Taking on the Kingdom

Cavanman's Diary

Of all the great columns the late Peter Brady penned on these pages a few years back, my favourite was in 2012, when he wrote about attending the funeral of the great Kerry footballer Joe Keohane in Tralee in the company of Cavan’s legendary three-time All-Ireland winner Mick Higgins.

After the funeral, Brady and Higgins repaired to a local pub, on the invitation of Mayo All-Ireland winner Paddy Prendergast “to meet old friends”.

“When we arrived in the pub there were about 10 customers there but within a very short time there were easily twice that number – all shaking Mick’s hand and welcoming him to Tralee, with practically all adding, ‘’twas great of you to come’,” Peter recalled.

“Like many fine players, Higgins looked a much bigger man togged out than in his civvies and of course it wasn’t long before the obvious question of his physique attracted the attention of these experienced men of the GAA. Some even purposely went behind and observed him from the rear.

“Having done so, a typical remark to emerge was as follows: ‘Chrisht, he’s not a big man, how the hell did he get by Joe and Bawn and Dinny and Jackie?’”

The knowledgeable veteran Kerry supporters were, of course, referring to their fearsome full-back line of Paddy ‘Bawn’ Brosnan, Joe Keohane and Dinny Lyne as well as their powerful centre-half Jackie Lyne. I love that scene; the sage Kerrymen sizing up the retired Cavan footballer like stockmen at a mart; it harks back to a long-ago time when Cavan were kings and the perennial Ulster champions inspired awe in the football heartlands of Ireland.

This Sunday, Cavan and Kerry will renew acquaintances at Croke Park as Arva St Patrick’s meet Listowel Emmets in the All-Ireland club final. The same ground, albeit unrecognisable from today’s stadium, played host to the 1952 All-Ireland SFC final, when Higgins won his third – and Cavan’s fifth – senior title.

To that point, Cavan could lay claim to being a true superpower of Gaelic football. That success marked the fifth time that the title came back to the Breffni county – all five successes achieved in 20 seasons – and they had been runners-up on another six occasions.

Kerry, then as now, were regarded as one of the absolute behemoths of the game and sat atop the roll of honour with 16 All-Ireland SFC crowns (one ahead of Dublin at the time), having made the final on a further eight occasions.

But the counties’ paths diverged subsequently. Sam Maguire wintered in the Kingdom again in 1953; Cavan have yet to get their hands on it again. In 1955, Kerry beat Cavan in a replay in the All-Ireland semi-final on the day when Jim McDonnell, a young student in UCD, announced himself as one of the greatest players in the game.

Seven years later, the sides met again in the semi-final, the Munster men winning comfortably. Cavan have yet to win a sixth All-Ireland and from 1969, didn’t win an Ulster title until 1997.

And when they did, Kerry were primed and won by seven points at the penultimate stage, en route to yet another All-Ireland.

In 2013, Cavan reached the All-Ireland quarter-finals for the first time since the backdoor system was introduced a dozen years earlier. And who spoiled the party? Do we need to spell it out?

Kerry have shattered blue and white dreams on many occasions since the glory days ended. Arva’s manager Finbar O’Reilly was on the receiving end himself, in fact, when the outstanding St Patrick’s College team he coached to MacRory Cup success in 2015 were beaten in extra time in the Hogan Cup semi-final by Pobalscoil Corca Dhuibhne.

More misery: The last Cavan club to reach an All-Ireland final was Swanlinbar, who made it all the way to Croke Park for the junior decider in 2010. On that occasion, lying in wait was the might of St Mary’s from Cahirciveen and they put the west Cavan side to the sword with a classy display.

Cahirciveen is in south Kerry, where they view themselves rightly or wrongly as the “princes of pigskin”. North Kerry, Listowel’s stomping ground, is viewed differently. I asked a friend from that neck of the woods about this last week.

“We’re like Rodney Dangerfield,” he laughed, “we don’t get no respect! North Kerry has a reputation for rooting and tearing, not entirely unwarranted.”

They play it hard in North Kerry, an area which has produced many iconic players. A strong West Kerry thread runs through all of Kerry’s successes, too – even Listowel’s.

On the sideline for them on Sunday will be Marc Ó Sé, that great former Kingdom defender, whose uncle Páidí trod that same turf in his polo shirt marked bainisteoir in ’97 against Cavan.

The Ó Sés may be most closely associated with Ventry and the Gaeltacht club in picturesque west Kerry but they have a very strong link to Listowel in the north of the county; their father lived there for around 20 years and Fergal, Darragh and Tomás were born in the town.

Another West Kerry native who will be a keen observer, I’m sure, is the incomparable Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh, who grew up watching the great Cavan teams.

The first All-Ireland final he attended was in 1948, when Cavan beat Mayo with that man, Higgins, famously creeping off the goal-line to block Padraic Carney’s late free.

“I think I can explain Higgins’s dramatic rescue,” Ó Muircheartaigh wrote in ‘From Dun Sion to Croke Park’. “He had learned from the greyhounds that perfect timing from the trap wins many a derby; too early and the dog bounces his head off the bars of the trap, too late and the race is over. Higgins got it dead on – all a matter of masterly timing.”

Of course, the past is prologue. This is all history and Arva have a chance on Sunday to create their own, to earn a rare win for the blue jersey over the bluebloods of the Kingdom.

And Cavan always have the Polo Grounds, even if Higgins and his fellow players have passed on and the day is coming that no-one is around who attended it or listened to it.

Back to the bar in Tralee and last word to Peter Brady.

“As the conversation intensified, the subject matter returned again and again to New York and the Polo Grounds final of 1947… When one very vocal member who had been in the thick of things broke off and headed in the direction of the toilet, I followed him and, having reminded him that Kerry had almost six times the number of All-Irelands that Cavan had, I made an enquiry as to why the conversation always returned to New York.

‘Well, I’ll tell ‘oo’ why,’ he replied. ‘Every time we wor bate in a final in Croke Park, we got into thoul’ train, had a few bottles and said ‘tis gone but we’ll come up next year and be sure to win it. We could never say the same about Noo York.’”

We always have that one – and hopefully, after today, we have a more recent success to crow about.