Stoking things up nicely...
Back around the late 1950’s/early 60’s, there was real competition in both Munster and Leinster, with Kilkenny (always), Wexford and Dublin fighting for honours in Leinster, Tipperary, Waterford and Cork fighting it out in Munster, Galway lurking in the background, the likes of Limerick always dangerous.
Tipp were the powerhouse, midfielder Thomas ‘Theo’ English an integral part of a side that was denied a possible five-in-a-row when losing to Waterford in Munster in 1963 (they won the All- Ireland in 1961, ‘62, ‘64 and ‘65, won another in ‘58 for good measure. Then, Waterford were the Cinderella side, but did make the breakthrough in 1959, captained by Mount Sion’s Frankie Walsh.
What of Dublin, and that final defeat by Tipp in 1961? There are those who say that was a pivotal game in hurling’s history, that had Dublin won, the capital would now be a bastion of hurling, with soccer, rugby and gaelic football the poor relations. As Tipp and Waterford prepare to square off tomorrow in Croke Park , Theo and Frankie talked to Diarmuid O’Flynn about that Dublin team, but soon the discussion went off on a tangent, to the individual greats.
Diarmuid O’Flynn: How good was that Dublin team of 1961?
Theo English: “They were the unluckiest team of all time that we beat them. They were the better team, without question, but inexperience cost them. I got a fair roasting the same day from Des Foley; they had two Boothmans on the team, one of them was on John Doyle and ran him into the ground. There was a fella by the name of Jackson corner-forward for Dublin, he got two balls in behind our full-back line, O’Brien was in the goal – all he had to do was keep going and pick his spot and he had two goals, but he parted with the ball far too early, and it was cleared.”
Frankie Walsh: “Jimmy Grey was on that team, and Mick Bohane, an army man.”
TE: “He was, and Snitchie Ferguson , a footballer as well but a good hurler — they beat us all over the place. Whenever I look at my medals now, I see that one and say to meself – that’s one I shouldn’t have won. You always know yourself whether you deserve it or not, and you’d never worry about being beaten by a better team. I remember one All-Ireland, the loss to Kilkenny in ‘67, and Donie Nealon was very upset – Donie would take things very seriously. ‘Look Donie,’ I said, ‘You get no runners-up medal – it was just a plaque that time – forget about it.’ I’d only laugh it off. As long as you won one All-Ireland medal you’d be happy — I’d be happy anyway, and I’d say you’re happy to have your one Frankie. It’s nice to win, but it was the craic more than anything else I enjoyed, meeting different fellas from all over the place.”
DO’F: “Theo mentions winning one, but should that Waterford team have won more?”
FW: “Listening to all the experts you’d say yes, we should have, but as Theo said, you’re delighted to have one, that was most important; if we hadn’t won any, that would have been a disaster. But you have to remember, there were so many great teams around at that time.”
TE: “You had ourselves, Cork , Kilkenny, Waterford , there wasn’t a puck of the ball between any of us, and Dublin came on the scene then for a while as well, Wexford also. Cork went out of it then early in the 60’s, but they were some hurlers.”
DO’F: 1960 against Cork, some say that was the hardest game of all time – was it (Tipp won the Munster final 4-13 to 4-11)?
TE: “Above in Thurles? It was. That was the day Ring got injured. There was a fella from Clonmel, he was a hackney driver, he always had to have first-hand information on everything, so immediately after the match he went onto the field, and there was a row started. Ring was swinging, your man got a belt in the butt of the jaw, four stitches; the father was a kind of a character (Theo’s father was also a hackney driver), he said to your man – ‘Isn’t that a great honour now, to get four stitches from a belt from Christy Ring!’”
FW: “The first time I played with Ring was the Railway Cup semi-final replay of 1957, against Connacht – actually he was the first fella to tell me I was on the team, I got on instead of Jimmy Smyth (Clare star). We won, got to the hotel afterwards, Ring got a cup of tea, broke the bread into it, made ‘goody’ for himself (anyone over 50 remembers ‘goody’, fed to teething babies before we became the fine sophisticated nation we are today) – he was after breaking his jaw, couldn’t chew! But he played, that’s how much he wanted to beat Galway.”
