten, and he was waiting in the tunnel for me. Do you remember when Jack Ruby shot Oswald? Well that’s what it was like – this fella now, if he’d had a gun, he’d have done a Ruby on me, I’m certain of that. It was Cork versus Kildare in the National League and there was a controversial goal allowed for Kildare – not by me, but by one of my umpires. I was coming off, the tunnel was full. Next thing this fella appeared, just saw him out of the corner of my eye, BANG — knew nothing ‘til I was on the ground. I think it was the only time in my life I was actually knocked out. It was in the 80’s; what happened after, there was consternation, your man was brought into the dressing-room to me, to apologise. I had been kind of advised, yerra if he apologies Weeshie, it should be alright. He made his apology, walked out the door and I never saw him again. I did no more about it, but that was a big mistake.

DO’F: What was it like for Cork, being walloped year after year?

MO’L: It’s soul-destroying really, but you keep at it. What made it worse was that there was never very much between Kerry and Cork, but Kerry always seemed to have that little bit extra. Didn’t Mick O’Dwyer always say that Cork were the second-best team in the country, during those great years? Or was he just codding us? I heard he got a bit of a heart-attack or something, got a stint in.

WF: He did, but he’s walking around already. ‘I’ll live to 100!’ he told me, ‘I know what my heart looks like now, I saw it on the screen – there was only one blockage and they fixed that, so I’m fine!’

I played with him and against him – he was a great footballer. We played in a final in Croke Park, around 69, he was corner-forward, and he scored 2-9 from play. A strange thing though, when ye won in 66 and 67, O’Dwyer, O’Connell, Culloty, were all missing, they’d all retired.

In 1968, they all came back, Connell made a comeback for the Munster final. Teddy Bowler had been the Kerry goalkeeper, and Kerry got to the All-Ireland semi-final, against Longford. Jackie Lyne, a clubman of my own, Killarney Legion, he took over the training in 1968. The tradition at the time for the All-Ireland semi-final and final was that the team was picked in the Park Place Hotel, now demolished. Huge crowds would be waiting outside for the team to be announced. Tadhg Crowley, one of the gentlemen of the game, the Kerry secretary, would make the announcement: “The Kerry team to play next Sunday is…....

This night though, himself and Jackie Lyne came out the door and brushed past everyone. there was no announcement. Around the corner they went, to Johnny Culloty’s house. Johnny had been waiting with the rest of the crowd, but when there was no announcement, he turned and went home, only to meet the two boys. Some time later they emerged, went back, and picked the team. Who was in goal?

J Culloty, they talked him out of retirement. The following year he captained them to win the All-Ireland, and they won it again in 1970.

DO’F: Weren’t you sub-keeper to Johnny in 1969?

WF: I was, but the ironic thing was, neither of us played in goal for our club.

DO’F: Did you get an All-Ireland medal from that?

WF: I didn’t. There were five extra medals that time, for the subs; I was fourth sub all the way along, until it came to the All-Ireland, and I was dropped down to sixth sub. Two years later they brought in a special medal for the sub goalkeeper, so you had six medals, one to cover every line of the field. The first Munster U21 final was in 1962, and I missed out then too. We played Cork in Kenmare, in December; I was wing-forward, and the other five forwards were all from Tralee. We won that but there was no All-Ireland U21 that year.

DO’F: Who’s going to win on Sunday?

WF: I reckon that Marc Ó Sé will be too good for Masters, and I don’t think this big, tall full-forward for Cork, Cussen, is going to set the place on fire. I think Kerry might be just too good.

DO’F: What about Canty on Donaghy, the match-up Cork missed last year? MO’L: I saw him playing in the club championship with Bantry, he’s back to full fitness. He was at centrefield, flying.

DO’F: Is Cussen the real deal, Mick?

MO’L: Oh he’s a great footballer, a big man, grand physique. He didn’t make the U-21 teams, which is amazing. I don’t think he played minor either, but I’m not sure about that.

WF: You were a selector for the U-21’s, why didn’t you pick him?

MO’L: You’d have to ask that! But Weeshie, there’s five on the selection committee! WF: Ah, that’s the pat answer! Every team I was ever on where I didn’t get my place, that’s what I was told – I wanted you on but the other fellas voted me down! I was dropped for an All-Ireland club final one year, in Croke Park, 1971, the first year of the club championships. I was after spending 12 years playing in goal for East Kerry, but when they got to the All-Ireland final, I was dropped. I went to all the selectors afterwards, and none of them voted against me. ‘I voted for you Weeshie,’ they all told me, five of them, and I was still dropped! But I know who voted against me though. Eamonn Fitzgerald was put into goal, hadn’t been there at all. Politics, all politics.

MO’L: Well you see we were going for Cussen as a midfielder, that’s how he came into us, he played midfield for UCC, and he played good games for them there.

Now he seems to have reinvented himself as a full-forward, he’s leaner looking. He has something alright, there’s no doubt, he’s a fine footballer.

WF: Tom Sullivan has been marking Kieran Donaghy every night inside in training, getting ready for Cussen.

MO’L: The current Cork team is very even, they’re more a squad, not so much individuals. Graham Canty is a leader. Nicholas Murphy is a player that’s coming on.

WF: He got a rude shock in Croke Park last year, from Darragh Ó Sé, he was bossed that day.

MO’L: When you boss a fella once, you can boss him again — it’s hard to come back from a bossing. Nicholas is injured at the moment, they went out to La Manga for a fortnight, trained very hard there, so they’re well up for this. I give them a great chance.

WF: This is the first time I’ve ever heard Kerry people saying, Cork will probably beat us this year. I don’t think so.