When boys of ’73 served up a treat

Between hurling and football,I suppose you could say we were very fit, but you had a dilemma to try and pace yourself or play as hard and as long as you could

FOR Denis Coughlan, most of the game is lost to the sands of time, buried beneath the avalanche of memories built up during his years serving both Cork’s footballers and hurlers, but one vignette remains unwithered by time: a photograph of the Corkman rising with Tyrone’s Frank McGuigan for a ball in midfield in the 1973 All-Ireland semi-final.

“I was marking Frank that day and I genuinely didn’t know anything about him,” Coughlan explains. “He was only 18 or 19 but I can honestly say that, not knowing anything about him, I came to the conclusion, even during the match, he was one of the best footballers I ever played against.