BY MICHEÁL O'SULLIVAN
Blues’ long tradition of success is to be admired and latest crop can add to it with win over Kanturk
“If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it - then I can achieve it” - Muhammad Ali.
Few would have tipped Bantry Blues at the beginning of the season to be at the business end of the Premier Intermediate championship.
Fewer still will tip them to overcome a star-studded Kanturk outfit on Sunday in Páirc Uí Chaoimh at 4pm.
Tradition, quality footballers, heart and belief have always been traits associated with Bantry footballers and the present crop are no different.
Relegated from the Senior A championship in 2021, it is a testament to the resilience of this Bantry management team and their players to come back fighting in 2022.
“Bouncebackability” was a term first used by Ian Dowie during the 2003-04 English Football League season to describe how his Crystal Palace team had gone from the fringes of relegation in December to winning promotion through the playoffs in May.
The ability to recover quickly from a setback is a key element to any successful players' make up.
That downward spiral is a hard thing to stop. On Sunday Bantry have a chance to go straight back up.
Bantry won their sixth Cork Intermediate club championship on the 26th of September 1993 at Sam Maguire Park in Dunmanway.
Captained by the great Mark O’Connor they defeated Ballincollig by two points to herald the beginning of what was to become a golden decade for the club.
The names Hunt and Barron were synonymous with previous successes. This success coupled with two U21A county titles saw the emergence of talents like Damian O’Neill, Mick Moran and Kevin Harrington.
Harrington was an audacious underage talent with both club and county and he topped the scoring charts in that year's championship win with four goals and thirty points.
O’Neill went on to captain Bantry to county senior titles in ‘95 and ’98.
I was studying at the University of Limerick (UL) back then and got to know Jeremy Canty, brother of Graham. Jeremy had lined out at midfield with Damian in a league game and recounted how he was just about to jump to contest a kick out when all he saw were ‘Badgers’ boots passing over his shoulder to pluck the ball clean. Jeremy was no small man and it gives you an idea of the athletic ability O’Neill had.
Their team back then was spattered with intercounty players from back to front both underage and senior setups.
’96 and ’97 saw them lose to Beara in the quarters and Na Piarsaigh in the second round respectively.
However ’98 saw another step forward in the overall quality of their team with the emergence of 2010 All-Ireland winning captain Graham Canty and 1999 Cork captain Philip Clifford.
They overran Duhallow in the final in front of fifteen thousand people with Clifford top scoring with six points.
He notched 2-23 in total during that campaign. What a talent he was, unmarkable given space at the time.
What Canty achieved in the intervening years speaks for itself.
UL won the county championship in Limerick that year and it was odds on that we’d get a chance to go toe to toe with this great Bantry side in a Munster Club final that year.
However Moyle Rovers overcame Bantry in the semi while Kilmurray-Ibrickane from Clare caught us with a last minute goal.
After a couple of unsuccessful skirmishes against them with Carbery it wasn’t until 2006 and Carbery Rangers’ first year at senior level that we drew Bantry in the first round in Aughaville.
Bantry were waning a bit at the time, the miles were telling on the clocks of some of their now older players but Canty was in his pomp.
I remember that day he drove at our defence time and again and if we managed to turn him over the roar from the crowd was the equivalent of John Hayes sticking it in the net down the other end.
During that great era Damian O’Neill ran the show on the pitch while his father Terry, Denis Cotter and Seanie McGrath ensured no stone was left unturned in preparation off it.
I got to know Terry well as he was a selector with Cork also. At the drop of a hat he’d give up his time to try and improve you as a player.
During the winter months he would drive to Rosscarbery to put me through individual extra running sessions in preparation for the season ahead. That gave me a flavour of the torture those Bantry lads went through.
With the present crop, the Bantry management made a very shrewd move at the beginning of the season appointing Davey O’Donovan from Ballineen as coach.
He was Bandon’s football coach when they won their string of county titles taking them all the way from junior to Senior A.
Here he’s woven his magic again taking this team to a county final in his first season. Ruairi Deane and Arthur Coakley will have to provide the firepower up front.
Sean O’Leary is getting better game on game around the middle and they are pretty well set up defensively.
With nothing to lose and all to gain, “Bouncebackability” could be a popular word in Monday's papers.
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