TE: “He was the most determined player I ever saw; if you were only playing for leather medals he’d give it everything. We used to play in the Charity, for the churches, and there was one year he’d been at the seaside, stood on a bottle, split his foot open, but he still played. And he’d be the same in every game. I remember in Barry’s Hotel in Dublin, where we’d stay for the Railway Cup, he’d get up in the morning and the first thing he did, two raw eggs, break them, plonk, plonk, into a cup, swallow them down. He took the Railway Cup as serious as the All-Ireland.
“I remember the final of ‘57, I was still only 20; Leinster were after beating Munster the year before, he came in off the field, we were under the Cusack Stand, there was this timber slatting on the ceiling painted green – he jumped up on the table and started bating the slatting with his hurley, ‘We bate the bastards, we bate the bastards!’ A Railway Cup! I was sitting there looking up at this man, a legend.”
TE: “I thought the best I heard was on the day of his funeral. I was coming out of the church afterwards, there were two men there from Shell (the oil company, for whom Ring worked), top men after coming over from England , and they looked down, saw the line of cars – about three miles of cars. He turned to the man in charge of Shell down in Cork – ‘In the name of God,’ he said, ‘Did ye have that man driving a lorry? That man should never have had to do a tap of work, he should have been out meeting the people!’ The best of all though; Mackey was standing outside the gate, and an ould fella went over him – ‘You’re definitely the best hurler alive now Mick,’ he said, ‘Now that Christy is gone!’ But what an insult!”
DO’F: How good was Mackey?
TE: “I only saw him at the end of his years. He wasn’t as good a ball-player as Ring but he was as tough, maybe tougher. I was talking to Johnny Ryan from Moycarkey one day, he played on the Munster team with Mackey, they were playing Leinster one day and they had this huge fella at centre-back, doing a bit of rooting and tearing – Mackey went in and hit him, laid him out completely. Johnny reckoned that man never played hurling again after, they didn’t come across him again anyway. Another day, he told me, he was playing for Tipp, Mackey was coming in with a ball, ‘And he only half-hit me,’ he told me, ‘But I was sick for a week after it!’ A terrible strong man, by all accounts, but Ring was different, I think he looked after himself better. He was getting ready for a club match one day in Cork , not a big game, they were togging off in a kind of an ould shed, a galvanised roof, the rest of the team were talking about politics, sport, the different events of the week. Next thing Ring hopped up on a bench, hit the galvanise roof a few flakes – ‘Listen!’ he shouted, ‘We’re down here to win a match, not to talk about the rubbish that happened during the week!’ Whether it was club or county, playing the best team around or the worst, he wanted to win, lead the match by three or four goals, drive on from there. Afterwards you could talk all you want about anything you want, but he was totally dedicated to the game, every game.”
DO’F: “How would you have rated Jimmy Doyle?”
FW: “I’d give Jimmy the highest marks you could give.”
TE: “Ring knew Doyle had it, the first time he ever saw him playing, he picked him out immediately. Sure if Doyle closed his eyes he’d still put the ball over the bar. And his hurley, it was about three inches shorter than anyone else’s – it was like a ruler. If I had his hurley I wouldn’t drive the ball 30 yards but I saw him driving them over the bar from outside the 70, and wet balls at that, without even looking at the goal.”
FW: “I saw him scoring a point in ‘58, against Kilkenny, on Paddy Buggy, a wicked wet day; he hit from 70 yards, into the Canal End, and I’d say if the goalposts had been another 20 yards back, it would still have gone over the bar.”
TE: “He had a right game that day, scored about 1-6 or 1-7.”
DO’F: “Looking at the two of ye, there’s a fierce contrast, size-wise – you’re still a big man Theo, huge hands, but Frankie, how did you survive in those games, those times?”
