'Nobody like JBM' - 10 takeaways from Hoggie: My Story
Cork and Glen Rovers hurling legend Patrick Horgan signs a copy of his book ‘Hoggie’ for Betty Anderson at the clubhouse for the book launch. Pic: Larry Cummins
This could hardly have clicked sweeter for Hoggie. Just another evening's hurling. Senior training below in the Glen field to finetune for the county final, then up to the Glen clubhouse for a celebration of his three decades in hurling. And to launch his book.
Patrick Horgan has always insisted it was about the journey more than the medals and the book rewinds to the start of his.
“From my bedroom at home, I can see across the valley into the Glen Field, and even at nine years old the question haunts me. Will I ever play senior for the Glen?”
Tonight, Glen Rovers spared him press night duties after senior training, since tonight he would spare a few words for everybody.
He says the only time he got emotional about hurling was after the Glen's county final win in 2015, and tonight was an emotional hurling night too.
"Obviously, playing with the Glen has always been the most important thing for me, starting off when I was eight, almost 30 years ago.
"Love just going to the place. My best memories are from here, my best friends are from here, just to be still playing with them, and just being there is special for me, because it was always my dream. Just playing with the Glen.
"I never really thought about Cork when I was young. Obviously, I went to the games, but my dream was to play senior with the Glen. That was my dream early on, I know that.
"I was watching them playing every night so I always saw that level as something really high to reach.
“We just lived in the club. We just didn’t want to be anywhere else.”
The stars were out. Donal Og Cusack was on hand to pay eloquent tribute. Local poster boy Rob Downey. The Kingstons, Kieran and Shane. Joanne Cantwell was down. Eoin Kelly and John Leahy made the trip from Tipp. Babs Keating and Dr Con Murphy were soon locked in reminisces about battles past.
But this was mostly about his own people saying thanks.
His story couldn't have been launched anywhere else and his club showed their appreciation for three decades of dreaming big.
Ashling Thompson put it to him straight on Clubber’s coverage of last Sunday’s county semi — any chance of a Cork return? Horgan said no then, and is unequivocal in the book. “It would certainly never occur to me to go back, or even consider it as a possibility: that’s something I would be allergic to, because it’s gone.”
On meeting Roy Keane at the NFL in Croke Park, Roy told him he’d had closure “10 seconds after retiring”. Horgan appears similar, the missing medal not a defining regret. “Of course, I’d love to have won one. It would have been fantastic. But I genuinely would have preferred to go to training four times a week and love every session than to win one All-Ireland medal but feel allergic every time I went into the dressing room to tog out for training.
"I can honestly say that I never once thought, ‘Oh God, training again tonight’, but, by the same token – and this is important – I was still able to say, ‘Yes, that’s over now,’ and just step away.”
He’s as beguiled by JBM as everyone in Cork and further afield. “No one is like him. When he speaks, the whole room is focused on him, on what he’s saying. He doesn’t turn that on every day for every match, but when he does, you know it.
“You’re looking across the room at this guy, thinking, ‘That’s him. That’s Jimmy. Right in front of me. Getting us ready.’ You knew you were ready to go out and play for Cork after Jimmy Barry-Murphy spoke in the dressing room.”
Mind you, he puts Pat Ryan on Jimmy’s level for his ability to make a dressing room feel good about itself. And he captures in a poignant story Pat’s absolute refusal to make anything about himself. Ahead of the match with Kilkenny, just after the death of Pat’s brother Ray, the panel wanted to make a gesture of support. “But Pat said that he’d prefer it be something that represented everyone who’d lost a loved one. That’s the kind of person he is, and that’s why everyone has so much time for him.”
A flag with the names of those lost by all of the Cork players and management since resides in the dressing room.
Though he was able to handle himself when targeted, there is no rap sheet of wild pulls on Hoggie’s record and he remains true to form in the book. He has a kind and insightful word for practically every Cork player he soldiered with. He feels slighted by how his name came up in county board circles at the end and has a pop in that direction. But that’s the extent of any score settling.
Cork to the core, but no barrier to appreciating Tipp great Eoin Kelly, who Hoggie describes as “my favourite player. He is the GOAT”. An admiration that even got him in strife early on with senior Cork colleagues, who told him to cut it out when he tried to copy Kelly’s striking style. He claims himself and Paudie O’Sullivan even used wander out from their corners in Tipp clashes just to admire the flightpath of Kelly’s frees.
That famous goal against Brian Murphy embossed Kelly's rep, since the Bride Rovers man is held in highest regard. “He’d have a gear or two in him that he’d keep in reserve for the biggest occasions. It was like a superpower and, when he turned it on, it was like the opponent would just vanish. He’d not get near the ball. Murphy was as good a corner-back as I’ve seen, end of story.”
John Giles likes to say that if everyone is great, nobody is great. Gary Keegan’s version of that goes along the lines of: “if everything is in focus, then nothing is in focus”. Horgan is gushing in praise of Keegan’s work as Cork’s performance coach, saying he “just took over how the dressing room thought”. Horgan gives Keegan the assist for his goal against Waterford in 2025, putting it down to the extra second he’d gained in his mind.
The influence of family is plain, from when Hoggie's dad counted his frees down in the Glen field. There’s an obvious drive to make them proud. He even stayed away from drink completely until his late 20s, in case they thought less of him. Even after he tried the odd vodka and 7 Up, Hoggie didn’t let on to his mam until his wedding day. “She was not happy at all.”
On this week’s The Replay with Seánie McGrath, Hoggie’s former Glen teammate Stephen McDonnell
said Horgan was a great man for “co-opetition” — in-house scoring oneupmanship with his teammates that drove everyone’s standards. The book presents evidence in this case, notably a friendly free-taking rivalry with Shane Kingston.
Retirement appears to have allowed Patrick to appreciate his place in Cork history and folklore. He was really struck first time he saw his face on one of the junction boxes that adorn city corners. "It's really flattering, but there'd still be part of me, thinking, 'That's great, but what am I doing there with Roy Keane and the rest?'"
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