Farewell to the greatest handball man of them all

Cavanman's Diary

I’m sure, if you follow elite sport, you’ve already heard, but in case you missed it, last Tuesday was game day – Fitzpatrick against Kiernan in the first round of the Ulster Junior A Handball Singles. Court 3 in Kingscourt, an all-ticket affair.

In the build-up, I put my own twist on Roy Keane’s old adage, “fail to prepare, prepare to fail” - I simply dropped the first part. It’s fair to say that expectations, similarly to the number of points I eventually scored, were not high. Oran beat me at his ease.

Now, there are mitigating factors. He is 23… I am 39 next week. He is fit and energetic… I am 39 next week. He is very good, I am… You get the picture. But they’re all excuses – he was simply far better.

Anyway, when the smoke cleared after this Valentine’s Day Massacre, I headed for home. With me in the car was Oliver McCrystal, who had been doing some training in preparation for the Ulster Minor Singles championship. That made me feel even older!

It was only when chatting to Oliver that I remembered that Oran’s father Terry had actually beaten me in this same competition about 10 years ago - in the same court, no less.

It reminded me of the famous story of tennis player Vitas Gerulatis, who finally got the better of the iconic Jimmy Connors in 1980, having lost their previous 16 encounters. “Nobody,” he told reporters, “beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row!”

There and then, I made a similar vow. No father and son beats Paul Fitzpatrick three times in the Ulster Junior Singles!

When the image came to mind, I found myself laughing aloud. And it was when I was laughing to myself that I thought of Kit.

The iconic figures are known simply by their first name and Kit was just that, a singular character who made an extraordinary impact on people.

I can imagine the scene now and can almost hear his chuckle when I unleashed that line, that no father and son would beat me three times. He’d have loved it, I know that for sure. Because Kit was a man who loved to smile and laugh, loved to tell stories. In fact, when the craic was good, it was hard to get away from him.

He was a brilliant raconteur and his repertoire of yarns was endless, his delivery magnificent. While, as a sportsman, there were naturally people he didn’t get on with, never were his stories mean-spirited; rather, he dwelled on the fun and the mischief.

I can see him still, standing at the doorway of the handball complex, holding court, butt of a cigarette between his fingers and a grin on his face.

Once, about one of the lads who had a habit of turning his back on the opponent hitting the ball and waited for it to rebound off the front wall, he quipped with a grin that he was “still playing the ‘bat system’”, conjuring an image of a short-sighted creature relying on sonar.

You would be sure of a welcome when you arrived in Kingscourt but behind the warm exterior lay a fierce competitor. He coached his son Michael to glorious success as a youngster and then followed him and Paul Brady as they soared to the top of senior handball, at home and in the States. Their achievements in doubles and Paul’s complete domination of singles gave him immense pride.

I’ve often heard it said that Kit had been a very good player himself in his younger days but by the time I got to know him, he was a leading official in the sport, secretary of the Ulster Council and the driving force behind the construction of the facility in Kingscourt, a project on a scale which was jaw-dropping for handball.

It was opened 20 years ago and the fact that in the intervening period nothing remotely close to it has been built by any other club or county speaks to his ambition. Here was a man who had a vision, in concrete and glass and hardwood, when few others in handball had so much as an idle daydream.

His knowledge of the game, its history and the people involved as well as how it should be played, was unrivalled. He could read a contest; experience and an innate understanding of it meant he knew what to do in any given situation.

He had an uncanny ability to evaluate a player and analyse a match. I recall once sitting beside him before Cavan played Meath in what would prove to be a bitterly-contested All-Ireland Senior Doubles final in Limerick.

“Well?” he asked me.

“Ah, we’ll win,” I said, my brashness hiding the fact that I was worried Cavan might not, in fact, come out on top in this grudge match.

“I’d take 21-20 in the third game (the closest possible result and quite rare) if I was offered it now,” he said quietly.

Of course, it ended up exactly that way, Cavan winning by the slenderest margin. The prophecy came true, again, and I was reminded that here was a man who had forgotten more about the sport than most of us will ever know.

Like all successful sportspeople, he detested defeat and knew that sporting achievement often comes down to little things which, added up, can make the difference between winning and losing.

At its essence, handball is a straightforward game but one which can seem as complicated as advanced algebra when it’s going against you. The best coaches have a way of simplifying it.

With Kit, it was little nuggets, imparted with passion during time-outs or breaks between games. What serve to employ, what tactics to adopt. Like a master tradesman, he had learned these things on the job, over time, playing, watching, coaching, refereeing.

They were like commandments, each one full of wisdom. A selection plucked from memory: If an opponent is very nimble, direct the ball with power at his feet. When going for a kill, GO for a kill. There are only three ways to score an ace! And a favourite, and so true: Every shot must have a purpose.

We spent many hours in conversation. Myself and other players of my vintage devoured countless plate-fulls of sandwiches and mugs of tea in Kit and Philomena’s home. Handball chat was the soundtrack, always, and his love of the game was infectious.

Time moves on. I remember him telling me some story or other one time on the phone. I was in my student flat, a good hour into the call. And I distinctly remember him saying, “at 57 years of age, I’m not going to start that”. That seems about two years ago; turns out it was 20.

There were so many handball days that stand out and he was at the centre of them all. The first time we met, a Sunday afternoon, myself and Sean Johnston are in his car after playing a match in Tydavnet and he is telling us exactly what Brady, then a skinny rookie just starting out on his journey to superstardom, had done wrong a week earlier in a big match in Croke Park against Kenneth Kane.

That, too, feels like no time ago – but it was an U17 game we had played, and, next year, shockingly, I am eligible for Over 40s handball. How can that be? Where do the years go?

The truth is, that’s life, I suppose. You have to take it as it comes and if you’re lucky, you’ll meet great people along the way. And Kit Finnegan was one of the greatest of them all.