Kilkenny set for good times

THE good times are rolling for Kilkenny City and the cats will formally be put amongst the Premier Division pigeons this evening should they beat Waterford United. A record league attendance of 5,000 plus is anticipated at Buckley Park, proving they will be a breath of fresh air in the top flight next season. An overnight sensation at last, after a dozen seasons.

The first four of them saw reelection in their original guise as EMFA, so named in deference to the streets where the founders resided - namely Emmet Street and Fatima Place - but more famously immortalised by the ironic sobriquet Every Man a Footballing Artist.

They wore it well. In the fourth of those seasons, at one point the club had gone over a year without a home win. The ebullient Jimmy Rhatigan, co founder in 1966, was then the local sports editor and Buckley Park reporter, manager - and secretary and just about everything else. When this reporter good naturedly put all this to him he responded in characteristic fashion. "I must fire that tea lady."

There was a brief upward curve, flirting with promotion when finishing fourth, two points off the pace, in 1989-90, under Maurice Price and reaching the Cup semifinals against Shamrock Rovers the following year under Joe McGrath.

However, that was sandwiched around six first round exits (they have only won two other Cup ties) and 10 seasons in the bottom half. This culminated in a sixth re-election (how could anyone turn down an appeal by Rhatigan?) two seasons ago when the club finished with an unwanted record of two points from 27 games.

Yet here they are, two seasons on, requiring just three more points to guarantee promotion and with it the title, on a sound financial footing and with immediate plans to further upgrade Buckley Park (new dressing rooms, terracing and car parking facilities for next season) after the installation of a covered 1,000 seat stand.

"Yep, we're coming to the fore now," said Rhatigan yesterday, still the club's secretary and representative on the League's Management Committee. "It took a longtime to get up through the mud."

What actually sparked it? Prayer," he says, before expanding. "What started it was two years ago, with the poor old Gallagher Babes," a reference to the yellow pack team assembled by Paddy Gallagher as a stop gap measure as the Kilkenny board "put everything else into place. The foundations were laid, the building was done and everything was paid for. Then we brought in Alfie (Hale) and the rest is probably history."

They took their time about it admittedly, but there's probably a lesson there for all other clubs who've erred in tending to the roses before the roots. "We felt we were going nowhere, so we had to take a good luck at it. We felt we needed facilities we needed to put in a stronger foundation, so the situation is now that we have a fairly decent ground, the pitch is good, we have floodlights, we have fairly decent ground parking with more to come, we have a board of directors and phase two of the ground's redevelopment."

All the while, on the pitch, Hale is the messiah. The irony of this will not be lost in Waterford, where he still retains his sports shop, nor the seemingly perfect symmetry of a local derby as the backdrop to The Cats official coronation.

A veritable living legend by any domestic standards, the one time Irish international and goal scorer supreme is owed far more by the League than it owes him, but he keeps increasing the debt. Still working off a relative shoestring, Hale further buttressed the squad last summer with a combination of free transfers from neighbouring Waterford and local junior football.

Along with youngsters such as Kevin Maher and David Walsh, the likes of Paul Cashin, his son Richie (joint leading scorer after a rich vein of form), Pascal Keane, Brendan Rea and Martin "Mock" Reid (after eight seasons in the wilderness) have been rejuvenated by Hale's infectious enthusiasm.

There's another factor in all of this toward the Kilkenny renaissance (or more pertinently, first coming). "Of course we concentrated on players from the southeast. Sorry Gerry, no Dubs," he adds, both to establish a sense of local identity and ensure a greater sense of commitment to the club's cause by the players. "It's worked a treat. I've never seen a more committed team."

It's been a potent mix, particularly so at Buckley Park which now boasts the longest unbeaten home record in the league dating back to the 1-0 defeat against Limerick on December 2nd, 1995.

Being through the bad times has, in Rhatigan's words, "separated the men from the boys," the loyalty of a sponsor such as Tom Cantwell, of TC Tyres, and the kit manager Johnny Burke, have been no less important.

If the flawed new proposal to expand the league by four clubs, and by extension the Premier Division, comes to fruition then Kilkenny could be safeguard from relegation next season. Either way, Rhatigan has "no doubt" Kilkenny will survive.

"It'll be hard work, we know that. But anything worthwhile is worth working for."

Ain't that the truth.