Mikey Sheehy paused. Paddy Cullen was asking if he still had the boots. The boots.
For two players eternally connected because of their contribution to one of the most memorable plays in All-Ireland final history, it said much about Cullen’s character over the years that he was the one who took ownership of the moment.
Cullen was running a bar in Ballsbridge at the time he inquired as to the whereabouts of Sheehy’s boots. The former Dublin goalkeeper wondered if the ex-Kerry forward would donate the boots he had been wearing when lobbing him in that 1978 decider.
It is a moment immortalised by the words of Con Houlihan, describing Cullen dashing “back toward his goal like a woman who smells a burning cake”.
“He wanted to know if I still had the boots and asked if I’d give them to him,” recalls Sheehy.
“I thought he might be messing but he wasn’t, he wanted to put the boots on display behind the bar in the pub, so I gave them to him.”
Cullen also arranged for a series of photographs, frame by frame depicting the goal, to be mounted on a wall in the pub. In 2017 the four main protagonists – Cullen, Sheehy, Robbie Kelleher and Ger Power – even agreed to re-enact the incident as part of the centenary celebrations for Austin Stacks – home club of Sheehy and Power.
At one point in the video, Cullen wears an apron and, while scrambling back to his goal, shouts in despair, “my cake”.
Sheehy and Power were among the many former Kerry footballers at Cullen’s funeral mass in Castleknock on Wednesday – Jack O’Shea, Ger O’Keeffe and Jimmy Deenihan also made the trip.
Plenty of other counties were represented too of course, but the Dublin team of the 1970s are intrinsically connected with their Kerry counterparts. Sadly, where the engagements were once All-Ireland finals, these days they tend to be funerals.
“There is a great bond and relationship between those Kerry and Dublin players, unfortunately we are losing people now though,” adds Sheehy.
“Paddy’s son spoke really well at the mass, as did Alan Larkin, he spoke beautifully on behalf of his Dublin team-mates.”
For those who knew Cullen, the manner in how he handled the fallout from the 1978 final came as little surprise.
“Paddy was very aware that in life at times there are setbacks,” says Larkin.
“We played in six All-Irelands finals in a row, we won three and lost three – you could say we experienced the best of both worlds in terms of character building because it gave us an appreciation of what we had.
“Some teams just come and go, we lost but then rebuilt and came back again. When you look back on it, we had a career that was probably a thousand times better than most intercounty careers. We were always appreciative of that.”
On that milestone day of the 1978 All-Ireland final, John O’Leary also kept goal for Dublin in the curtain raiser at Croke Park when the Dubs lost to Mayo in the All-Ireland minor final.
The following summer both Cullen and O’Leary returned to Croke Park on All-Ireland final day. Kerry beat Dublin again in the senior decider, but the Dubs got the better of the Kingdom in the minor showdown.
By the summer of 1980, and with Cullen having stepped away, O’Leary had been promoted to senior goalkeeper. He would remain there for almost two decades.
“I was 13 in 1974 when Dublin beat Galway, and my heroes growing up then were Joe Corrigan, the Manchester City goalkeeper, and Paddy Cullen. To get that opportunity to follow Paddy was amazing,” says O’Leary.
O’Leary retained the Dublin goalkeeper’s jersey until the end of the 1997 season, after which Davy Byrne kept goal until 2001 when Stephen Cluxton took ownership.
Several years ago, Cullen arranged for Dublin’s five All-Ireland winning goalkeepers from 1958 onwards (Paddy O’Flaherty, Pascal Flynn, Cullen, O’Leary, Cluxton) to meet at Croke Park.
“Paddy organised that, for us all to get a photograph together,” adds O’Leary. “We had some food in the Croke Park hotel then and chatted, it was really nice, that wouldn’t have happened only for Paddy.”
Flynn died last September.
But when O’Leary thinks of Cullen, it tends to be Galway and not Kerry that springs to mind. Cullen saved a penalty from Liam Sammon in the 1974 All-Ireland final. Dublin won that decider by five points, the capital’s first Sam Maguire triumph in 11 years. They went on to win two of the next three.
“That’s still a lump in your throat moment, for me anyway,” says O’Leary. “Even though you know he’s going to save the penalty – for me it’s the deeper consequences of that save and what it meant for Dublin, it was a sliding doors moment. If Paddy didn’t save the penalty, what would have happened that team in the years after?
“Paddy changed the face of goalkeeping, he brought it to another level and he had such charisma and presence about him too.”
Sheehy believes it is no coincidence that two generational goalkeepers followed Cullen between the posts in the capital.
“Not only was he a great goalkeeper but he really stood out, he was a big man and was always immaculately dressed – on and off the field,” recalls Sheehy.
“On the field, the dark blue jersey, the socks always up, the way he played, he made it an attractive position and look who came along in the years after him only the likes of John O’Leary and Stephen Cluxton.”
To mark the anniversary of the 1974 breakthrough triumph, that group of Dublin players organised a trip abroad. Cullen had some contacts in the Algarve, having brought his 1992 Dublin team there, and so the trip was arranged.
“We’ve been going there ever since,” says Larkin. “And we are going again later this year, in October.
“All those experiences playing together, winning and losing, they cemented our friendships and helped bring us closer together as a group and post-retirement thankfully we remained close.”
Outside the church on Wednesday, there was no shortage of football talk – and of course the goal was mentioned.
“We were joking that Robbie Kelleher was ahead of his time, back then he was only abiding by the new rule now where you have to hand the ball to the fellah after a free,” says O’Leary. “We were slagging at the funeral, that’s now the Robbie rule.
“Paddy got a lot of stick over that Mikey Sheehy goal but the way he handled it showed his personality, he embraced it and had some craic with it.”
In the years that followed, Sheehy and Cullen struck up a friendship. If his work ever necessitated an overnight in Dublin, the Kerry native would invariably make his way out to Ballsbridge.
“Paddy would nearly always be there and several times he’d come out from behind the bar and join you for a drink,” recalls Sheehy. “He had a great way with people.”
Sheehy will be in Tralee this weekend when the latest chapter in Gaelic football’s most storied rivalry gets written. There is a sense that both Kerry and Dublin are currently looking at new players with a nod to the future.
But the past binds these two counties.
On Wednesday in Castleknock they filled the pews to remember Paddy Cullen. In Austin Stack Park tonight they will fill the stands as a reminder of the enduring legacy he helped forge.
“If Kerry and Dublin played on top of a mountain there would be a big crowd,” smiles Sheehy.
But only because the great players of the past carried it there in the first place.
