1982 All-Ireland SFC final referee PJ McGrath passes away

28 August 1983; Dublin captain Tommy Drumm, right, shakes hands with Cork captain Christy Ryan, while referee PJ McGrath looks on ahead of the 1983 All-Ireland SFC semi-final at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, Cork. Picture credit: Ray McManus / SPORTSFILE

The death has occurred of 1982 All-Ireland senior football final referee PJ McGrath at the age of 79.

The man in the middle for the famous decider which saw Offaly dash Kerry’s five-in-a-row aspirations, Mayo man McGrath was also chairman of his county from 1997 to 2002.

Kilmaine clubman McGrath was also a member of the Mayo senior panel in the mid-1960s before he took up refereeing and finished in 1997 having taken charge of games at local, national and international level.

As well as the 1982 final, McGrath was also appointed to two minor football finals, four vocational schools finals, Railway Cup finals, national club finals and International Rules matches. He served as president of the Connacht Council, running for the GAA presidency in 2002, and was the chair of the national referees committee.

In an interview with the late Weeshie Fogarty in 2011, he recalled Seamus Darby’s winning goal and “the push” on Tommy Doyle. “The ball came up the field and they (Offaly) got a free. It was taken by one of the O’Connors (Liam) if I remember and Jacko (O’Shea) had gone back into the back-line, which he’d have normally done at that time to catch the ball.

“One of the Kerry players said to me afterwards that when Jacko didn’t get it they were getting worried it might break to some other one. And every one of the Kerry fellas made a lunge towards the ball to make sure that if it broke towards them they’d get it.

“But realising that the ball travelled farther than they expected, when they tried to come back I think there was a man standing in the way. I don’t believe there was any push quite honestly. If there was, I would have given a free. I’d have had no worries about giving a free, in or out. I did it as fairly as I possibly could because I knew anything you do in an All-Ireland final will be judged harshly by everyone for many years afterwards. He (Darby) made himself comfortable when the ball was coming to him so he was in a position to shoot afterwards and that’s what an experienced player will do. It was a bump off him (Doyle). I don’t think there was anything other in it. I couldn’t see a free in it, quite honestly, and I didn’t expect a goal to come off it and neither did any of the 80,000 people there.” 

Meanwhile, former Cusack Park groundsman Martin Flanagan has passed away. The Ruan clubman was the groundsman at the Ennis venue and Ballyline for 22 years.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a n-anamacha.