A crowd of people stood around Jacko. Some officials started prodding and rubbing his ankle. He roared with pain. Meanwhile, O’Dwyer was apoplectic. ‘Where’s the stretcher?’ he shouted. No stretcher. They lifted Jacko up and carried him off. Sean Walsh was also injured, leaving O’Dwyer without a centrefield partnership with the championship about to begin. Deenihan might be gone for the summer. Mikey Sheehy was still feeling his way along. Spillane would have to be chanced in attack against Clare. This was no summer for gambling.
* * *
Eugene McGee’s new column in the Sunday Tribune was sparing no one. In his own mind, only Offaly could seriously challenge Kerry and the ferocity of his convictions spilled over on to the pages. By mid-June he had seriously questioned Mayo’s ability to regain their Connacht title but assessed Galway as poor challengers. Ulster was negligible. ‘Everybody knows that barring earthquake or natural disaster,’ he wrote, ‘Kerry will dispose of Cork footballers as easily as they did just in the replay of the NFL final.’
Offaly looked good in Leinster, but they began the summer with a simple quandary.
After the sunkissed glamour of Torremolinos, the Offaly footballers came back to find themselves homeless. Finding pitches for training had always been a problem. Some evenings the county team would arrive in Tullamore for training to find a local street league game being played on the pitch, forcing them to wait. Other nights, the pitch could be double-booked, sending them out into the countryside looking for a venue. They wandered the county for weeks looking for a home. Then, by a hump-backed bridge, they finally found a place to stay.
The summer of 1982 was a special time for Ballycommon GAA club. In early June a new clubhouse was opened beside the pitch. Around the same time, Eugene McGee passed the grounds and pulled in. The pitch was firm and sheltered from the wind by the trees that lined three sides of the ground. A telephone mast sat across the road from the pitch, picking up signals from Radio Éireann as well as the telephone company, frequently sending Gay Byrne crackling down the line on a midweek morning!
There was nothing in Ballycommon. A small pub was tucked in behind the bridge, but the blue-and-white-painted gates that marked the entrance to the football pitch was the most vivid splash of colour for miles around. It was quiet and secluded. Ballycommon was three miles from Daingean, perfectly central for the players and nicely tucked away in the countryside to keep too many curious onlookers away. Here McGee could plot and scheme, road-testing new tactics and formations without fear of his plans being leaked. Kerry was on his mind, but first Offaly had the Leinster championship to concern them.
The National League had left them with some familiar issues to confront. With Johnny Mooney gone, they were weakened both at centrefield and in attack. Their scoring tallies were low. An occasional flash of genius from Matt Connor kept them rolling but their forwards weren’t clicking properly. Three of their last four regulation league games saw them register just eight points. McGee arranged trial games and ripped the team apart from week to week, trying to find an attacking combination that worked. They made the league semi-finals with their legs weary from Clonin Hill, and took a five-point trimming from a Cork team with the scent of Kerry blood heavy on their nostrils. They began the championship out of public sight, and out of mind.
Louth were Offaly’s first opponents in Leinster, but as Offaly people began leaving ten minutes into the second half, a nine-point win did nothing to convince them about the worth of training trips to Spain and cloaked talk of All-Ireland titles. When they met Laois in the semi-finals, the team still churned with uncertainty. Tomás O’Connor’s knee was causing him problems and with Johnny Mooney in America, the Offaly attack looked lopsided. McGee continued to audition centre-forwards that might be able for Tim Kennelly, starting with an old defender, Ollie Minnock. The rest of the team looked gauche and unsure of themselves. If Offaly were vulnerable, Laois would be unsympathetic neighbours.
They travelled to Portlaoise for a game that unfolded into an epic. Laois stormed at Offaly. Without Tomás O’Connor, Offaly struggled to hang on at centrefield, but staggered in level at half-time. With twenty-five minutes left, Offaly were a goal down and the noise was rising. The locals sensed victory. Offaly’s summer needed to start now.
A few minutes later, a ball broke to Gerry Carroll at centrefield. There was space in front of him. Invitation enough. He pushed on past the 45-metre line unhindered and towards the 20-metre line. Soon, he was closing in on goal and drilled a low shot to the net. Offaly were level.
