OBITUARY: Vince Linnane, Kerry GAA kitman - ‘There are people like that in every county in Ireland, but he was ours’
Who was the Mayo man taking pride of place in Kerry’s NFL final win over Dublin last Sunday?
Vince Linnane, who passed away suddenly on Tuesday evening at the age of 82, was officially the Kerry kitman and groundsman at Austin Stack Park, but the Kiltimagh native was much more than that.
When Patrick O’Sullivan first became an officer with the Kerry County Board two decades ago, for instance, the then chairman, Sean Walsh, asked him to help Vince with the gear when he could.
“Through that we built our own friendship,” says O’Sullivan, who stepped down as Kerry chairman last December.
“He’d mark my card about different things happening in north Kerry, things to keep an eye on. When he was smiling you knew he was in good form, but you’d know a day he wasn’t in good form, because the head would be going a different way.“
Linnane was approached by Tony O’Keeffe, then Kerry secretary, in the late 80s to look after Austin Stack Park through a FÁS scheme, but he “outgrew that job because he was too good,” says O’Sullivan, adding: “He was a kitman for the Kerry minor hurlers but he ended up minding all the gear that came in for all the Kerry teams — jerseys, togs, all of that — but that job got bigger as well.
“He took that on, though. If we were in Dublin for a game, for instance, and we needed a stationary bike for the side of the field, he’d source one, no problem. He’d let nothing to chance.”
Linnane’s influence in the Tralee venue wasn’t confined to the upkeep of the ground, either.
“He looked after players for years, whether it was coming into Austin Stack Park or on the road for matches,” says O’Sullivan.
“He was a gentleman, so unobtrusive. He was in the dressing-room for many an All-Ireland senior football final but you’d never know it. He’d come in, do his job, go into the corner, carry out his role as professionally as possible — and the players loved him for that.
“He managed the players, particularly new lads coming in, in terms of marking their cards about how things were done around the team.
“And they recognised that, too — last Sunday, after they won the league final, they were standing around in a circle, but the one man they called into the middle of that circle was Vince. He was a major cog in the machine in all the Kerry campaigns of the last few years.”
As a player, Dara Ó Cinnéide saw Linnane’s influence up close and personal: “From my time going into Kerry minor training he was Mr Austin Stack Park. You’d often see guys hanging around GAA pitches with high-vis bibs on them, but Vince was someone who always had cuma na hoibre, he always looked like he was working. Those other guys would just be standing around, but if you wanted something done you went to Vince.
“He was so proud of the pitch in Austin Stack Park, it was like it was his own. It didn’t matter who the county chairman or the officers were, it was Vince’s pitch.
“He was there when it was re-done in 1994, and again last year ahead of the Donegal league game. I spoke to him that time last year and it meant a lot to him — that the surface was improved, that the pitch was a proper inter-county pitch again, and that the players appreciated that as well.
He was defensive about the pitch — ‘there’s no-one allowed on my pitch’ — he looked after it like a baby.
“If you were in Killarney the late, great Bernie O’Connor had the same position. They were the personalities of the stadium, really.
“There was a long period when it was an open secret that Kerry preferred to play in Killarney rather than Tralee, but players still loved to go in to Tralee to see Vince — the smile, the relationship he had with everybody.”
Ó Cinnéide can remember one relationship in particular: “I remember how well Vince got on with Páidí (Sé), when he was Kerry manager. I’d go in the car with Páidí to training inside in Tralee, and Páidí would ring Vince just so he’d hear the greeting, a big: ‘How’s Páidí?’.
“Páidí would often ring him for the crack coming into Tralee just to hear him say it, but he mightn’t have anything to say after that. Silence. And you’d nearly hear Vince wondering: ‘Why is he after ringing me?’ before Páidí would come up with something like: ‘ah . . . right, we’ll be in there shortly so, everything’s alright?’”
Linnane had no problems going outside his job specification when the occasion demanded, adds Ó Cinnéide.
“After we won the All-Ireland in 2004 we had the GOAL charity match in Austin Stack Park, and when I went into the dressing-room afterwards my clothes were gone — the place was overrun by about 50 kids, all probably trying to get the Gooch’s autograph, and my stuff vanished.
“I was captain and was due to open the town square in Tralee that night, and I hadn’t anything to wear.”
Ó Cinnéide enlisted Linnane’s help, and he came through.
“He pulled together some kind of black tracksuit and a white t-shirt. I could walk down the town at least, though I don’t know what I looked like. But that’s what he was like, if he could help you at all, he would.”
Last Sunday, Ó Cinnéide was in the bowels of Croke Park ahead of the NFL final between Dublin and Kerry, filming for a documentary, when the Kerry van pulled in.
“He was there in the van and I was slagging him about being from Mayo, all of that, though he was Kerry as anybody. He was pointing at the security guards because they were in blue: ‘Look, they all want the Dubs to win’.
“I couldn’t believe it when I heard the news a couple of days after.”
Patrick O’Sullivan says: “I’ll miss him, definitely. We worked together for 19 years.
“He was unique. He did his own thing, did it his own way, and always got it done.
“I’m sure there are people like that in every county,” says Ó Cinnéide, “And in every stadium in Ireland, but he was ours.”
Vincent Linnane is survived by his wife Noreen, sons Jerry and Vincent, daughters Joanne, Noreen, Patricia, Angela and Philomena, sisters Pauline, Marie and Bridie, brothers Joe and Michael.
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