For Lough Rovers, the victory was greater than winning the final
GLORY DAY: Lough Rovers’ captain Shane Long and players celebrate after defeating Freemount in the 2020 Bon Secours Cork JCFC final at Páirc Uí Rinn on Sunday.
Lough Rovers collected a county title on Sunday, the Cork Junior C football title, when they beat north Cork side Freemount, 2-13 to 1-6.
A banner event in any club’s history. A huge achievement for a club which has teetered on the edge of the abyss.
That’s not idle talk for Lough Rovers. Don Rice, who has given his life to the club as player, manager, and administrator, enjoyed the sunshine last weekend all the more because of the dark days he knew in recent years.
“Did we ever lose heart? We did. Myself and John Punch, the chairman, were doing everything for a while — running the club financially, picking teams, managing teams, training teams, going to City Division and county board meetings. Everything.
“We won the junior C football county in 2017 and the day of the final we couldn’t pick our team until we got to the game in Carrigadrohid. When we landed in for the final I said to John, ‘are we making a mockery of the competition if we win this?’” Rice and Punch decided they weren’t. They were giving players a game and they had qualified for a county final on merit, but it was a watershed.
“After that I said to John I didn’t think I could keep going any more, but he kept after me, ‘we have to keep it going’, and I carried on.
“And of course when he got down over the whole thing I’d say the same to him: ‘look John, we just have to keep going’.”
The tide turned when Gavin O’Donovan fell in with the Lough. He pulled in some comrades from the army and soon the playing numbers began to give Rice some comfort.
“You didn’t have to ring lads before a game to find out where they were, and more players started to join us.
“Gordon Aherne, Michael Moynihan, these fellas joined us and the word of mouth spread, and while we weren’t going to win anything, at least we had a full panel.
“It meant you could pick the team an hour before the game, not 10 minutes before.
“Eventually we reached a point where you didn’t have to ring lads half an hour before the throw-in because you were stuck.
“One thing I need to mention is that Redmonds, a team we had great games against for years when I was playing myself, were very good to us. Four or five of the players who lined out for us on Sunday came over from Redmonds to us when they went, as well as Mossy Holland our selector, another Redmonds man.
“They definitely helped us out a lot over the last few years.”
In the mid-eighties Lough Rovers were challenging for county football titles at junior A level with a fine team, but the population drift out of the city centre hit their constituency hard.
“I’m living in Glenville myself,” says Rice. “If you went around the parish there might be only five in the traditional area we had, around the Lough and Ballyphehane. Fellas move out and can’t come back.
“I would never think of transferring to another club, because I’m a Lough man. End of story.
“But obviously we’ve had lads fall in with us from other clubs around Cork, while three lads joined us from Limerick when they moved to Cork, they found out about us through word of mouth.
“Maybe the new breed of player, the younger generation, don’t think as much of transferring between clubs — they tend to be more mobile than we were anyway.”
Last Sunday’s victory is a welcome shot of adrenaline, but challenges remain for the Lough.
That traditional area mentioned by Rice is “mostly students”, as he says, and unlikely to yield too many playing prospects.
The future is bright, however.
“I’m more optimistic now than I ever was, to be honest,” says Rice.
“Football was dying a death in the club but last week the lads had 20 out training for football for the final. In my time we were lucky to have five or six training, so it’s great.”
Rice had to drop out as secretary last year. But he didn’t go too far.
“There’s only so long you can do it, and I had to call it a day.
“But Niall O’Sullivan took over as secretary from me, and he’s young enough to still be playing.
“So last Sunday I said to him that I was around if he needed somebody to fill out the team sheets, or whatever else needed to be done, on the day of the game.
“I couldn’t handle all the phone calls to the board and all that stuff anymore, but I was happy enough last Sunday down on the sideline helping out, with no real pressure on.”
Still there. Still keeping it going.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