Laois still hung on. As the game edged towards the last five minutes they were still level. The Ollie Minnock experiment was hitting problems. Sean Lowry was struggling with the pace of the game while Richie Connor was labouring at centre-back. Of Matt Connor’s tally of 0-9, only two points had come from play, but by the end of the game Offaly were relying on freakish bounces and naïve defending to survive. When John Guinan raced at the Laois defence as Gerry Carroll had done, the cover melted away again, and his goal eased Offaly clear. Fatigue was starting to weigh Laois down, and as Brendan Lowry hit another goal, Offaly were safe. Just.
A few days later, McGee and his selectors gathered together. They looked at the team. The bulk of the defence was settled, but Richie Connor had a nagging knee injury that was now starting to cause him real problems. The forwards had just scored 3-13, but Matt’s frees were forming the bulk of their scores, and goals didn’t come easily to them.
The first problem was Richie. He needed an operation that wouldn’t wait any longer. If he went into hospital, he would miss the Leinster final. If Offaly survived, he was likely to make the All-Ireland semi-final. It was the first test of McGee’s convictions. He had already won the Leinster title against Dublin in his head the previous November. But without Richie Connor? Circumstances dictated Offaly would have to. He had struggled against Laois, and the injury wouldn’t heal itself. With Connor gone, Offaly now added a new centre-back to their list of requirements.
They turned to the forwards. Countless trial games and challenge matches had yielded no one. Players flitted in and out of the team and McGee’s tactical chicanery in attack had almost been exhausted. They flicked through the files again.
A couple of months before, McGee had seen Seamus Darby nail a goal for Rhode over his left shoulder with seconds left against Daingean in the county championship. The goal drew the game, and relief coursed through Darby’s system. It had been a difficult few years, but the goal gave him a break, and from there he tugged the strings for Rhode all summer. A week after Offaly beat Laois, Darby hit four points as Rhode cruised past St Rynagh’s in the championship. He was always known as a poacher. Now he was a playmaker.
He looked fresh and eager. His hardware business in Edenderry was thriving despite the recession. He had a young family and a happy life. Football had found its place and didn’t bother him too much any more. McGee called him. He wanted him on the panel, but he was guaranteeing him nothing. A few years before, Darby would have hung up the phone. McGee and Darby had history.
When Eugene McGee swept a scythe through the Offaly panel in late 1976, Seamus Darby was among those nicked by the blade. Darby had started in the 1972 All-Ireland final replay against Kerry, and won his All-Ireland medal. He was twenty-one then, but as Offaly declined, some people forgot Darby had ever been around for the good days.
While Darby brimmed with stories and good humour and loved the company of others, he found McGee distant. Odd. Darby was more freewheeling. Most nights before a game he might pop into McCormack’s pub and shorten his evening with a few pints. Nothing major, just enough to soften any nerves. As a player he could lie dormant for long spells in a game, then pick his scores like an assassin. In a team of grafters McGee was never sure whether Darby would ever fully pull his weight. They never fully bonded, and Darby struggled to fit into McGee’s vision.
‘After every county final I seemed to get a run again in the league,’ he says, ‘and then just drift
off again. Then I decided I didn’t want the hassle of playing in the league. So when he called me I just didn’t bother.’
His last game came in April 1979 against Kildare in Athy, but his name had never fully left conversations about Offaly. After the 1981 All-Ireland final he heard stories about people going to McGee and asking about Darby, but the reply was chilly: ‘We’ve enough Seamus Darbys on the panel.’ Gerry Carroll and Johnny Mooney represented all the luxury items McGee could handle in one panel.
The rejection hadn’t eaten him up, but Darby never forgot. In 1982 he was thirty-two years old. This could be his final chance. ‘I was a bit bitter about being dropped for so long and I was fairly anxious to make a go of it. It was a good thing for me because I was going to make a go of this thing, by hook or by crook.’
Darby’s first game came against Westmeath at Durrow the following weekend, but McGee and his selectors had other things to worry about.
