One of the game’s immortals

I AM looking at a photograph in the programme for the Tipperary-Kilkenny All-Ireland final of 1967 (priced, incidentally at an old shilling).

It shows John Doyle clearing his lines in the Munster decider against Clare, hand-passing as a Banner stick bears down on his hand, with no sign of his own hurley. You could say its imagery typified his bravery at a time when men were men and survival at the highest level of the game owed more to strength and guts than to actual skill than it does nowadays — not that it was in short supply.

Underneath the photo is a short piece headed: “In search of immortality,’’ with the following text: “This afternoon John Doyle of Holycross bids for the immortality of nine senior hurling medals, while Kieran Carey, Tony Wall, Theo English, Donie Nealon, Liam Devaney and Jimmy Doyle try for their sixth.’’