Kings of September

by Michael Foley

  The teams dispersed around the field and picked up their positions. Tim Kennelly jogged back towards the 65-metre line but somewhere along the way met a fist that hit him plumb on the chest. It stopped him dead. The wind whooshed out of his lungs, and, as the pain spread through his chest, he went down on one knee. The Horse had fallen. He got up, disguising the pain as best he could. Ten minutes would pass before he could properly catch his breath again.

  Meanwhile, the game had begun.

  15 THE FIRST HALF

  Everyone was ready. Weeshie Fogarty and his son Ciarán were in the upper deck of the Hogan Stand on the 20-metre line. Sean Grennan and his mother had travelled from Ferbane with their family and stayed with relations in Balbriggan, but tickets were hard to find. In the end they got enough for his mother and his aunt – and they lifted Sean over the turnstiles and took their seats behind the Offaly dugout, waiting and hoping.

  Football needed Offaly to perform. The previous year’s All-Ireland final had attracted an attendance of just 61,489. It was the lowest attendance for an All-Ireland final since 1947, and back then Cavan had played Kerry in New York. Kerry had taken their training and preparation to a new level, but few teams possessed the ambition or the application to follow them. When the Kerry boys in Dublin trained with other inter-county players in Dublin under Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh, many of the other players from different parts of the country would opt out as the Kerry boys piled lap upon lap. They were broken before they even played on a football field. Some commentators and football people blamed Kerry for draining the game of its excitement and variety, but it wasn’t Kerry’s fault. It was everyone else’s.

  Jimmy Eric Murphy, Mick O’Dwyer’s oldest friend from Waterville, held O’Dwyer’s son, Karl, by the hand as they ascended the steps of the Hogan Stand. Down on the sideline, Karl’s father sat in the dugout with his selectors, wondering what Offaly might do to buck the trend. In 1980 they had sparred Kerry without ever laying a punch that hurt. In 1981 they had tried to tie them up, but Kerry got free long enough to win on points. What now? Trying to slug it out with Kerry seemed pointless. But Roscommon had tried to rough them up two years before and still lost. Cork had already plotted all manner of ruses and schemes in 1982 and only managed to knock a few feathers off them. What, wondered O’Dwyer and the world, could McGee conjure?

  McGee had already told him. In The Irish Times the previous day, McGee suggested that O’Dwyer couldn’t see his team losing the game unless the weather turned ‘… wild and wet. It is that belief which dictates the preparations of Offaly for this final. The conviction that to beat Kerry they must, to put it quite simply, play better and more skilful football than their rivals.’

  His plan was simply rooted in faith. Every move had been choreographed and shaped to meet the demands of this day. One step out of place and the entire routine would fall asunder. All week McGee had believed his team were ready, but he worried too that Kerry could lift themselves to even more stupendous levels. They had already shown there was no limit to what they could achieve. As far as McGee knew, there was no limit to what they could produce in a game like this either. There was nothing he could do now. All he could do was believe in his players, and hope they truly believed in him.

  They did. As the game began he watched his players moving around like pieces on a chessboard, seamlessly putting his plan into operation. He looked at his full-forward line. Matt Connor was wandering away from goal and John O’Keeffe was following him. Brendan Lowry was already feeling liberated without Jimmy Deenihan snapping at him. Ger O’Keeffe was different. O’Keeffe trusted his pace against anyone, and the confidence gained from a summer spent playing the best football of his life was coursing through him. He was a brilliant ball player, but Lowry was happy to stand toe-to-toe with him. In an even start, there would be little left between them, and the day was still playing on O’Keeffe’s mind. Now it was seeping into his legs.

  ‘I’d normally be on the tips of my toes fighting for the ball,’ he says. ‘But I was missing that burst off the mark that would get you to the ball. Possibly doing those extra sessions as the hare when the heavier fellas were coming in hurt me. If they were doing those scientific tests on me then, they’d have said I needed a rest rather than more training. By the time it came to the final, and all the pressure, I didn’t perform.’

  While Ger O’Keeffe worried, John O’Keeffe’s heart was lifting. The further Matt drifted from goal, he reckoned, the less damage he could do. Even now he could match Matt’s speed. He just had to watch his turn. But so far from goal? And McGee knew all this. What, thought O’Keeffe, was McGee at?

