Twenty years not out

TWENTY YEARS is a long time in anyone’s life, particularly a sportsman. The Ireland of 1989 seems like a different planet given what we’ve experienced since.

A quick reminder: Cork won the All-Ireland football championship that season, though Mayo would feel that they could have grabbed the title. It was also the year of the “Tony Keady affair” that still causes teeth to clench in Galway hurling circles.

Names like Pat Fox, the late John Kerins, Willie Joe Padden and Teddy McCarthy still ring a bell, idols in the world of GAA when the Irish soccer chant of “Ole, Ole, Ole” was only in its infancy.