The Kieran Shannon interview: Always rooting for the underdog

If you were to go by the league table, the Waterford team Ephie Fitzgerald took over last winter are the worst county team in the country by virtue of propping up Division Four. But their manager has never been a man who judges a book by its cover

Leading light: Waterford manager Ephie Fitzgerald during the McGrath Cup Group A match against his native Cork in Páirc Uí Rinn. What does he think of where Cork are now? “Look,” he smiles, “no matter what I say it’ll be seen by some as just sour grapes. But of course I still have views on Cork football and a passion for it.

Just like with the boy named Sue that Johnny Cash sang about, perhaps there was a logic afterall behind why they called him what they did.

To everyone in football he’s simply and affectionately known as Ephie but before the streets of Turner Cross got a hold of it and mercifully abbreviated it, the name on his birth cert read Ephraim. His great grandmother was a very religious woman and yearned to call a child by that name. But after her own son died upon birth she’d wait naming someone after the grandson of Jacob until her own great grandson came along.