In praise of Joe Stafford, Cavan's first goal king
Paul Fitzpatrick
Who put the ball in the Kerry net? Joe Stafford did.
In the history of the Cavan senior football team, no player - not even Jason O'Reilly, the modern green flag king - scored more championship goals than Stafford, who was born in the exotic-sounding townland of Waterloo in Killinkere in 1919.
Last season was a great one for Killinkere club, who won the long-awaited Junior Championship and opened their new facilties. The club has a proud history.
Eighty-two years ago, they got their hands on another cup - the 1938 Senior League title, with Joe Stafford featuring alongside his brothers Mattie and Tom on that team. He would go on to carve out a reputation as one of the county's greatest players, a tough man and a character, too.
After impressing in the Dublin SFC with the Sean McDermotts club, Stafford made his bow with the county side in 1943. By that stage, he had been marked out as a player of some promise, having begun his playing career as a half-back, lining out in that position in the 1937 All-Ireland minor final as Cavan defeated Wexford.
As a teenager, he had won a ‘long kick’ contest with a strike of 56 yards, but it was his ability to poach goals that enshrined Stafford’s name in legend.
Stafford first played football in Derryham NS and captained Killinkere to a Minor Championship title.
True to form, he hit the net in the 1938 county final, which Killinkere lost to Cornafean. That year, he won his second inter-county medal, an Ulster Junior Championship; Stafford lined out in defence before switching to the attack in the All-Ireland semi-final against Leitrim, which Cavan lost.
At his best, Stafford, 5ft 9in in height, was an aggressive, rambunctious corner-forward, an explosive, gung ho player with a quick temper at a time when that was an asset for corner-forwards coming up against steel- toed defenders from the old school.
He was the greatest goalscorer of his era, netting in All-Ireland finals including the Polo Grounds (at half-time, he sidled up to TP O'Reilly and bristled that the stadium announcer had awarded Joe's first-half goal to his team-mate!) and 12 times in the Ulster Championship and created an unwanted piece of history when he became the first man ever to be sent off in an All-Ireland senior final.
Wexford referee Paddy Mythen was the man who sent Stafford to the line in that 1943 decider, later recalling: ‘Cavan’s Joe Stafford committed a bad foul early in play, and I had no hesitation in ordering him to the line – something of a very big thing in All-Irelands in those days. And, I still think, except for his rash action that day, Cavan would have won the match.”
Stafford’s own recollection of the incident was committed to print in a brilliant profile by journalist Paul Kimmage.
“They were the better team second time around and made a great start with two good goals. But I got one back after 20 minutes and we went in at half-time just a couple of points down and were starting to get back on terms when it all went sour in the second half.
“I had a chance... a great chance. I was through on the Roscommon goal. Sackie Glynn was a big long lingle of a goalie but I knew that with a low shot - a grasscutter - I’d beat him. I was sure to score.
“Well there I was with the goal at my mercy when Owensie Hoare - the Lord have mercy on him - took me down with one of the finest kicks ever a man got in the ankle. And the referee ran over and immediately gave the free but the free wasn’t enough. Because I was sore. So sore.
“And I pulled myself off the ground with the ball still under my arm and looked at Owensie Hoare. He was a wee man with curly black hair. ‘Ye black f**ker ye,’ I said, ‘I’ll kill ye’. And I drew on him with my left hand and turned him upside down.”
In all, Joe would win two senior and one minor All-Ireland and a National League.
At the time of the Polo Grounds success, was working for Cully’s Bakery in Arva, and lining out for the local team. He later re-located to Dublin, where he ran a fruit and veg business before purchasing the Antrim Arms guesthouse in Drumcondra in 1960.
Over the years, he kept close links to Cavan football, serving as a selector for a time in the 1960s.
His nephew Jimmy Stafford was an outstanding player for Cavan in that era, winning two Ulster medals. In 1999, Joe was named as corner- forward on the Cavan Team of the Millennium.
“Joe ended his days in Verschoyle Court, Westland Row in Dublin, a modest man,” wrote Fr Brendan Morrissey, who delivered the last rites, “many of whose elderly neighbours might never have known of his celebrated past.”
He died in Dublin in June 2000, aged 82. His obituary in this newspaper the following week listed his footballing achievements and carried a photo of him staring into the camera, half a pint of Guinness in his hand and a gleam in his eye.
Ever the rogue.