  When he turned around towards his own goal, the pieces started to come together. Lowry and Johnny Mooney stayed close to goal. Lowry was a good match for O’Keeffe. Mooney was physically equal in stature to Paudie Lynch and moving irresistibly well. When the players around centrefield looked up, Brendan Lowry was darting from his corner across goal, looking for a pass. Everything else was lofted towards Mooney. By half-time, Lowry had gathered three points and Mooney had played a role in five scores, including one of his own.

  Meanwhile, the hounding of Tim Kennelly continued. As Sean Lowry emerged from defence with the ball, Eoin Liston bumped him aside, sending the ball out over the sideline. Offaly worked the ball upfield before launching it towards Kennelly and Connor. A roar greeted Kennelly’s catch, but out of his eyeline John Guinan had him fixed in his crosswires. First Richie Connor caught Kennelly with a shoulder, then Guinan clattered him. The hits sent Kennelly one way, then the other, snapping him in two like a twig. He hit the ground with a deadening thud. A moan whooshed through the crowd. Brendan Lowry tapped the loose ball over the bar, but referee PJ McGrath had already whistled for the free. The hit was worth even more.

  ‘It wasn’t intentional,’ says Guinan, ‘but I was going to run into Tim Kennelly no matter what. Kennelly was going to say: Well, Richie Connor didn’t hit me, who did? Who’s going to hit me next? Is this get Tim Kennelly day?’

  Charlie Nelligan trotted out and boomed a huge kick beyond centrefield, where Padraic Dunne cleaned up the break. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Liam Currams warming his engine up for a burn. The first breach of McGee’s regulations came after four minutes. If Currams got a point in training, he got a round of applause. Now he was haring forward towards the Kerry goal. On the sideline McGee was close to a seizure. He knew Currams better than any other player on the team, yet he was also the first player to go against McGee’s instincts and trust his own. Out on the field Gerry Carroll was behind him, screaming at Currams to keep running. The space in front of him kept opening up. Ger Power raced back, attempting to catch him, but couldn’t keep pace. Tim Kennelly joined the chase, but Currams left him behind too.

  As he reached the 45-metre line, he braced himself, half-shut his eyes and kicked the ball in the direction of the goal. The ball sailed into the clouds, hanging in mid-air, before dropping incredulously over the bar. The crowd rose. His teammates rose. McGee shook his head. They would clap that one for decades to come. Offaly were one up. The archer had hit the target.

  All over the pitch, Offaly were conceding nothing. The quicker Kerry tried to play, the harder Offaly ran and covered. When Offaly had the ball, their passing was short and quick. Their kick-passing was immaculate. Few passes were being risked without being fully assessed for their percentage worth. When Kerry attempted to set up plays, Offaly didn’t allow them an inch, but Kerry were a team capable of unleashing forces beyond anyone’s control.

  When Tom Spillane got his first touch, he turned and beat Sean Lowry. He had Egan nearby and calling for a pass, but instead he kicked a soaring point from 40 metres. After nine minutes, Paudie Lynch set Ger Power racing at the Offaly defence. Currams shadowed him as Power laid the ball off to Liston. Conventional tradition usually saw Liston give the ball back to Power within milliseconds, allowing Power in on goal, but when Liston looked, Currams was at Power’s shoulder, blocking his
eyeline and preventing the pass.

  For a second, the attack was floundering until Liston saw Egan. He took the ball 20 metres from goal near the Cusack Stand and jinked. With Michael Lowry on top of him, a point seemed unlikely. Egan only needed room to swing. His kick dropped over the bar. All Offaly’s hard work was rendered useless by one touch of genius. People in the stands applauded and Offaly shook their heads. What hope had they?

  The game continued to sort itself out. Padraic Dunne was doing well at centrefield. John Egan was leaping out of his skin. Eoin Liston was grappling with Liam O’Connor and bouncing off Sean Lowry, but making his lay-offs and setting up the plays. Páidí Ó Sé had taken some hard hits from Gerry Carroll, but he was starting to get forward and grabbed himself a point. Tom Spillane was also starting to run at Lowry. Offaly had stifled them, but Kerry still had room to manoeuvre. Offaly needed something else to get Kerry thinking. They needed another spark.

  Out on the right wing, everything Pat Fitzgerald had thought about the final was coming to pass. It already felt like his day. Ogie Moran was nippy and skilful, but Fitzgerald had the pace to match him and his form was good enough to keep Ogie in check. Years later, when people talked about consistency, Fitzgerald would sometimes lay out a selection of dusty old programmes dating back to 1979, and ask them to check the owner of the number five shirt. Always Fitzgerald.

