UCC's Fitzgibbon Cup dominance: ‘If Fr O’Brien told us we were going to win, we felt we could’

BACK IN THE DAY: The UCC panel that won the 1981 Fitzgibbon Cup. 

It is March 1, 1981, and the victorious UCC hurlers are singing ‘The Banks’ on the steps of the Hogan Stand having just won the Fitzgibbon Cup final in a muddy Croke Park. I’m one of those fresh-faced hurlers, not daring to believe my luck. I am 19 years old.

Now, I can’t believe it’s 40 years ago (to the day) since that happened. Hard to believe, too, that in the years that followed, UCC went on a run of eight Fitzgibbon Cup wins in a row, a feat never before or since matched in the competition’s 110-year history.