Meath v Dublin, and a bond that goes way beyond brawling

Bernard Flynn spots Eamonn Heery immediately. “There’s the man now,” smiles Flynn, lifting himself up from the chair. They have history. But over the next few hours, it turns out not exactly to be the history you were expecting.

In December 1988, Meath hosted Dublin in a National Football League game at Páirc Tailteann. It remains the last time Dublin played a league or championship game against Meath in Navan. That 35-year anomaly will finally be rectified on Saturday.

Dublin won the 1988 encounter, 1-12 to 0-4. In The Irish Times match report of that game, Paddy Downey wrote: “Fears that the almost hostile rivalry between these teams might lead to brawling were well founded. In a first half of heavy tackling, there were three ugly skirmishes and two players, Eamonn Heery of Dublin and Bernard Flynn of Meath, were sent to the line by referee Tommy Howard.”

Flynn says it was the only time he got sent off in his Meath career. Heery recalls it as his sole red card for Dublin. It also cost Flynn an All Star. At the time, a sending off automatically made players ineligible for selection. As they trudged off the pitch, Heery made sure to let Flynn know he could wave goodbye to his All Star.

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Given the incendiary friction between the counties, it might have been a flashpoint that ensured the two would share nothing else for the rest of their lives apart from a dollop of spite. But a trope of that Meath-Dublin rivalry was a grudging respect. In the years that followed, the pair became friends. They roomed together during an International Rules tour in Australia, Flynn was at Heery’s wedding, and in a time of crisis Heery was at Flynn’s side.

On a drizzly Saturday afternoon, we met in a Dublin city centre watering hole to chat football, rivalry, red cards, broken bodies and friendship.

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Gordon Manning: What do you remember of the 1988 game?

Bernard Flynn: I remember Dublin beat the bollocks out of us.

Eamonn Heery: You’d hammered us in the championship in 1987 and 1988, the league final too. That win in Navan was kind of a moment for us. The folklore goes that when we beat Meath that day, it was a marker.

GM: What about the sending off?

EH: This f***er tripped me up from behind, that’s how it started.

BF: Is it?

EH: You tripped me.

BF: The row that day was one of the worst I’ve ever seen. I’d forgotten about the trip.

EH: Course you did, sure tripping lads wouldn’t have been in your nature!

BF: Talk about tripping, Eamonn was always great at leaving a trailing leg or a little flick. [Liam]Harnan was decked that day, the Dublin lads got really stuck in. Tommy Carr started it, he was so annoyed after losing to us a couple of times that year, he started flaking. It was all-in then.

EH: There was murder at the other end of the field, so I was going down and the next thing he takes the legs from under me and suddenly we’re rolling around on the ground. I don’t think either of us got a box in, but we both got sent off.

BF: The RTÉ nine o’clock news that night started with “Mass brawl in Navan” and there are us two eejits on the ground.

I was in the toilet at one stage when one of Eamonn’s close mates comes over. We both go straight through the cubicle door and I’m pinned up against the wall. Then he slides me down on top of the toilet. ‘What are you doing at this wedding?’

—  Bernard Flynn recalls a close encounter with a friend of Eamonn Heary

EH: I hadn’t been involved with Dublin in the league until that point. St Vincent’s had won the Dublin senior hurling championship and so we went on to play in Leinster. But I was back for the Meath game. On the way to Navan, Gerry McCaul came down the bus. Gerry was old style, he says to me, “you are going in corner back today and you’re marking Flynn.” Then he walks away, turns and adds, “he scored 2-8 in an intermediate championship match last week.” I was only playing two years for Dublin at that stage, so the likes of Bernard could end your career. At the time you were in the running for another All Star.

BF: Yeah, I was going well, but you couldn’t get nominated once you were sent off.

EH: I think I mentioned that to you going off the pitch.

BF: Yeah, you f***ing did.

EH: Afterwards we were back in the Coolquoy Lodge but I was despondent. We were after beating Meath but I’m thinking, “I’m gone, I won’t get back in the team.” Suddenly, people were coming up to me going, “well done, good boy Heery.” So I start thinking, “I’ll turn this around, I’ll act like I’d done it on purpose to take Flynn out of the game.”

GM: How did you become friendly after that?

BF: I worked with Davy Synnott and used to meet Eamonn at functions. Most of the Dublin lads were good lads, and on the field they were usually fair.

EH: Ah, Dublin were gullible.

BF: Not that gullible, did you ever see what himself and Keith Barr did to Colm O’Rourke in Croke Park in 1991?

(In the last of the four-game saga, O’Rourke was the meat in a Dublin sandwich between Heery and Barr. O’Rourke was carried off the field but did later return. Over the years, Eamonn has heard his former team-mate take the, erm, credit.)

EH: We need to clear this up, Barr didn’t touch him. Barr has claimed this so many times, “O’Rourke got the ball and then I buried him.” He has been on TV programmes and everything talking about it. He never touched him, look at the replay, it’s not true.

BF: It was you. And if it was the other way around, one of our lads would have done the same.

EH: That’s what O’Rourke said afterwards, “if I’d got the chance I would have done it, only three times harder.”

♦◊♦◊♦

In 1990, Flynn and Heery were both selected on the Ireland International Rules tour and were put in the same room together.

GM: Given what happened in 1988, was it awkward sharing a room?

BF: No, by that stage we had got to know each other fairly well. What happened in ‘88 wasn’t an issue. Rooming with Eamonn was fantastic, that was a great trip.

EH: We had been training together for the International Rules and we had also been in each other’s company a few times, socially.

