Gaelic Football
Kerry's All-Ireland
The player
Billy O'Shea captained Kerry last year but through injury and lost form struggled for the first half of 1997 during which time his club, Laune Rangers, were toppled as All-Ireland champions; later in the year Laune were to lose both their Kerry and Munster titles. He recovered well in the summer to earn a place in the All-Ireland final team. Early in the match, he sustained a badly broken leg in a collision with team-mate Maurice Fitzgerald.
I remember it vividly. There was a lot of ball going into my corner early in the match. Both Dara Ó Se and William Kirby (the Kerry midfielders) are right-footed so it was going in that side.
Liam Flaherty (the Kerry centre-back) won a ball on the Hogan Stand side and played it into me. I won it and played it a few times, hop and a solo, and let it into Dara Ó Cinneide. Kenneth Mortimer (Mayo corner back) got in the way and punched the ball back to me. I went for it from one angle, Maurice (Fitzgerald) was coming from another.
Just as I went down, I heard him shout "leave it" - I think he was trying to pull the ball over the bar from there. But I was in the way. I got in the way of an act of genius. I knew as soon as I looked down. I could see blood and the leg slightly bent. I was most afraid that someone would fall on top of me.
Maurice was very upset. Looking back, I had to cool him down - and I was the one with the broken leg. He's from Cahirciveen and the two of us often went into training together. We were good buddies. It was a credit to him the way he played afterwards.
There was all this talk later that I'd been carried off saying "win it for me". That's rubbish. I told Maurice to forget about it and just to play on. I was loaded on to the ambulance and felt no pain initially. Shock and adrenalin numbed me.
Things had (originally) turned against me at the start of the year. I had an infection in my leg but went on a skiing holiday. Recovering took time. Even at club level, I wasn't going very well and had pulled a muscle before the Crossmaglen match (the All-Ireland club semi-final).
Looking back I think had I gone off in the last 10 minutes we might have won. Cathal Short was doing well on me and made one and scored another of their two late points. If Shane Sullivan had come on, I think we might have won.
When I got fit again, the county team had settled into a pattern and had a starting 15. I struggled for a combination of reasons: my form wasn't great and the boys had a lot more groundwork done. They had also been in the Canaries and there was a certain amount of bonding there that I missed.
I was lucky to be on the panel for the (National) League and sat on the bench with number 24 on my back for the final. Mike Hassett (Kerry captain and Laune team-mate) had a chat with me and I felt desperate to get some sort of form back.
I had a chance in the first championship match against Tipperary to play wing back but got injured and had to pull out. I was miserable - the one chance I had of getting back gone. Paidi (Ó Se, the Kerry manager) was playing me in the backs. At one stage I was in the corner at training. Billy O'Shea at corner back. I'd never played there and felt I was going nowhere.
They had begun to play me more in attack when I made a breakthrough. Against Cavan John Crowley was injured and I was told I was going on. I was thinking "don't let this pass you by". It's amazing the way you can sometimes will yourself to do something. The first ball and I ran towards it and won the first two breaks. We won, I played well and scored two points. It made up for the previous year (losing the semi-final to Mayo) which was the lowest of the low.
Coming up to the final I was thinking about playing but didn't think I would be (starting) - apart from a fair idea that I'd be used at some stage. It was 11.55 (p.m.) after training when Paidi rang me and said: "I've news for you." I knew what it was.
After the final when I saw the reactions of the boys in the hospital I felt slightly out of it. I didn't mind going into hospital in Tralee because I wasn't up to the homecoming. I stayed there until Thursday and then went straight to Hassett's pub and around the schools with the cup.
Missing New York (Kerry's commemorative National League fixture with Cavan) wasn't a problem. I knew I'd only have been a passenger over there with everyone asking me "how's the leg?". The important thing was that the leg was healing very quickly and I could look forward to the trip to Honolulu (Kerry's holiday). O Se for a function with the cup.
The Castlehaven match (the Munster club semi-final which Laune lost heavily) wasn't great. It's asking a lot of a club side after three years on the go. Once you get it into your head that it's finished, everything goes off the rails. Still it was a shame going out like that.
In an interview with Sean Moran
Golf
Ryder Cup
The manager
From early last summer, Roddy Carr had become aware of an obsession that gripped European captain Seve Ballesteros in his determination to retain the Ryder Cup at Valderrama. If the US were to be beaten again, the phenomenally-gifted Tiger Woods had to be tamed.