  He was as reliable as the changing seasons, but McGee always wanted him to be more. For years he pushed him to broaden his game, to get forward. Fitzgerald tried. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. Some evenings he would head to the pitch in Newbridge and practise attacking on his own. He would start his run deep in defence, see the pass coming in his mind’s eye and pretend to grab it. Then he would push on for goal and take a shot, repeating the procedure all evening. Getting forward and taking risks was never in his personality, but Offaly needed something now. If he got the chance, he had to take it.

  Padraic Dunne won another break, and fed the wandering Johnny Mooney. Fitzgerald saw space. He left Ogie behind and started to race towards Mooney. The pass lobbed into Mooney’s chest, and he set off.

  He was back in Newbridge. The crowd had melted away. All that was left was him and the black spot on the crossbar. Ogie was floundering. He cut in from the right and hit a shot with the outside of his right boot. The outside! Swerving and dipping, the ball dropped over the bar. Offaly were level again.

  With nerves shaken out of them, Offaly were playing with abandon. Brendan Lowry darted from his corner to collect a couple of points. Richie Connor was dominating Kennelly, who had yet to gather a stray pass or begin to spread the ball about as he liked. The Fitzgerald brothers had Mikey Sheehy and Ogie Moran tied up in knots. Eoin Liston was winning some ball, but Liam O’Connor was a powerful stopper and Offaly were surrounding Liston at the breaks like an army of Lilliputians. Early in the game Liston stepped across Sean Lowry to stop him coming out with a ball and hit Lowry on the side of the cheek with his head. The second time, he stopped Lowry again.

  ‘I was going for a pass and the next thing he walked out in front of me like an oul’ cow. The next time I got the ball, I gave it to Pat Fitzgerald and he got in the way again. I pulled and hit him with my dead-level best [on the cheekbone]. He dropped down in front of me. I jumped across him and never looked back.’

  Liston called to referee PJ McGrath and pointed Lowry out, but the referee waved away his complaints. Meanwhile, Lowry had another matter to settle. Tom Spillane had kept Kerry’s score ticking over, and Lowry needed something to take into half-time for himself. Spillane’s second point levelled the game after twenty minutes. As Tomás O’Connor jogged back out to contest Martin Furlong’s kick-out, Lowry called to him. ‘Next time you get the ball,’ he said. ‘Give it to me.’

  A few minutes later, Lowry’s chance came. Having won another break, Pat Fitzgerald gave him the ball, and Lowry set off. More space yawned in front of Kerry’s goal. Behind him Ogie Moran was frantically making ground. With every two steps Lowry took, Moran’s speed was making up the gap in one stride. With 30 metres to go, Lowry had to shoot. Moran dived through the air and fell on Lowry’s boot, but the ball was gone. The ball sailed over the bar, and Lowry punched the air.

  ‘I turned round and there was a Kerry footballer giving out to Tom Spillane. Why wasn’t he up after me? And Tom Spillane only nineteen and after scoring two points. I was delighted to see him doing it, but it shouldn’t have been happening.’

  All of Offaly’s half-back line had scored. In the stands, the crowd hailed McGee’s tactical chicanery. On the sideline, McGee took these freak occurrences in his stride. He had changes to make.

  Offaly were on top, but Kerry were troubling them in parts. Michael Lowry had stuck like a limpet to John Egan and poked a few balls away, but Egan was like a ball of fire and leaving scorch marks on his man. McGee turned to the bench. Having seen all three half-backs score, Stephen Darby had quietly pulled a veil over his season and settled back to watch the final. Beside him, Seamus Darby’s knees were jiggling. The forwards were going well, but things were tight. Of both Darbys, he was more likely to get the call.

  When it came, they were both surprised. McGee swung around, calling for Darby. Stephen looked at Seamus, who was already getting his tracksuit top off. McGee looked behind again.

  ‘No! Stephen Darby!’

  Darby had never played corner-back at championship level before. His place was as an attacking wing-back. On the way home from training the previous Thursday night, Darby, Johnny Mooney and a few others talked about who they’d hate to mark on Sunday. Without hesitation, Stephen picked John Egan. Egan had strength, Darby was light and quick. On current form Egan was almost unmanageable. Now Darby was forced to confront his greatest fear.

