'A strong hurling scene in the city is a central plank to a strong hurling scene in Cork'

Glen Rovers face Imokilly in tomorrow’s Cork senior hurling final, the kind of bald covering statement that covers a century-plus of history. The Glen, with two players on the GAA’s hurling Team of the Millennium. The Glen, eight counties in a row and the boys of sweet Blackpool. The only club in Ireland with a bridge and a tunnel named after past members?

That’s the Glen. Yet when they returned to the top table with a county title win in 2015 it was the club’s first senior championship since 1989. How did a drought like that happen? Chairman Derek Goggin explains by pointing to the after-effects of a couple of county senior victories.

“Those titles have rejuvenated the club, when you look back from the vantage point of having won them you can see just where the club was.

“It’s like any similar type of situation — when you’re right in the middle of it so you don’t have the outside view, the context. We mightn’t have been struggling at that point but we certainly weren’t as successful as we’d been accustomed to.”

The emotion of ending that barren spell four years ago came with an immediate pay-off, he adds.

“The best way to describe what happened is that when we won in 2015, after a lapse of 26 years, we brought the cup up Spring Lane and into the club and there were plenty of youngsters there to see it come in, young lads of 15 and 16.

“I have a distinct memory of seeing some of the young lads who went on to win minor medals in 2017 there — the likes of Robert Downey and Simon Kenefick stand out in the mind, as examples. That’s the best way you can describe how to restore that continuity. They and the other lads their age were fascinated by it — by bringing the cup across the bridge and up into the club, all of those kinds of traditions.

The celebrations were as raucous as you might imagine, and I’ve no doubt that win set something off in them, an itch that they wanted to scratch themselves. That tells you how a county title win like that can reinvigorate everything.

Few clubs can boast a backstory like the Glen’s. Christy Ring dominated Cork hurling for decades while wearing the famous Glen jersey. Jack Lynch came back to Blackpool when he was appointed Taoiseach. Silverware glitters in the clubhouse. Can history become a burden, though?

“The Glen has a long tradition and a great history, but we all want to create our own history as well,” says Goggin. “Achieving that through appearing in county finals, and hopefully winning them, creates that history and that in turn inspires the younger generation again. They want to be part of that and to achieve for themselves.”

And then the history isn’t as distant?

“Exactly, one of our more famous players said that — it wasn’t that they were sick of seeing the old pictures on the wall, but they wanted to get their own pictures up there. It encapsulates how the current crop of players and members wants to make their own tradition and history, and there’s no doubt that propels it all on again.”

Is there a significance for Cork in the Glen winning county titles again? Their traditional rivals St Finbarr’s made it to the other semi-final, suggesting a revival in city hurling.

“I presume other city clubs — like ourselves — take it as an article of faith that having a strong hurling scene in the city is a central plank to a strong hurling scene in Cork generally. And we’d believe that ourselves, that a strong urban scene has proven key in Dublin, particularly in football, to having a strong county scene.

"The Barr’s got to the county semi-final and while they might have come up short it feels like they’re beginning to come, and I’m sure they’ll make a final in the not too distant future. Blackrock likewise — there is unbelievable work going on down there and they’ve had huge underage success.

"Na Piarsaigh have an up and coming team with a lot of young players, Douglas have probably underachieved in most people’s eyes . Look, Cork hurling shouldn’t be about having a city-county divide, and no-one’s suggesting there should be, but there should also be a strong urban scene. I don’t think anyone would disagree with that.”

That urban scene has changed hugely in recent years however for all sorts of reasons — demographics, housing patterns, employment— which means clubs are dealing with new challenges.

“That’s true - what it’s meant for all clubs, and for the bigger clubs maybe in particular is to double down on what you have — your structures, your ability to retain the players you have, to be really embedded in your community.

“Obviously the Glen is a Blackpool club and emerged from the lanes and streets around the locality. But from the time the Glen was founded in 1916 up to the time Na Piarsaigh came on the scene in the late forties it had the pick of the northside, really. That was the reality.

“Now the catchment area is much smaller, and we have to be open to the community getting involved because that’s what we rely on for members and support. I’d imagine other clubs in the same situation have reacted similarly by doubling down on what they’re doing to retain players.” Retention is a different proposal when the catchment has shrunk, clearly.

“That’s fair,” says Goggin. “When a club is founded it always has a small nucleus— the Glen was no different in 1916 and was closely identified with the area surrounding it. Then it expanded and probably hit a high water mark in the sixties, when it had an aura - and a huge pick of players from a big area.

Now we’re in an unusual situation in that a lot of the factors which helped the Glen to grow to a superpower, its catchment area and population, have changed hugely, particularly in the last couple of decades.

You can’t take on demographic patterns in a game, of course.

“No - all you can do is react to it and in a sense what’s happened over the last 20 years here has been a slimming down of what we’re about and focusing — focusing on where we’re from, what we stand for and on engaging the community in what we do. One thing the Glen would still have is a following that comes from its history. People who have moved to other parts of Cork, and elsewhere, who still support us.

“They mightn’t be in the club every week but on a day like tomorrow they’ll be out to support the club and they’re vocal in that support.”

The signs are good for the Glen. Another county final tomorrow. A minor county final last week. Youngsters like Simon Kenefick and Robert Downey coming through.

“Are we optimistic? Yes. We feel we have a strong pipeline of talent coming through. We lost the minor county final last week and it was disappointing, but you often learn more from defeat than victory. We love winning titles, it’s great to have that buzz around the club in particular in the run-up to tomorrow. But it’s not the end of the world. It’s disappointing not to have a cup but we can also spot five or six players on that team who have the potential to become senior players.

And in all the age groups right down to U13, you can see the potential in all groups — we feel it’s very promising. What a senior win would do is to capture those youngsters’ imagination, to drive them on. That’s what you’re trying to do more than victory for victory’s sake - you’re trying to put that fuel in the tank for the next group of lads, to drive them on when their time comes.”

For this group, though, the time is now.