The previous week, when Ballycommon had emptied out and Matt Connor had gathered up his footballs and gone home, McGee, Grogan, Sean Foran, Paddy Fenlon and PJ Mahon settled down to pick a team for the game. They started with finding a replacement for Richie Connor at centre-back. Sean Lowry was the first name into the ring. Lowry had won an All Star at full-forward, but had also won an All-Ireland medal with Offaly at centre-back in 1972. McGee thought his time as a defender was up. ‘In the name of God,’ said McGee, ‘how would you put him there? We had to take him out of there years ago.’
The debate went on. Lowry had struggled against Laois at full-forward. Offaly would need a strong physical presence in the centre against Dublin. Lowry was a cool character. Changing positions wouldn’t faze him and he would also fill the deficit in leadership left by Richie’s absence in defence. McGee and the selectors danced around the question all night. Darby was picked at corner-forward and Tomás O’Connor was re-introduced at centrefield. The team had a championship feel to it, but centre-back remained uninhabited. They broke up the meeting with nothing set in stone. They would trust their instincts when they got to Daingean.
That night as the players togged off, McGee and the rest repaired to a small room off the dressing room. A few days’ thought had mellowed him. The set of selectors he had now were good football men. He never fought with them like he did with others, and this time, he knew they had a point. ‘If you want to try Sean Lowry at centre-back,’ he said, ‘this is the time.’
Seamus Darby was switched to full-forward, and Offaly thrived. Darby scored a point and Sean Lowry comfortably held his opponent in check. Matt hit 1-3 alongside Darby and in the other corner Brendan Lowry took fire, hitting 1-6. The following week they beat Cork in a challenge game in Fermoy, but conceded 4-9. Richie Connor was being missed in the centre, but Lowry was there for the Leinster final now. Dublin might be tighter than McGee expected.
* * *
The previous September, a few weeks before the 1981 All-Ireland final and without the pressure of being on the Offaly panel, Darby had spent a week in Kerry on holidays. One evening he had dropped into Killarney to watch Kerry prepare themselves to meet Offaly. They looked sleek. They were moving the ball crisply among themselves. There wasn’t an ounce of fat or error between them. He thought about the boys at home. Offaly wouldn’t be ready for them.
This time, he knew they were ready for anyone. For three weeks before the Leinster final, Tom Donoghue ran them into the ground. When Seamus Darby weighed himself before joining the panel he was a cuddly thirteen stone. Three weeks in Ballycommon had sweated a stone out of him.
‘I thought I was in good shape but the training was savage. I got to the stage where I couldn’t eat, not to excess. I realised you just couldn’t eat a great, big dinner and go out training, because you’d be looking at it later on.’
The night before the final, Darby went through his usual routine. He felt no nerves, just a simple, uncluttered determination to play well. His ritual had once involved dropping into Paddy McCormack’s pub next door for a few pints, then going home to sleep soundly – this time he supped glasses of orange instead.
The sun was high in the sky the following morning, and found Darby bouncing on his toes. With Richie Connor recovering from injury, Martin Furlong captained Offaly in his tenth Leinster final, while Sean Lowry started at centre-back where he faced an imposing challenge. Having recovered from the car crash that should have ended his career, Brian Mullins returned to face Lowry at centre-forward. The legend of Rocky Bleier had a devotee in Dublin, too.
Lowry wasn’t bothered. Moving to centre-back was a nice change for him. He had played plenty of good games at centre-back before on worse Offaly teams. He could survive on Mullins.
Dublin won four frees in the first five minutes, but failed to convert any of them. Once Offaly found their feet, Dublin were in trouble. Lowry dominated Mullins. Tomás O’Connor was making a triumphant return at centrefield beside Padraic Dunne. At the other end, Darby had hit Offaly’s first three points and was giving Tommy Drumm a desperate time. Kevin Heffernan switched Mick Holden onto Darby, but it only drove Darby on again. As half-time approached, Offaly laid siege to Dublin’s goal. Shots by John Guinan and substitute Liam O’Mahony had been blocked out by the Dublin defence, and as the ball bounced around the square, Darby stabbed a shot to the net. Half-time. Offaly led by eight points. Darby had hit 1-3.