  With half-time closing in, Offaly had taken control. Brendan Lowry’s third point put them three up, 0-10 to 0-7. Seconds after Lowry’s last point, Egan had the ball out from goal and popped a pass towards Tom Spillane, who had wandered in near the endline. As Spillane miscontrolled the pass and the ball rolled towards Hill 16, Martin Furlong smelled blood. He thundered out of his goals and tapped the ball to Padraic Dunne. Dunne’s foot-pass travelled 15 metres to Mick Fitzgerald who found Gerry Carroll. Carroll’s chipped kick landed in Liam Currams’s arms. He found Tomás O’Connor. Kerrymen were rooted to the ground like lime-green traffic cones as Offaly neatly slalomed through them. Kerry were being poked in the chest and pushed back towards a wall. They needed to respond.

  With two minutes left to half-time, a long ball from Jack O’Shea finds Mikey Sheehy drifting across an empty corridor of space 30 metres from goal. He hits it to The Bomber, but Liam O’Connor beats him to it. Under pressure, O’Connor holds on to the ball too long, and Mikey taps his first free of the game: 10-8.

  From Furlong’s kick-out, Tim Kennelly gathers his first ball of the game, escapes Richie Connor and pushes forward. He kicks another long ball towards Liston. This time he beats O’Connor and turns to face Furlong. As he opens up to shoot, Pat Fitzgerald flings his arms around him, one hand attempting to block his shot, the other wrapped around his back. Liston loses his balance and falls out over the endline, and for a moment Kerry think about claiming a penalty.

  Instead, the game has left them all behind. At the other end of the pitch the ball has found its way to John O’Keeffe, who is fouled by Matt Connor in a scrum of players. Richie Connor gives Jack O’Shea a nudge. Johnny Mooney steams into Jacko’s back. Tim Kennelly and Paudie Lynch are hovering as Jacko squares up to Mooney. Kerry are at breaking point.

  The free is worked downfield. John Egan races outfield and gathers the ball. Jack O’Shea is back in Kerry’s attack to take Egan’s pass. Two men converge on O’Shea, but he dodges them both and lands his shot over the bar. Suddenly Kerry are only a point behind: 10-9. PJ McGrath blows his whistle. A classic is taking shape.

  No half in the history of All-Ireland football finals has ever witnessed 19 points, but that is only the
beginning. Offaly have peaked at the very moment McGee wished, but Kerry have matched them. The crowd take a breath and the first heavy droplet of rain begins to fall. Officials are borrowing jackets and umbrellas from stewards to make it across the field without getting soaked. As PJ McGrath jogs to the tunnel, an old friend calls out to him from the stand. ‘That’s great stuff,’ he says. ‘Keep it going!’

  As he runs across the field to the dressing room, Mick O’Dwyer’s mind is racing. Ogie will be substituted. This is no time for weakness or misplaced loyalty. Time for change.

  16 THE SECOND HALF

  The Kerry dressing room was a worried place. Ogie Moran slumped down beside Egan and pulled his tracksuit pants on. The tension that had heavied the atmosphere before the game began hadn’t lifted. Meanwhile, Pat Spillane started to warm up. O’Dwyer was gambling with high stakes, and the players knew it.

  He had plenty of options. John L McElligott’s form had been excellent all summer. Vincent O’Connor had been a reliable panellist for years; he could operate at centrefield or along the half-forward line. Tommy Doyle could switch into attack, allowing Ger Lynch to come on in defence. But in the All-Ireland semi-final against Armagh, Spillane had replaced Ogie. The players reckoned O’Dwyer had made a mistake, but O’Dwyer trusted Spillane. Maybe too much.

  Spillane knew he wasn’t ready. His knee was heavily strapped, but the joint still felt unstable. At times he thought of the 1981 final and how he had codded the doctors and O’Dwyer about the strength of his knee. He had done it again, but now O’Dwyer had unwittingly called his bluff. Spillane had to deliver.

  Down the hall, Offaly players were bouncing off the walls. ‘Where are the falling stars now, lads?’ asked McGee, remembering Galleon’s lyrics. ‘Where are they now?’ Lowry and Furlong, Richie Connor and Seamus Darby moved among the players again as they had before the game. Believe, they said. Believe. This time they had thirty-five minutes of perfection to back up their argument.