Ballesteros never talked about such matters. In fact he remained extremely secretive about everything to do with the biennial showpiece. But from his knowledge of the Spaniard as a business partner and more recently as his manager, Carr could sense what was going on.
The Dubliner recalled: "By the time Seve visited Valderrama in August, the objective was clear: neutralise Tiger. He knew that, given free rein, Woods had the potential to become a five-point problem. That is why he had the fairways narrowed in at 260 yards, so eliminating any advantage from length off the tee.
"By the end of the first day, Seve knew he had broken Woods," Carr went on.
"Granted, Tiger and Mark O'Meara won the opening four-ball against Bernhard
Langer and Colin Montgomerie, but the frustration was apparent in the youngster's face, when they lost in the afternoon."
Then there was the European captain's attention to detail. Like instructing that the soles and heels of his players' new dress shoes be roughened with sandpaper prior to the gala dinner. The wisdom of the move was emphasised when, at that very function, the wife of Valderrama's Jaime Patino slipped on the polished floor and broke an arm.
Ballesteros made notes of everything, from social engagements to practice times and team meetings. And Carr stepped aside for the week as right-hand man, handing the role jointly to Ryder Cup director Richard Hills and Mike Gray of the PGA.
How then could Ballesteros have made such an obvious blunder as failing to inform Darren Clarke, Ian Woosnam and Thomas Bjorn that they would not be playing on the first day, morning or afternoon? "Obviously that shouldn't have happened," said Carr. "With so many things on his mind, however, errors were inevitable."
He went on: "The important thing was that he got all the key decisions absolutely right. I know that people were unhappy about his handling of the
Miguel Martin affair, but Seve should never have been dragged into what was essentially a matter for the Ryder Cup committee.
"Perhaps he lacked diplomacy. The only thing that mattered to him, however, was getting 14 1/2 points. Not 14. He wanted no part of an honourable draw. His approach to the captaincy was an exact mirror of his playing career.
"It was all about winning and if risks had to be taken, so be it. As I
discovered to my cost during my first year working for him, he has an amazing memory. And when he applied his mind wholly to the Ryder Cup, it was inevitable that his game was going to suffer badly. He could think of nothing only the clash with the Americans."
Since the events of late September, Carr has heard the criticisms of
Ballesteros. About his intrusiveness on the course when his players were in the heat of battle; of the extraordinary decision to split the successful Swedes
Jesper Parnevik and PerUlrik Johansson after they had won on the opening morning, and not playing Woosnam, who was fourth in the money list at the time.
There have also been tales from the team room about the way Nick Faldo left the captain in no doubt about wanting Lee Westwood as a partner. And of a clash on the 18th fairway with Billy Foster - his own former caddie, who was now working with Clarke - when his attempt to influence club selection was summarily rejected.
"Undoubtedly, there would have been catastrophic consequences for Seve had
Europe been beaten," admitted Carr. "He had laid everything on the line, upsetting a number of people along the way.
"He proved himself in the most emphatic manner possible, however, when his team went into the singles with a five-point lead. That is what Ryder Cup captaincy is all about - getting your pairings right in the four-balls and foursomes. The rest is easy."
Before Fred Couples led the US into singles battle, skipper Tom Kite urged his dispirited troops: "It's not insurmountable. We'll have to play like crazy, but it's not insurmountable."
The opening hour of singles combat caused many a European heart to flutter as the US struck with a blitz of birdies and eagles. But Ballesteros was prepared, with experienced troops in key positions. And, eventually, it came down to the
10th match and the half-point Montgomerie gained from Scott Hoch, who had been given the most generous concession of a 12-foot putt.
The Tiger's total for the match had been a modest one and a half points.
Dermot Gilleece
Horse Racing
Aintree Grand National
The head lad
When Johnny Cummins looks back now, it still retains that touch of unreality.
The Grand National called off, thousands improvising in the face of the IRA's cynicism, a bemused world watching on and then running the world's most famous race on its own at 5 p.m. on a Monday evening.
Even if the run up to April 5th, 1997 had been cloaked in intrigue it would be all but impossible to imagine. But that was it: everything had been so normal, it was just another away job.
