Believe it or not, the Rebels have enjoyed good days in Killarney

BY TOM LYONS

MEMORY can be deceiving when it comes to past events, especially in the world of sport and specifically, the GAA. However, when it comes to Cork beating Kerry in Killarney in the Munster championship, especially finals, all we now have are distant memories. It’s hard to believe that the present generation of adult footballers in Cork have never seen the Rebel Red emerging victorious from Fitzgerald Stadium as most weren’t even born when it last happened in 1995 and more were mere toddlers.

Our football memories go back to the start of the 1960s when we were emerging young teenagers in the football-mad Doheny town of Dunmanway. Kerry were in the middle of eight Munster titles in a row, 1958 to 1965, when we played our first U14 football game (no U12 in those days) with Dohenys and we were becoming acquainted with great Kerry footballing giants like Mick O’Connell, our all-time favourite footballer Mick O’Dwyer, Tiger Lyons, Johnny Culloty, Tom Long, Pat Griffin and com- pany. We could only admire them, and hate them, as they hammered Cork, backboned by many West Cork players, year after year. We didn’t travel to Killarney in those early years of the 1960s because cars were so scarce that we were able to play our mini-matches on the street outside our door, with very few stoppages for passing cars.

This 1989 Cork team is the only Rebels' side to beat Kerry twice in Munster finals in Killarney.

Two Doheny players, Johnny Carroll and John Crowley, were vital members of the Cork team in the mid-sixties so our interest in the Cork team was growing. The semi-final defeat by Limerick in 1965 was a disaster, courtesy of a split in the
dressing room, so when 1966 happened, it was completely out of the blue.

Our first-ever trip to Killarney, the bad roads over the county bounds, the overheating cars on the side of the road, the sandwiches, the colour, the excitement in Killarney even though Cork were on a hiding to nothing. We were hooked for life and have hardly missed a trip to Killarney since. Yes, we had some great days in the old Athletic Grounds and in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, but there was something magical and unique about a Munster final in Killarney, especially when we managed a rare win over the Kingdom.

Back to 1966, the first of those sweet memories as Cork, captained by a Glen Rovers’ hurling star Jerry O’Sullivan, struck a mighty blow for Cork football, the first in Killarney in ten years. Two golden goals, our Doheny hero Johnny Carroll getting the first, and a mighty display by the great Connie Paddy O’Sullivan, well-aided by Mick Burke, Jerry Lucey, Flor Hayes, Eamonn Ryan and Gene McCarthy, are the memories we carry from that magical first. Neither will we forget Mick O’Loughlin’s shenanigans with Mick O’Connell that day that really got the Cork crowd going. Killarney was now truly in our blood. The title was retained in Cork the following year but in those years, two in a row for Cork was as much as we could ever expect.

Our next couple of trips to Killarney, narrowly avoiding a car crash one year, brought no fond memories but we well remember a scorching hot day when the cute Kerry hoors invented bottled water and sold it for a pound a bottle, I think it was 1972. When our next win in the Kingdom arrived, in 1974, we weren’t there. Cork were reigning All-Ireland champi- ons, thanks to some marvellous footballers like Deccie Barron, Billy Morgan, Kevin Jer O’Sullivan, Dinny Long, Ray Cum- mins and a young idol, Jimmy Barry Murphy, but as the fans headed to Killarney in 1974 to defend their Munster final, we were burying my father in Dunmanway. Pouring rain and a goal by Clon’s Dave McCarthy as Cork won but Dublin ended the dreams of two All-Irelands in a row.

We truly believed that Cork’s great team of 1973/1974 would give us more happy days in Killarney but it never happened as Mick O’Dwyer’s young colts arrived on the scene and we had to go a heart-breaking eight more years before experiencing a win in either Cork or Killarney. Newly married in 1974 and with our first car, a red Morris Minor, LZB347, the teachers’ car as they were known, we were no longer dependent on getting lifts to the finals but poor LZB had no luck and never came home triumphant from the Kingdom. The car was long gone before our next successful raid on Killarney, in 1987. God bless you, Billy Morgan, you might have been controversial at times but you will always

Surely any Cork football follower, player, mentor or supporter, with any pride in Cork football, should be prepared to move heaven and earth to remedy that appalling record. Maybe we have only beaten Kerry in five Munster finals in Killarney since our debut visit in 1966 but some of the defeats were glorious, too, and the memories are always with us. Being stoned by the crowd on the terrace because we had to stand on the sideline seats to see the game; crowds climbing onto the roof of the toilets because of the overcrowding; doing impromptu steward at a gate because the Kerry stewards abandoned their posts when Kerry were winning; caught in a seat behind a dugout that was crowned with two feet of barbed wire obstructing all view; buying a sideline ticket that was right behind one goal; getting absolutely drowned in Kerry rain and boiled by the scorching sun; queueing at 9am to get a real sideline seat before it became all-ticket; hours in traffic jams and the long, lonely journeys home except for those five memorable exceptions.

Has the Cork v Kerry rivalry lost some of its magic in recent years? Kerry’s invincibility in their fortress in Killarney has definitely deflated the Cork supporters, but fans will travel in hope this weekend, knowing we have had good days there, too.