Dublin switched Mullins to full-forward for the second half, but Sean Lowry was blocking all avenues to goal. Offaly stretched the margin to nine points at the end, 1-16 to 1-7.
As they took their third successive Leinster title, records tumbled. It was the biggest defeat ever shipped by Dublin in a Leinster final and Offaly’s biggest win over Dublin in fifteen championship matches. Matt Connor became the first player to end four successive Leinster finals as top scorer. In Offaly it seemed like the sun would never cease to shine, and the days spent in bondage to Dublin were over for good. The following night Seamus Darby returned to Paddy McCormack’s pub to properly toast the weekend and rumours swept through the county that Johnny Mooney was coming home the following weekend. Offaly now bestrode Leinster like kings.
11 CAR CRASH STORIES AND THE RETURN OF THE FRISCO KID
Tom Spillane’s desk in St Brendan’s College had always been a triumphant expression of family pride. Pictures of Pat and Mike in Kerry jerseys adorned every centimetre. Tom’s heroes were his brothers; they were also his best friends. When the Kerry team repaired to the pubs after matches, the Spillanes would always be together. Maybe it came from the knowledge of the sacrifices their mother had made for them so they could excel at football, or the experience of growing up without their father and the support they offered each other that bonded them so tightly together. They mixed happily with the rest of the boys, but they were always supremely close to each other.
As a young boy Tom was routinely smuggled into the Kerry dressing room with Pat and Mick to collect autographs – one evening in Killorglin he was short of paper, so Ger Power scribbled his name on Tom’s arm. John O’Keeffe had been his old PE teacher in St Brendan’s, and cross-country running had always come easily to him. One day O’Keeffe compared him to John Walker, the great New Zealand long-distance runner, as Spillane breached the finishing tape, his long hair bobbing in the breeze. But O’Dwyer’s training pushed him hard. After the first week he learned to confine himself to a sandwich during the day and a slice of brown bread and jam with a cup of tea. He started one championship game in Munster in 1981 as a nineteen-year-old and sat on the bench all the way to the final. Later that year he toured the world with his heroes. He was living the dream.
‘If any one of that team asked me: Young lad, that ball is after going down there, go get it. Man, I would be gone so fast for that ball. You’re in total awe of these guys. They were my heroes. I’d eat the grass off the ground for them.’
Sometimes his exuberance took him too far. When Kerry played Armagh in the 1982 league semi-final, all the players were instructed to forego the c
lub games scheduled for the night before. Instead, Spillane turned out for Templenoe. The following day he started against Armagh, but after ten minutes O’Dwyer took him off. As Spillane jogged off, O’Dwyer chased him up, slamming his hand into Spillane’s fist: ‘You weren’t meant to play last night!’
O’Dwyer liked to keep Spillane on edge. Spillane shared with Ger Lynch on Kerry trips. Neither of them drank and they prided themselves on their abstention and devotion to training. That pride was where O’Dwyer found his weakness.
‘He called myself and Lynch “The Party Boys”. You’d meet Dwyer and he’d walk past you nose to nose, so he’d get a sniff of drink. We played a challenge match up in Mayo, and he said it to us this day: “Easy on the drinking now and the parties!” I was incensed. “Micko,” I said, “I don’t drink!” He was egging us on.
‘Even when he ran up alongside you in training, and you might be after forty rounds of the field, and Dwyer might do one and he’s flying. But you push on and wouldn’t let him pass you out, even for one round. He was like the hare out in front.’
As the 1982 championship began, Spillane was hanging on at the fringes of the panel. Although four players were missing from the team that had beaten Offaly in the All-Ireland final, he didn’t make it for the Munster semi-final against Clare. With O’Dwyer’s team banged out of shape by injuries, Tommy Doyle and Vincent O’Connor manned centrefield, while Pat Spillane started, even with his knee hanging by a thread. Twenty minutes in, he raced for a ball, took a tumble and stayed on the ground. The crowd was suspended in silence for a few moments. This was the horrible tension that surrounded Spillane’s summer. Every twist and turn was analysed. Every slight limp and delay in recovering from a tackle was scrutinised for signs of a flaw in his knee. Spillane knew the danger he was courting, and tried to change his game to survive.
Kings of September Page 12
