Brothers in Sport

by Donal Keenan

  ‘People talk today quite rightly about the achievements of the current Kilkenny team,’ observes Ger, ‘but that team from 1972 to 1975 was very unlucky not to win four Championships in a row. It was an outstanding team and, no disrespect to Limerick, but surely they would have done it if they had not got so many injuries in 1973.’

  Ger had made his Senior Championship debut in the 1974 Leinster campaign, but lost his place on the team for the All-Ireland series. He was on the fringes during the 1975 campaign but was kept busy with a very talented under-21 side that won a second All-Ireland Championship that summer. Kevin and Ger Fennelly, Dick O’Hara, Joe Hennessy, Brian Cody and Billy Fitzpatrick would all graduate to senior status. They too would come under the spell of Pat Henderson, this time in the guise of coach.

  At club level, Pat and Ger played side by side in the 1974 Kilkenny and Leinster Club Championship successes. They lost the All-Ireland club final to St Finbarr’s of Cork, however, in the spring of 1975. But they won another title in 1977 and that meant that Ger would captain Kilkenny the following year. ‘What sticks out most in my mind about my career,’ explains Ger, ‘was being the captain in 1978 and leading the team out for the All-Ireland final in Croke Park. That moment was a brilliant feeling. Cork won the final, but it is still one of the highlights for me.’

  Pat made an appearance as a substitute in that final in what was his final Championship game for Kilkenny. He played in the pre-Christmas schedule of League games, but over the holiday period decided that it was time to retire from the inter-county scene after a fourteen-year career in which he had adorned the game and won every honour possible. He was making his exit as John was beginning to establish himself as a regular. But their futures would be intertwined once again when Pat became joint trainer of Kilkenny with Eddie Keher for the 1979 Championship.

  The system for appointing managers in Kilkenny was quite different then, with the county champions allowed the right to choose. Shamrocks of Ballyhale had won the Kilkenny title in 1978, and early in 1979 Pat received a call from Kevin Fennelly Senior asking him to take charge of the county team. Pat had been coaching informally with The Fenians, but had not seriously considered becoming involved at county level so fast. ‘It happened very quickly and we had to adapt quickly.’ Success was instant. With John and Ger holding down places in the back line, Kilkenny reached the All-Ireland final and comfortably defeated Galway. It brought the decade to a successful end. Kilkenny had played in seven out of ten finals and won four.

  Ger won his second All Star award at the end of 1979 and also joined Pat on the Texaco Sports Star roll of honour when he was named Hurler of the Year. Just a year later the Henderson brothers experienced the other side of life. In the 1980 Leinster final they faced Offaly. An attendance of less than 10,000 created a ghostly atmosphere in Croke Park. Kilkenny supporters hardly bothered listening to the commentary on radio. It became a titanic struggle. Offaly held on grimly for a historic victory. ‘We were not retained,’ says Pat simply. John also paid a price. He was dropped from the panel for 1981.

  The break was short-lived. At the end of 1981 Pat was again offered the position of Kilkenny trainer, this time on his own. John had enjoyed a good season with The Fenians and was rejoining the Kilkenny squad. Pat decided that with his two brothers in the squad he did not wish to be a selector. That decision was accepted by the County Board. Kilkenny were hurling in Division Two of the National League at the time. The first task was to gain promotion, and that was achieved. At the time the Division Two champions played in the knockout stages of the League proper. Kilkenny went all the way to the final and beat Wexford. It was the start of two years of domination. They won the 1982 All-Ireland, retained the League title in 1983 and secured the ‘double double’ when winning the All-Ireland again in 1983.

  ‘We were very fortunate at that time because a good crop of players had emerged from the very successful under-21 teams of 1974 and 1975,’ Pat reflects. ‘I also had a lot of great leaders on the field. I had played with Noel Skehan for many years and he was a great help to me. Frank Cummins was another who worked very hard for me. And Ger was a leader by that time, a great ally.’

