Keith Ricken: 'There's a Cork football tsunami coming'

The Rebels' minors are one hour from an All-Ireland final appearance.

WEATHER WARNING: Cork manager Keith Ricken says 'a tsunami of Cork football [is] coming again'.  Pic: Diarmuid Brennan/Sportsfocus

The purpose of the call to Keith Ricken was to tee up Cork’s All-Ireland minor football semi-final this weekend.

Once all minor-related matters were teased through, Ricken was asked about the wider Cork football picture.

The wider Cork football picture is, at the moment, most encouraging. The minors are one hour from an All-Ireland final appearance, the U20s overcame in the Munster round-robin the eventual All-Ireland champions from across the border, while the seniors have positioned themselves one hour from a first All-Ireland semi-final involvement since 2012 after back-to-back victories over two of last year’s semi-finalists.

Ricken has much positive to say about this wider picture. His belief is that there is a Cork football “tsunami” coming over the horizon.

“On days that there's a family wedding, everyone in the family and extended family is happy. It's a bit like that for football. On days when the minors win, a lot of the seniors would drop a text to say, well done, as would former players,” Ricken begins.

“We have our own text group for the minors and Saturday’s game in Ballybofey wasn’t over 10 seconds and everyone had been on, saying, ‘Brilliant’, ‘Fantastic’, ‘Oh my God what a win’. That kind of stuff resonates with all of us because we all believe in the bigger picture.

“A rising tide does lift all boats, but it lifts your heart and your spirit, which is great to see.” 

Ricken, and he’s not being retrospectively cute here, wasn’t the least bit surprised by John Cleary’s side turning over Jim McGuinness’ Donegal in the latter’s backyard. There’s a pair of MTU Cork employees who can vouch for his pre-match optimism. It serves as a microcosm of Ricken's deeply ingrained belief where Cork football is concerned.

“Not all of us could be in Donegal, but we were there in spirit, and we were following it blow-by-blow on radio,” he continued.

“A lot of us were not surprised that Cork won. I told the caretakers here [in MTU Cork] that the bookmakers had them at 7/1, how it'd be a good bet, and they were kind of looking at me as if I’d two heads. I said, ‘Down beat Donegal, and this is a good Cork side, we're going to rattle this’.

“We would have that belief, and maybe sometimes it's away with the fairies, but we genuinely would have that great belief.” It is not, however, the belief that such momentous days as Ballybofey are possible that drives their involvement. It’s the sense of family they derive from being part of the Cork football community and contributing to its current wellbeing.

“If John Cleary, myself, Ray Keane, and all these other people that are involved in various teams, if we weren't involved, we'd be at the matches, we'd be shouting for Cork, we’d be hoping that Cork do well, we'd be hoping that the management do well, we'd be hoping that the players do well, and if we saw some fella at a club match, we'd pick up the phone to whoever's in charge of Cork to say, ‘Look, I saw him, he's going well at the moment’.

“There's a genuine cohort of people who love Cork football and who are really celebrating all these victories. Ok, we've no All-Ireland won or anything, but, you know, we've had a lot of very good successes.

“There's always a great energy to Cork football. It mightn't always translate onto your senior team because it is cyclical, but I do genuinely feel there's a tsunami of Cork football coming again.

“I do genuinely believe that, and it's not because I'm involved with the minors, I just see it. I see the standard of football has gone up. I see the teams in the county, and I see the work they are putting in. I see the strength and conditioning. I see all this stuff being done and people going in the right direction. I see young boys going around, and they’re very interested following the teams that are out there at the moment.

“I wouldn't do this if I was the only person that was getting a kick out of this thing. There's a greater cause in this. We genuinely believe in Cork football. There's a good cohort of people there that would have given their time over the last number of years, and they're tight. I've been on every side of it now at this stage, good and bad, and I've always felt that these people had my back.”