What, after all, could have been more normal than an Irish horse, one of a team of six for the National from Ireland, leaving his box near Fethard, Co Tipperary for the Grand National? New Co, diminutive and brave. An outsider, yes, but not a hopeless one, and Cummins's responsibility along with another Mouse Morris-trained horse, the hurdling mare What A Question, which would run on the Thursday at Aintree.
As head lad to Morris, Cummins, 27, usually spends his time maintaining order in the yard. This would be a relatively uncomplicated break from routine. After travelling with the horses by ferry to Hollyhead, he arrived at the Aintree racecourse stables on the Monday, five days before the big race.
The hostel on the track is good, up to Cheltenham class, although there is no canteen and no bar in it. Not a problem, the Chinese up the road was good and the Adelphi Hotel in town was the place to go anyway. "The craic was as good as
Cheltenham. There were plenty of other Irish lads there too, from Aidan O'Brien and Michael Hourigan's yards," Cummins remembers.
What A Question ran fourth on Thursday. Morris had joined up with his head lad and on the Saturday it was same as normal. Up at 6.15, fed the two horses, then stretched New Co's legs. "He was taking a good look at the fences, too," says Cummins, who remembers a "great buzz about the place. No hint of anything".
Read the papers, had a few quid on Suny Bay in the National, walked the course, plaited New Co's mane and tail, declared him with the stewards and then after the third race, tacked him up. "I was just hoping he'd get around. He's only a pony in size but a good pony," he says.
"We had him saddled for the race and then we were told to go back to the stable yard. I said to Mouse `there's something wrong here' but he said not to worry. New Co was the last back to the stable yard and he was bucking a bit because he was upset with the loudspeakers. All the horses were because they know their game and this was different. Then we were told to clear the course.
"I thought `Jesus what's going on'. I took the saddle off him and put it in the feed pot, it's a wonder he didn't eat it, and then rugged him up. I didn't like the idea of leaving the horse, but Suny Bay's lad refused to go and stayed with the 10 or so horses left in the yard when the rest were taken to Haydock.
"I walked out alongside Henry Cecil. No one knew what was happening but the locals were brilliant. Myself and four lads from Arthur Moore's were taken in by this woman and given tea and hot toddies. I think Everton and Villa were playing on the telly at some stage of the four hours we were there. We used her phone to find out if we could get back in to feed the horses. She was great and afterwards we sent her a bunch of flowers and box of chocolates.
"We were let in to see the horses and told we could come back later but when we did we weren't allowed in. We were told something about there being a second device so we went to a school on the St Helen's Road where we stayed for the night. No sleeping bags, we just turned ourselves down.
"The following morning it seemed everybody was trying to get back in and they were very careful about who they let in. The horse was fine but nobody had any idea what was going to happen. I honestly didn't think they'd run it," Cummins says.
But it was run off, although Cummins remembers the atmosphere on the Monday as funereal. New Co overcame his stature and the fences to finish an honourable
15th. "All the hassle didn't help him but it was the same for the 35 others,"
figures Cummins. Finally leaving Aintree at midnight, Cummins and New Co reached
Hollyhead at 5 a.m. and were back in Fethard at noon.
"I suppose it was an experience, but I was delighted to be out of it. Lynn, who I married in June, had been watching the bomb scare on TV with my Mum and had been pretty frightened. The funny thing is I had met this guy from Offaly, who had been living in Britain for years, in a pub in Liverpool during the whole thing and when we were on our honeymoon in St Lucia, there he was again!" he says.
That touch of unreality about Liverpool '97 still lingers.
Brian O'Connor
Hurling
Clare's All-Ireland
The local radio man
Michael Gallagher is a well-known hurling broadcaster on Clare FM. This year he watched his county win a second All-Ireland in three years as he battled with cancer which had been diagnosed just before the championship started.
It was the week after the Offaly-Clare League match on March 30th, the first time I didn't feel great. I stopped in Naas and later in Portlaoise and didn't enjoy my food which was unusual for me. Until I retired in June my job was driving a lorry for Smithwicks and I often went out when I didn't feel well; it wasn't bravado, just the way I was. At the end of the month, April 27th, on my way back from Kilkenny, I wasn't able to eat a steak and on May 2nd I collapsed at work.