BF: Then there was Eamonn’s wedding. At the time the Meath-Dublin rivalry was still hot and heavy. I was in the toilet at one stage when one of Eamonn’s close mates, who didn’t know I’d be there, comes over. I’m standing outside the cubicle, he grabs me, we both go straight through the cubicle door and I’m pinned up against the wall. Then he slides me down on top of the toilet. “What are you doing at this wedding?” He was only having the craic, but he put the fear of God in me. I thought I was going to be killed.

♦◊♦◊♦

In 2009, Bernard had a hip replacement. The other operations he has undergone over the years include one for a cruciate tear and the need for full knee reconstruction. He still cannot fully straighten one of his legs. For much of his career he took cortisone injections just to play matches. He continues to regularly get epidurals to ease daily pain. At various stages over the course of the afternoon, the conversation returns to how broken up so many players of their generation now are. At one point, Eamonn takes out his phone to show X-rays related to the back surgery he required last year. A few days after we met up, Bernard’s pain intensified and he had to undergo back surgery in the Mater hospital.

GM: Are many of your former team-mates in a similar way?

BF: Yeah, a lot of ours have had hip operations. I remember Gerry McEntee saying to me years ago, “Bernard, make sure you keep your health insurance up, no matter what happens.”

EH: I thought I was doing great because I had heard about all of these boys needing to get stuff done. Then last February, I had a decompression done and I roared coming out of the hospital. They took me back the following week and done the full job. I had two operations on the back.

BF: I met Eamonn at Pat Gilroy’s mother’s funeral and I was genuinely shocked by how he looked that day. He was clearly in so much pain, it was written all over his face. I asked him if he was okay, and he told me about the operation. But you could see the pain in his face that day. Every four to six weeks I get epidurals. If I don’t get them I can’t walk, but the body doesn’t really take them now either.

EH: You can’t put that down to anything only football. We’re lucky that we can get the jobs done but there are an awful lot of fellas who have damn all money, maybe no health insurance, and are left waiting in pain for years to get something done through the public system. That’s wrong, they should be looked after. Any fella who played should be able to say to their county board, I need a hip operation, can I get some help please.

BF: Eamonn is right. Nobody cares about you when you’re finished playing.

EH: Think of the money you would have had to spend on yourself for the last ten years keeping yourself right.

BF: I’d say there’s €100,000 or more gone on the stuff I’ve had to get done.

EH: I met a friend a few months ago, he’s healthy and he’s done alright in business. He was saying to me, “you’ve won this, you’ve done that, got an All Star” and so on. “Will you stop,” I said. “Tell me this, where would you rather be now at this stage in your life, your body in bits but having won a few All-Ireland medals or the position you are in at the moment?” Because nobody cares. If you have nothing in your back pocket now, nobody is going to help you.

BF: That time in Australia, I got 13 injections to play in those games. I’d love to get a proper fund for past players going, to help lads who are struggling.

GM: Do you regret any of it?

BF: It depends how you are at times but right now, no, not at all.

EH: It was the greatest thrill to play in some of those games. You’d just hope players are looking after themselves and getting looked after.

♦◊♦◊♦

Meath have not beaten Dublin in league or championship since 2010. Last summer Dublin beat the Royals by 13 points. In recent years, there have also been drubbings of 16 and 21 points.

GM: What do you make of the rivalry now?

EH: Seán Boylan was a genius, he’s one of the greatest human beings. I watched the programme they made about him and I was crying. We measured ourselves against his Meath teams.

Don’t take this wrong, but the thickness is gone from Meath. No matter how much better than them you were, they fought all the way. But now, after 10 minutes Meath have been giving up in games.

BF: It’s disappointing how poor we have been at competing with Dublin. I’ve spoken with some of the Dublin players recently and they have been shocked at Meath’s inability to compete.

EH: In general, I think football now is shocking, I can’t watch it. Hand-passing over and back, I can’t stand it. As for Meath, I know Bernard was in the mix to become manager and I was excited about that prospect because I knew he’d bring something back to Meath. And it’s the same with Colm O’Rourke.

BF: This game on Saturday, I’ve been thinking about it. For Meath football, it could be a moment. Just like the ‘88 game was for Dublin, that triggered them to win the Leinster the following year. We need something in Meath, we need a moment like that. Nothing will really change until the day we beat Dublin again in the championship at Croke Park. We can dress it up however we like, but in recent years we have got annihilated, we have been humiliated too many times now. And to be fair to Colm, that will be his aim, he will want nothing only to beat Dublin in a championship match at Croke Park. But if we could beat them in Navan on Saturday, that could be the spark, that could be the moment it starts to turn.

♦◊♦◊♦

As Bernard gets up to leave, they agree to meet again soon, only next time with a couple of old comrades in tow. Moments later, Bernard returns, there’s something he wants to say. As he begins to speak, his voice quavers.

BF: Sorry, I’m getting a bit emotional thinking about it. God, goosebumps. Sorry. It’s about my young lad, Billy, he’ll be 26 in July. When he was about eight months old, I was playing with him at home and I dropped him, he landed on his head. Fractured skull. He was rushed to intensive care. He was touch and go for 36 hours. We didn’t know if he’d make it. And who came in, who came to the hospital and kept me company for hours?

Bernard looks directly at his old sparring partner. Eamonn reaches over and rests his hand on the Meath man’s shoulder.

BF: Him. Eamonn Heery. That was such a challenging time for us as a family. I don’t even know how you found out, but you came in. You didn’t have to, but you did, you were there. I’ll always remember that.

EH: With the football, we kind of got nothing out of it, but then, stuff like this ... maybe we did.

Dublin will play a league match in Navan against Meath on Saturday for the first time in 35 years. The pity is it has taken that long to get them back together.