FW: “I was going up to the ‘57 All-Ireland final, we stopped in Carlow to stretch the legs. Power (Seamus) went into a bookie’s office, Cheasty had a pain in his head – what he was doing in a Mount Sion car I don’t know – but he went into a veg shop and got himself an orange. I was looking in the window of a hardware shop when Po wer noticed a chemist shop, the old weighing-scales outside; got up, put in his penny, 12 stone seven; Cheasty got up, 13 stone 3; Power turned to me – ‘Get up there Frankie.’ ‘I won’t,’ I said, I’m alright. ‘Ah, too mean to spend a penny!’ says Power. Eventually they persuaded me anyway, I got up – nine stone seven. “A f***ing jockey you should have been!’ says Power, ‘And we’re going playing an All- Ireland final tomorrow with you!’
DO’F: But how did you avoid getting killed?
TE: “He nearly was killed, a couple of times.”
FW: “I got my skull fractured on two different occasions, once with the county, my first championship match, the next time in a club game, but we won’t talk about that. The second time, I was out for 20 minutes but Philly told me afterwards, even when they were taking me off the pitch, I still had the ball in my hand. But I was advised never to play again but I did. I was at a tournament above in Kilkenny, Mount Sion in trouble at half-time, I got a loan of some gear and went in – back again.
DO’F: Lunacy?
TE: “It is lunacy, but you’d do it, for the club especially. If I injured my leg with Marlfield, and there was a game coming up for a set of medals that might be worth a tenner, if a fella came up to me and said, ‘For three hundred pounds I can have that leg right for Sunday,’ — you’d pay it. Whatever is in it, you’d pay, and willingly pay, just to be able to play. To win something with your club, that’s the thing.”
DO’F: “Pay for play with a twist.”
FW: “You’re playing with fellas as well who aren’t on the county team, who mightn’t have a hope of ever winning something big, an All-Ireland or a Railway Cup or anything like that, and these are all friends – that’s why it means so much. The All-Ireland club championship now, that’s a fantastic competition; fellas who would never er have a chance of winning an All-Ireland medal with their county, of playing in Croke Park, they get the chance with the club championships.”
TE: “Isn’t it even a thrill for the supporters of those clubs to say they were in Croke Park , that they walked on the pitch? Just to say that alone, never mind play there with your club. I met an old diehard Tipperary supporter after we beat Cork in the Munster final of ‘87, finally made the breakthrough again after 16 years, and he had a pen-knife in his hand, cut a little sod out of the field in Killarney – ‘Theo,’ he said, ‘I’ll always remember this day!’ That’s what it means to supporters like that.”
FW: “That’s why it’s so important for Waterford to win tomorrow, for the supporters. This will be their sixth All-Ireland semi-final in recent years, so even to get to an All-Ireland final at this stage is an honour, for your family, your street, your club, your county, a magnificent honour. Even to play in one is fantastic, though I think the lads today are losing out on a lot. When we were getting to Munster finals, All-Ireland finals, the hackney would come up to the house with the Waterford flags draped on the car and the neighbours would all come out to wish you well, on your way; now the team all meet down at the hotel, they go off their separate way, and they’re missing all that, they’re removed from their own.”
TE: “You have the likes of Tony Browne, playing for Waterford for over 13 years, outstanding service, you’d love to see him winning an All-Ireland. I’ve seen fellas win medals and they wouldn’t be half as good a hurler as him, and that’s the sorry thing. There’s another fella, with Limerick, Mark Foley, there was Des Foley of Dublin , Jimmy Smyth of Clare – all those never won All-Ireland medals, which is a shame. Jimmy Smyth was one of the best hurlers ever to come out of Munster. If he had been around in the 90’s, Clare would have won two or three more All-Irelands. Against Tipp one day in Cork he played the whole Tipp team on his own; I saw him scoring 2-5 one day when Tipp were really good, John Doyle, Tommy Doyle, all those fellas. People in Waterford think Tipperary people have it in for them, but we don’t; I’d love to see this Waterford team winning an All-Ireland.”
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