  Brian Cody was the winning captain in 1982. Nickey Brennan, who later became president of the GAA, played alongside Ger and Paddy Prendergast on the half back line. Kieran Brennan, Richie Power, Liam Fennelly and big Christy Heffernan had emerged as big-time players. Christy scored 2–3 of Kilkenny’s 3–18 points in the final against a Cork team that was led by Jimmy Barry-Murphy and contained household names like Martin O’Doherty, Johnny Crowley, Dermot McCurtain, Tom Cashman, Tim Crowley, Tony O’Sullivan, Pat Horgan, Seánie O’Leary, Ray Cummins and Éamon O’Donoghue.

  A year later the personnel had barely changed. Harry Ryan started for Kilkenny. Kevin Hennessy had established himself with Cork. But the margin was much closer. Kilkenny had enjoyed an eleven-point victory in 1982. It was down to just two in 1983.

  ‘I was coaching a team at the highest level with two brothers as players and I was probably tougher on them than on the others,’ says Pat. ‘But there was never any real issue. Both of them had earned their places, there were no question marks about it and we got on with it.’ Clearly, it wasn’t just the Kilkenny selectors who felt they deserved their places on the team. Ger was an All Star in 1982 and 1983. John received the same award in 1983. Ger recalls at an early stage in his career being shouted at from the sideline by one supporter: ‘“You’re only on the team because of your brother …” That stung me more than any belt I ever got,’ he says. ‘I decided there and then I would prove him wrong. Pat treated us no differently to the others. He didn’t spare us, but he was fair.’

  On one occasion during that period Pat did take John off during a League game against Tipperary. ‘I wasn’t happy at all,’ recalls John, ‘so I rang him up the next day and gave out yards.

  ‘“Why did you take me off?” I demanded to know.

  ‘“Because you were useless,” he told me and he used more colourful language than that.

  ‘I couldn’t argue with that. But there was never a problem for Ger and myself. I think all the pressure was on Pat really.’

  They won two more Leinster Championships in 1986 and 1987, plus a League title, but lost the 1987 All-Ireland final to Galway. ‘It’s a funny thing but that was my best individual performance in a final,’ says John, ‘and I remember it fondly even though we lost. We suffered that day because we didn’t have a second free-taker.’ Pat adds, ‘It was a good Galway team too and they proved it when they won the All-Ireland again the following year.’

  That final marked the end of Pat’s involvement. He had changed jobs and stayed away from coaching for a number of years. He also underwent heart by-pass surgery and was forced to take things easy in the early 1990s before returning to coach at club level and becoming involved in under-age development squads in Kilkenny. Ger remained for another two seasons, but by 1989 realised the only place he was guaranteed was on the bench. ‘At that stage of my career there wasn’t any satisfaction for me sitting on the bench. I decided it would be best to give that to a young player on the way up.’

  That left John. A cycle had been completed. He played in the 1991 All-Ireland final when they lost to Galway. ‘It was a final we could have won. But I enjoyed playing with that team. Ollie Walsh was manager and he wanted me to stay on but I knew my time had come. I had a great relationship with my two corner backs, Bill Hennessy and Liam Simpson, and with Michael Walsh, the goalkeeper. I knew that team would win something. D.J. [Carey] was coming through. Those were good times as well.’

  In 1993 there was a new twist in the family tale. Ger and John were still playing with The Fenians. Pat’s sons were playing with Dicksboro and he agreed to coach their team for the County Championship. They reached the county final. Fate decreed that The Fenians would also qualify that year. Dicksboro triumphed. ‘You can imagine it caused a bit of a stir,’ says Pat.

  The three brothers
remain involved in various capacities in the game and have shared in the enjoyment of the successes of the last ten years, masterminded by their old team-mate Brian Cody. They have known Cody for most of their adult lives and are not surprised by the success he has enjoyed. Pat is full of admiration for Cody and what he has created. ‘I hear Cody being asked, why are you doing it, and his answer is straightforward: “because I love the game”. It’s not about money or the time spent, you never hear those things mentioned, and that transfers through the whole setup. His philosophy is very simple: he tries not to complicate things. He puts an awful lot into it. He measures it by the enjoyment he gets out of it. It is his leisure time. Some people see it as a chore and talk about it in those terms, but if you do that it transmits itself all over the place as well.

