Marc Ó Sé: Kerry football doesn’t mean as much to county's young people

STRONG WORDS: Kerry football legend Marc O Sé.

It pains Marc Ó Sé to say it but Kerry football doesn’t mean as much to the county’s young folk anymore.

As a teacher in Tralee CBS, the five-time All-Ireland winner and 2007 footballer of the year has insight into the sense and sensibilities of teenagers.

The green and gold, that was the be-all and end-all for him and his generation and those before him, just doesn’t have the same hold on the current crop, he argues.

“I don’t think it is there. It comes from the families, it does not just come from the player himself. I look back at the stories about Páidí when he was growing up. My grandmother [Beatrice] would not have been into football, she was from Sligo. My grandfather Tommy Ó Sé would not have been that much into football, but our first cousin, Tom Long, over the road was and maybe Páidí wanted to emulate him.

“It was probably someone within the family and my grandmother made sure she did everything in her power to ensure he achieved what he achieved. But I don’t think it is in the county now. There is soccer, rugby, basketball, my young fella [Tadhg] now plays basketball, soccer as well as football and obviously he will have to make a decision in a couple of years as to what he will want to play.

“Another example is David Clifford, when he was offered to go off to Australia, there was never going to be a situation knowing the Cliffords, knowing their background, knowing their father, Dermot. I didn’t really know his late mom, Ellen, but knowing his uncle Fergus, there was only one thing that David Clifford was ever going to do and that was play for Kerry.

“It comes from within the family. You hear the stories about all these fellas who are going to go off to Australia and you would wonder is that level of passion there to achieve your boyhood dream, which is to play in the green and gold. I am not so sure. I think it has waned big time.” 

While Clifford stayed, Cillian Burke in October became the sixth Kerry footballer since Tadhg Kennelly to sign for an AFL club. From Ó Sé’s neighbouring Dingle, Geelong player Mark O’Connor’s absence in the middle of the field is keenly felt.

“What a talent he was. He certainly was, any fella that plays minor finals and Hogan Cup finals two years in a row and is man of the match in most of them is an incredible achievement as a player. He backs that up, then, when he went to Geelong, he has had such a career there. His great granduncle [Tom] ‘Gega’ Connor would have won five All-Ireland medals with Kerry back in the 40s.

“I definitely think Mark was the one that got away. It is easy to say if we put this stuff in place for these players but the attraction of going to a beautiful country, warm weather, getting paid for something you enjoying doing, it is hard not to put your hand up for that.” 

O’Connor may have followed David Moran as Kerry’s fear láidir but Ó Sé reckons the county have never found someone to fill the boots of his older brother Darragh. “The whole of the county has missed Darragh. What have we won since he retired? Two All-Irelands? That’s alarming from a Kerry point of view.

“They say you never replace certain players. When Gooch [Colm Cooper] retired we replaced him with David Clifford perhaps but with Darragh I just don’t think we properly replaced him for the longevity he gave, for the 16, 17 years. It’s a needy area for Kerry at the moment.” 

Ó Sé’s Laochra Gael is televised on TG4 on Thursday at 9.30pm. In the programme, he returns to the tragic event four days before Kerry’s 2009 All-Ireland SFC final against Cork when he and Mícheál Ó Sé attempted to save a woman, Maria Philips, from falling off a cliff at Bín Bán beach near Dingle. Despite Ó Sé’s best efforts and risking his own life, Philips fell and died.

How did Ó Sé right himself for the final? “Some people say you’d be cold-hearted in these situations but whatever it was, football always, always, got me focused. When you get into a train on a Saturday morning with the lads, you get back into the environment and back in with the lads and back into your routine and you’re able to block things out.

“You know what, it’s actually similar to 2002 when my father [Mícheál] passed away, when we had made the decision to play against Cork in the replay. He died on the Tuesday, we buried him on the Thursday and we said we’d train that evening in Killarney and for that hour everything seemed to go away. Whatever it is with football, it definitely took your mind away from things.”