Christy Ring in his own words: ‘I realised I was on an even par with my schoolboy hero when I was 20’

Christy Ring kisses the bishop’s ring before the start of the 1954 All-Ireland SHC final against Wexford at Croke Park. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive/Ref 857G

Jim Hayes grew up watching Christy Ring play before becoming a teacher in Scoil Barra, Beaumont in the mid-’70s.

He organised internal school hurling and football competitions and Christy Ring presented the trophies at the finals on June 26, 1975.

In 1976, Hayes was invited by the editor of the local Diocesan magazine, The Fold, to contribute a regular sports column.

He interviewed some members of the successful Cork hurling team of the day, then Ring himself.

“I approached him with some trepidation,” says Hayes. “I was elated when he acceded. He remarked that “not many read The Fold anyway”, possibly indicating why he agreed.”

The following is a selection of excerpts from that interview, first published in The Fold, the Cork and Ross catholic diocesan magazine, in May and June 1977.

Q: The major factors that he felt contributed to his becoming a great hurler?

A: “If you want to be good at anything, you have to be a good listener. In other words, you have to be a good pupil.

“Everybody has something to add to life. From the day he is born, he has something to add. He’s there for some purpose. He is unique.

“So, you have to listen to people. Even though you don’t have to do what they ask you to do, you still have to listen to them, in order to be good. That was one thing that I was — a good listener.

“No matter who came to me about a game, whether I played well or poorly, I still listened to what they had to say, even though I had my own ideas.

“One day I was going into a field to a match. I was getting on at the time, and the worst thing that can happen a player is to be bothered before a match by well-wishers.

“Anyway, this fellow clapped me on the back and said, “Come on now, young fellow”; I was a long way from being a young fellow.

“Naturally enough, I got a little ratty. I mentioned it to the person who was with me and he said to me ‘Wouldn’t it be a lot worse if he called you an oul’ fella?’

“In this instance, what one person said counteracted what the other said and I never forgot what was said.”

Q: What was his greatest single asset?

A: “During my playing career, I met a lot of players that were faster, taller and better in several ways. But to be a good hurler, you have to have something that the others have not got. I had that — strength.

“I never met anyone physically stronger than myself. I achieved this strength by hard physical training.

“Allied to this, I had a fierce determination when going for the ball. I would go through a stone wall to get a 50/50 ball. I would stop at nothing.

“My strength was largely hidden, because I wasn’t a big fellow… I knew that weighing 13 stone and travelling at speed, I could take on any player.

“I only used my strength when needed. All-round physical strength was my best weapon. I never did weightlifting or anything like that to develop this strength.

“I had it automatically and I’d say it was in the mind. Seventy five percent of everything is in the mind and it’s the mind that counts.”

Q: How did the knowledge that he had this strength boost his confidence?

A: “Most times, if you get the better of your opponent, the rest takes care of itself.

“When you are playing the game for a while, you have great confidence in yourself, if you are really a great player. You actually put it up to the other fellow.

“It’s like saying to your opponent: ’That’s the ball and I’m going to get it’. You let him make up his own mind, but if you are really good, you’ll get it… You have eight or nine skills that you have really perfected, and you decide that you are going to use one or more of them. The game is all about confidence in what you have learned.”

Q: When did he first begin to realise that he could be great?

A: “I began to realise that when I found that the players on the Cork senior team weren’t what I thought they were. 

“I knew their names. I came up from a small village. It’s for all the world like a chap from the back of Dingle coming to Tralee and playing with Mike Sheehy and the other Kerry players. It begins to dawn on him that he could become a lot better than some of these.

“The schoolboy hero was no hero to me anymore when I realised that I was on an even par with him. This took honest thinking. It sunk in when I was about 20.

“I was in and out of the Cork team, playing minor, junior and senior in league matches. I found then that I could really make it”.

Q: What was his approach to practice?

A: “There is no such thing as practice. There is such a thing as hard work…”

- You can purchase the Irish Examiner's 20-page special publication to mark the centenary of Christy Ring's birth with your Friday edition of the Irish Examiner in stores or from our epaper site.