'It was fairytale stuff': The last team Mick O'Dwyer managed
Jack Curran with Mick O'Dwyer. Pic: Jack Curran
When tourists visited O’Dwyers pub in Waterville to gaze upon the memorabilia from Kerry’s Golden Years adorning the walls in recent times, one of the bar staff would intimate that he was also part of the Micko legend.
“I'd always joke that I was the last winning captain that he had,” says James Fitzgerald. “They always loved it.” It was said with a roguishness, the type Micko would likely have appreciated, but it was also true. In 2014, Fitzgerald captained an amalgamated Waterville-Dromid under-14 side to the County League Division 8 title. It was the last team Mick O’Dwyer managed.
He was initially called in to give a hand. Even the smallest crumb of Micko wisdom would be valued. But then - like Steven Spielberg directing a school play in his hometown - he was appointed under-14 manager. He was 79 and it was nearly a year on from his final inter-county job with Clare.
“The first training session, I think we had record numbers,” says Jack Curran, now joint-captain of the Waterville seniors.
“Most of them kept it up throughout the whole year because they were interested in it. I suppose Micko's way of training, he kept us interested and he kept encouraging us, and no one felt left out. Everyone kept going to training because they wanted to, and not because they had to, or they felt they needed to, but because they wanted to.”
Curran believes Micko’s main motivation was long-term, not short-term. He wanted to leave a legacy with the club where his love of Gaelic football had begun. It was 28 years since he'd led Kerry to the last of his eight All-Irelands as a manager but he wanted to plant in others seeds of the grá he still had for the sport.
“Every coach and every player wants to win, but that wouldn't have been his immediate priority,” says Curran.
“His immediate priority was that everyone was involved, everyone was playing football, and everyone was enjoying it. Everyone was treated equally, they were all included irrespective of how good they were.
“It was about developing players that would go on to play with the Waterville senior team in the future, and I suppose to improve the club.
“He always told us to go out and enjoy football. And as long as we enjoy the sport, our capabilities are endless. There's no limit to them. That's the key to any success.”
Micko gave the young team the type of confidence which made them think they too could one day wear the green and gold of Kerry. Six of that side are still playing senior football with Waterville. For any underage team, it’s a strong class to bring through the ranks but particularly for a club in south Kerry where the pull of the cities and emigration, because people simply need to work and live, will always be a drain on playing numbers.
“The belief thing, it was huge,” says Fitzgerald. “We wouldn't have been the best underage back then. If you were playing well, you'd be delighted coming off because if Micko said something to you, you'd feel like a Kerry senior.
“There was a great cohesiveness. Everyone was friends on the team as well, and that helped. As that team went on through under 16s and minors, it's hard to know but maybe he brought them on as well, maybe that bit of commitment there at an early age kept lads with it.
“I remember under 16 and minor training, and even up to nearly senior - I suppose a few years ago before he got sick - you'd always see him pull into the field.
“If you met him around the village, he'd always be quizzing you about football and how the team is doing. He'd always be asking about fellas. It kept them honest in a way, because if the word got back to Micko that you weren't playing football or playing well, you'd feel almost embarrassed, you'd have to put in the extra dig then!”
In the league semi-final, Waterville-Dromid beat St Michaels Foilmore, what Fitzgerald recalls as an upset. They went into the final as underdogs against a Templenoe-Sneem-Derrynane amalgamation which had beaten them earlier in the competition.
“I remember the final, we actually had it at home,” says Fitzgerald. “Jesus, the crowd that was there... for an under 14 game, it was gas. I'd say a lot of it had something to do with Micko, people coming down to see his team.
“It was fairytale stuff. It actually was score for score the whole game. It was 13 apiece, and they were attacking hard. We turned them over, had a quick counterattack.
“We'd a forward isolated at the 45. Their keeper came out, and (Daniel O’Connell) lobbed him. That was more or less the last kick of the game. It was insane. It was great scenes. Everyone rushed onto field.
“I remember doing the speech. I was just in shock doing it; it was probably a terrible speech! I think I forgot to thank the ref, I was just so focused on thanking Micko. We got it done for him in a way.“
Curran recalls that Micko smile on the sideline.
“There was just sheer devilment on his face," he says.
"It was like he was after coaching a county team to win a title. He had the same level of excitement. His son, Haulie, was with him at the time. He would have been a selector. Both of them were over the moon.”
For many of those players, it was the first trophy they’d won, and it was the last one of Micko’s career.
“That’s something you’d hold close to your heart for the rest of your life,” says Dylan Huggard, also now a Waterville senior, who was one of that under-14 team’s youngest members.
In the RTÉ documentary which aired in 2018, O’Dwyer recalled managing that team and it being a fitting way to end his career on the sideline.
"The very last team that I managed was an under-14 team. I was 79," he said with that husky chuckle.
"And we went on to win the league. I said when that happened, the wheel has gone right around now so that was the last team I managed; unless I manage one up above, if there is football to be played there - we'll wait and see."
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