After that I was out from work because I was so weak. Doctors diagnosed me with an irregular heartbeat, no proper pulse and a kidney infection. I was put on antibiotics and cured but my doctor had also decided to put me through a fortnight's tests in what used be Barrington's Hospital in Limerick. I was diagnosed with lymphoma; I didn't even know what it meant.
When the doctor offered me the choice of Cork, Dublin or Galway, I knew the prognosis wasn't good. He had a friend, Dr Carney, in the Mater private so I
went in there on May 12th and was told there was a tumour in my stomach the size of a football.
My view of cancer has changed since. It used be something I'd literally shiver at any mention of and to be quite honest in the early days, I could think of nothing other than a six by two beside my father. I needed my wife not only as someone to lean on but as someone to explain what the doctor was saying because I couldn't take it in.
I hadn't missed a championship match in 45 years but I was in hospital for the first round against Kerry. On the last Saturday in May when I was still in the Mater, Seánie McMahon rang me. I had taken a special interest in him - I knew his father - and remember him as a minor in 1990. I saw in him great potential when he was only a little gossoon. We talked for a long time and he gave me great encouragement.
By the time they played Cork I was able to go to the match in Limerick, although I couldn't work at it - I hadn't the voice for it. Anthony Daly said to me afterwards: "You're getting better and we're getting better." Everyone was asking for me after the semi-final.
The championship was totally linked for me with my illness over the summer. I
was having chemo regularly every fortnight and it was great to go down from
Dublin and off to Cusack Park if they were training there.
I spoke to Seánie McMahon in early July about the Tipperary match (the
Munster final). It was a big game and at that time I was heading into the land of the unknown because I didn't know what news I'd get about how the treatment was going.
As a team Clare had put all their eggs in the championship basket. The League was used to strengthen the panel and fellas like David Forde and Niall Gilligan were discovered. For the Munster final there was never any question that
Loughnane would think of the back door (which allows beaten Munster and Leinster finalists back into the All-Ireland series). If we were going to win it, we'd win it the right way.
Brian Lohan (the Clare full back) said that the Kilkenny match (the All-Ireland semi-final) was like a furnace and there was anxiety at the end when D J Carey got the goal, but we shouldn't have lost the early lead.
Carey was always likely to score - he has a scoring rate of 1-6/2-3 a match -
but Jamesie (O'Connor) got our most important score, the last one that put us seven points up and meant they needed at least three scores to catch us.
So much happened in the last few minutes of the (All-Ireland) final that it's a bit of blur. Five points up and conceding two goals. But I will always remember how Davy Fitzgerald found Ollie Baker spot-on from the puck-out for the equalising point before Jamesie scored the winner.
When it was over, I burst into tears and Matt Purcell said: "It's been a great year and you can go back to hospital flying now." A month later I was told I was practically clear and the treatment would be wound down.
Postscript. Last week Michael Gallagher received the all-clear.
In an interview with Sean Moran
Rugby
Irish Development Tour
The player
Former Ireland under-21 wing and schools sprint champion Marcus Dillon made an immediate impact on his return from the Middle East last January. His performances for Lansdowne earned him a place on the Ireland Development Tour to New Zealand: it proved far from memorable for the player. Since then the
23-year-old has rebuilt his career and wants to prove his detractors wrong.
It's been a very, very strange 12 months. I have learned a great deal about myself, what I would like from my rugby career and what is required to realise that ambition.
The Irish Development tour to New Zealand was obviously pivotal to the year. I have to say that it was a real eye opener. I had arrived back from Dubai in mid to late January, got back on the Lansdowne team and then started scoring tries, eight of them in as many matches.
My selection for New Zealand can be attributed to that. In hindsight I probably wasn't ready for the tour, not to make a positive contribution. When I got out there I realised that, physically, I wasn't big enough or strong enough to compete against these guys.
When I came back, I went off track a bit. We were supposed to go training with the Leinster squad. I took an extra week off: I was a bit confused at that stage and it did take me a little time to pick out the positive aspects of the tour.
Mike Ruddock (the Leinster coach) was obviously new to the Leinster set-up and therefore would take people on first impressions: I did not give him a very good first impression. Since then we have talked a great deal and he has been very helpful in getting me sorted out.
I trained hard over the latter part of the summer, worked on strength and speed and this helped me confidence-wise. Recently, I have shipped a few niggling injuries that have hampered my training regime.