  ‘I watched Brian as a player. He was a minor in 1972 and played at centre back in the All-Ireland final. He was a lovely player, a superb athlete and he was unlucky he had damaged his knee before the final. Still he played well. He was an excellent player; he had great hands, great hand-to-eye coordination, a great physique and an enormous confidence in himself. If there is any single thing you would pick out that would be it. You could put him in to play Ray Cummins or anyone else and he went in with absolute confidence that he could win that battle, end of story, and nine times out of ten he would. He had all the other attributes as well, but confidence was his great strength. That comes through strongly with his team today.’

  So, how does he rate Cody and his team? ‘I regard the whole setup as exceptional. You have to look at the totality of the thing. There are a number of exceptional individuals on the team – you have class players, exceptionally good players, strength in depth and strength in depth in the management structure and team. It is very well led, things aren’t taken for granted, they learn from mistakes even when they win. The fact that they have lasted so long means they are a great team.

  ‘The greatest ever? I don’t go along with those labels. The greatest team is at a moment, when you take a snapshot on the day. The All-Ireland last year [2009] is an example. Had Tipperary won they would have been entitled to be regarded as one of the greatest teams ever. Was the Kilkenny team that rolled Cork over when they were going for the three in a row the greatest team? You can go through it and examine various examples. How many of the current team were around in 2000? Only Henry [Shefflin]. But when you look at it in its totality, it is the greatest era of all time. On particular days the team stands up there with the best. It ticks all the boxes.’

  Ger served as a Kilkenny selector for the first three years of the Cody era during which they won the All-Ireland in 2000. ‘It was a great honour to be asked to serve by Brian. We had some great days and I have enjoyed watching them ever since. We really have been spoiled by the success of the last ten years and you have to admire everything that they have achieved.’

  So what is it that allows Kilkenny to produce great teams so consistently through the decades? Pat says there is no single answer to that. There are cultural reasons as well as a lot else. ‘People talk about tradition, but everyone has two hands and two legs, the same brainpower. It was Tommy Maher who said that the difference is that everyone in Kilkenny is coached from an early age, not just on the field, but on the street when an old lad will be passing by or watching and who will tell a youngster he is catching the hurl wrong or pass on some small bit of advice that makes a difference. It has been handed down over the generations. It is a head start, but that in itself will win you nothing. It has to be organised and coordinated. We went through periods when we had lots of talent but it was not organised. Over the last ten years we have improved on that. Before people frowned at coaches, now they know proper coaching is vital.

  ‘There is a fear it could go too far. People can be too animated at under-age matches. Hurling should be fun. A young lad should go home from a coaching session loving the game and wanting to play more. They should not be discouraged by being reprimanded for doing something wrong. You can over-formalise everything too much. Here in Kilkenny we have a culture. You will see a young lad walking up the town with a hurl in one hand and a girl in the other. It’s part of the way of life. We have great supporters who are very knowledgeable; we also have the odd stupid fella.’

  John has lived outside Kilkenny for twenty years and wonders now if they take their hurling too seriously. ‘It is expected in Kilkenny that we win things. I remember Liam Walsh asking me one time when he was starting out if I thought we could win an All-Ireland. I told him then, and still believe it, that any year you play for Kilkenny you have a chance of winning an All-Ireland. That is a position of great privilege.’

  Pat has enjoyed supporting Kilkenny for the last ten years but warns that it cannot last forever. ‘We’ve been lucky. We have had very good players, a very good management structure and a lot of success, but it can’t last forever. We must recognise there will be peaks and valleys, and we will go down and have to come back up again and rebuild. With the present structure and present commitment, they will always be competitive and you can’t ask for more than being competitive. If you are competitive you will enjoy the game.’

  John has played with, and coached, Wicklow hurlers since he moved to Bray. ‘I suppose I did see the other side of life,’ he says of his time with one of the non-traditional hurling counties. There was a core of people who were dedicated to hurling, who shared the passion that can be found in pockets throughout the country. But he found it hard to introduce the ethic that came so naturally to youngsters in Kilkenny. His last game was in the Wicklow Championship final which he won with the Glenealy club.