My priority next year will be to grab a place on the Leinster team. There is a great deal of quality competition in Denis Hickie and John McWeeney. I'm sure there will be some young guys coming through too, but I think that I have the potential. My confidence is high and I am playing what I consider good rugby.
At the moment I am playing my rugby on the right wing, but I can play on the other. From the very beginning I was constantly told that I could step off either foot. Dislodging Denis (Hickie) on the Leinster right wing would be a problem: he's two years younger than me (21) and playing great rugby. That is something that I will have to look at in conjunction with others.
I am a fair bit off representative level because of the tour. I have got to knuckle down, concentrate on ball skills, sprinting and tackling. Everyone has aspects of their game that they need to improve. I will try to make the grade with Leinster and take it from there.
When I reflect on both the tour and the year in general, the single biggest lessons is that you only get out what you are prepared to put in. I could have sat down and said that it was a bad tour and felt sorry for myself.
Or I can learn from it and for me that is what I must do. I have to be pragmatic. I don't think that I will be given an A cap in January or February, there are six or seven players ahead of me in the pecking order.
I know that Brian Ashton is very up front in telling you exactly what he wants, but other players have confirmed for me that if you are prepared to do the work then the rewards are there.
Perhaps a more opportune ambition would be to try and earn a place on Ireland's tour to South Africa next summer. That may be difficult if I do not earn any representative experience in the interim but for me that is another hurdle. I would hope to be ready for it at that stage.
In an interview with John O'Sullivan
Snooker
World Championship
The organiser/agent
While savouring every moment of an historic, Crucible triumph by a fellow
Irishman, Kevin Norton couldn't resist the temptation of looking forward 10
months. "Imagine it," he smiles. "At the 21st staging of the Benson and Hedges
Irish Masters, we'll be introducing Ken Doherty as the reigning world champion."
The World Championship in Sheffield last April and May didn't hold out the prospect of any great joy for Doherty. Rather would the focus be firmly on the reigning champion, Stephen Hendry, as he attempted to surpass his boyhood idol
Steve Davis, by capturing the title for a seventh time.
"Frankly I didn't give much for Ken's chances," recalls Norton, who now acts as Doherty's agent in Ireland. "I got the impression that there were too many people hanging out of him, distracting him from his career. I never doubted his ability to compete at the highest level but going to Sheffield, he just didn't seem to be ready for the breakthrough."
By the time Norton arrived at the Crucible, however, much of the work had been done. Seeded number seven and in the opposite half of the draw from Hendry, Doherty got safely over the first hurdle by beating Mark Davis 10-8 in the opening round. Doherty's game was in good shape, even if he could realistically hope for no better than a repeat of his best Crucible performance by reaching the quarter-finals, as he did in 1992 and 1994. Then came a highly significant second round victory over Davis, by the crushing margin of 13-3.
Norton remembers Doherty saying, cautiously: "I haven't played as well as this for a couple of seasons."
It was followed by the 13-9 defeat of number two seed John Higgins. As the first Irishman to reach the semi-finals since Dennis Taylor in 1985, Doherty was now aware that something special was happening. "I always used to watch Dennis and Alex (Higgins) here and I remember wanting to cry when they won the title," he said. "It's a privilege to be following in their footsteps."
He knew it would have been premature at that stage to think of going all the way. But the prospect became very much more realistic when he crushed the gifted
Canadian, Alain Robidoux, by 17-7 in the semi-finals. By taking 13 of the 16
frames scheduled for day two, Doherty had rendered the fourth and final session surplus to requirements.
"I'm delighted to have got this far," he said delightedly. "It surpasses my expectations." Then he quickly added: "That doesn't mean I will be settling for second-best when the final gets under way. I desperately want to win the title and I'm aware that I won't get many chances to do it."
The Irish were strongly represented in Sheffield that weekend. "I remember feeling that Ken had been really impressive in beating Davis, Higgins and
Robidoux but Hendry was going to be a bit different. Sure, Ken had the basic talent to beat him but to do it at the Crucible, in the final of the World
Championship, seemed to be asking a lot," says Norton.
"It wasn't long before a pattern emerged," he recalls. "Quite simply, Ken kept winning frames and, remarkably, Hendry seemed to be able to do nothing about it, especially with his long-potting. So, as the weekend wore on, it looked increasingly likely that history would be made. We were going to have a
Republic of Ireland world champion."
After Doherty had swept into a 15-7 lead, Hendry struck back to win five frames in a row. "At that stage, I thought I could pull it off," said the Scot. "Had I won the next frame, I think Ken would have been under a lot of pressure."
Doherty recalled: "It was a bit of a shock to the system to knock a blue in when leading by 28 in frame 27 and with only 18 on the table. My heart sank when Stephen won it on the black but I was able to hold myself together. Then the turning point came when he missed that red towards the end of the next frame."
In fact Doherty won the next three to take the title by the remarkably comfortable margin of 18-12. He had become the first player to win both the world amateur and professional titles and he did it against an opponent rated by many to be the best the game has seen.
Dermot Gilleece
Soccer
World U-20 Championship
The television producer
Seasoned soccer commentators could identify readily with Tish Barry's dilemma as she packed her bags and prepared to journey to Malaysia last summer.
As a senior producer with RTÉ's current affairs team, she had traversed much of the world in search of big stories. Now, she was embarked on a different mission in a new world.
One of the primary purposes of The Soccer Show, a magazine programme she produced for the FAI for screening by RTÉ, was to focus attention on the offbeat story. The participation of the Republic of Ireland's under-20 team in the finals of the world championship in Malaysia came within that remit.
The problem was that no matter how professional a job Tish Barry did, no matter how much animation her print media colleagues brought to their work, could the public at large identify with young players, many of whom they had never heard of before?
The answer would depend on how well Brian Kerr and his squad performed in unfamiliar climes. The manner of their response was such that by the time they returned to base some three weeks later all had changed profoundly.
"Before I went to Malaysia, I had scarcely heard of players like Damien Duff," Barry recalls. "Since then, I've rarely stopped talking about him."
Her first decision was to film a scene-setting piece at the squad's headquarters in Limerick. That, she felt, would help the public to put faces on names when reports of the games began to filter from places like Kuala Lumpur and Kuching.
By the time the first results began to arrive at sports desks in Dublin, she had good reason to feel grateful for that foresight. From an uncertain start, the players grew in stature with each consecutive game.
The Irish were beaten by Ghana in the opening game, but a 2-1 win over the
United States, followed by a 1-1 draw with China, qualified the Irish for the second phase of the championship.
That took them to the vast Shah Alam Stadium in Kuala Lumpur where they held a fancied Moroccan team to 1-1 in normal time, and Duff Damien Duff beat the goalkeeper for the decisive golden goal.
The result set up a quarter-final meeting with Spain, again at Kuala Lumpur, and it was then that Tish Barry was summoned from Dublin to put the odyssey on film.
"It was my first visit to Malaysia, the heat and humidity were something else, and I simply couldn't understand how any group of Irish players could survive in those conditions," she remembers.
"It was then I recalled that the first time I met them, on a broiling day in
June, they were out training in a field with their jackets on. An exercise in acclimatisation, I was told. And how well the Irish players benefited from it.
They were brilliant and when Trevor Molloy scored what turned out to be the winner, from a penalty in the second half, we were jubilant.
"Afterwards, when I put Brian Kerr and Noel O'Reilly in front of a camera and interviewed them, I noticed there was just a hint of a tear in their eyes. And to be perfectly honest, I, too, was a little less than fully composed."
The reward was a semi-final meeting with defending champions Argentina in
Kuching, City of the Cats. The South Americans, on the rack for much of the first half - Alan Kirby sliced an early chance wide - came back to secure the only goal through Bernardo Romeo. In spite of a splendid late flourish, Ireland were beaten.
It meant that Ireland again met Ghana, in a play-off for third place in a game which, like the one against Argentina, was televised live in Ireland. And it produced two goals of exquisite skill, from Des Baker and Duff, as the Irish surged through to win the game and the bronze medals on a 2-1 score-line.
Dessie Baker, evading two defenders at the far post, made perfect contact with the header from a Duff cross for a stunning opening goal and while Ghana soon plundered an equaliser, the team in green had the last say when Morgan conjured the perfect through ball and Duff held his balance - and his nerve - to squeeze the ball home.
"I felt privileged to have met these players before international fame changed them," says Barry. "The lads who started out as total strangers to me eventually ended up as my babies."