  Ger spent four years coaching The Fenians, then decided in 2010 to take his first break from the game. But he continues to follow the fortunes of both club and county. ‘Fenians means a lot to me. It is a small, rural parish and club and it has remained consistently in the top six or seven clubs in Kilkenny. That is some achievement when you consider the quality of opposition we face every year. The club consistently provides players to Kilkenny and we have P.J. Ryan, J.J. Delaney and P.J. Delaney with the current team. If you asked me to make a choice between Kilkenny winning five in a row All-Irelands or Fenians winning the County Championship, then I would go for Fenians.’

  Although Pat did coach Dicksboro, it was only because of the family connection. He is still The Fenians’ delegate to the Kilkenny County Board. He cannot imagine not being involved in some way with the GAA. ‘The GAA has been a huge part of my life. I enjoy it; it might not appear that way all the time, but what would I be doing with myself if I wasn’t involved? I found it a terrible wrench when I stopped training a team. I had to force myself to stop. There are only three teams I would ever train – my own club, my sons’ club or the county team. I have been asked to do others but I wouldn’t enjoy that. I like being out with lads playing, but I think I need to have a connection either with my own county or club, there has to be a relationship. I have resisted offers. Floods of fellas broke my heart for a few years coming to the door asking me to coach their teams but they finally copped on that no means no. I am involved with development squads now and it is great to see young people coming through, to see young coaches coming through, the enthusiasm they have and the skills they have. The CV of a good young coach is impressive now and it has to be. It is harder to manage young people now, expectations are higher and coaches need to be more professional and more skilled.’

  Now in his late sixties, Pat remains as enthusiastic and committed to Gaelic games as ever. The Hendersons always liked their football and Pat admires the work being carried out at under-age level in Kilkenny. ‘There’s a lot of work being done here at under-14 and under-16 level,’ he observes. ‘At “B” level in south Leinster the schools from Kilkenny play good teams from Kildare, Laois, Wexford and Offaly and beat them. And then they don’t enter teams at under-18 level because they want to commit to hurling,’ he says with more than a hint of surprise. It is the Kilkenny way. He believes there
will always be a conflict between football and hurling. Hurling will always remain strong where it is loved. ‘The strong hurling counties will always survive and the game will prosper. Where there is a conflict between the codes it is difficult for young players to give hurling the proper time, because you have to put in more personal time with a hurling ball than with a football.’

  Pat has conflicting emotions about hurling in the weaker counties. He looks to neighbouring Carlow and is filled with admiration for the work being done in a county where football is by far the stronger game. ‘In Carlow they are making enormous strides but the mountain they have to climb is gigantic. They are doing fantastic work for a small county where football is also very strong. But there is great promise. Will they win an All-Ireland senior title? I hope they do, but I don’t think they will. They can aspire to, but I don’t think they can win, a Leinster title. The whole of Carlow would need to be playing hurling. Offaly are the exception to this rule. The skill levels in Carlow have improved enormously.’

  Elsewhere he worries about the discrepancies, the gulf in standards. He has watched the introduction of the Nicky Rackard, Christy Ring and Lory Meagher Cups for the lower-tier counties and accepts that there is a purpose in providing a platform for players to play at a level where they can enjoy the game and improve their skills. ‘What concerns me at times is at colleges level I see some teams playing hurling from weaker areas and they are just fulfilling fixtures. That’s not enjoyable. They are playing on bad pitches, in bad weather with bad equipment. By that I mean a guy is picking up a hurley and he’s not used to it. They end up with sore shins; that’s not enjoyable. Hurling is not like football. If you haven’t a certain basic skill level in hurling you won’t enjoy it. At the lower level, you have to get at least to a skill level where you are able to enjoy playing. You have to keep practising and if you are not practising you cannot enjoy it. That is a problem in a county where football is the dominant game. The players don’t have the time to practise.’