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Article January Week 2   2005
Mikey Sheehy Former Kerry Legend and Sean Walsh Kerry
County Board Chairman Slams Tyrone and Armagh Tactics

And so ‘04 is consigned to the annuals of past history, and for football followers of the Kingdom the looking back is over and done with, and now all the talk surrounds the coming year and how Jack o Conner and his men will fare.. I never cease to be astonished at the thinking which has and always will prevail in the county in relation to our footballers. That historic win against Mayo is now just a digit, number 33 on the list of titles won by Kerry and while it will be fondly remembered and cherished for the manner in which it was achieved there was never yet a Kerry footballer who considered resting on his laurels and basking in past glories.


And why should he, because around every corner, sitting on every bar stool, attending every club AGM and social, walking every street and by road, he will bump into a man who has achieved more than himself, the younger man might be the proud holder of one, two or three Celtic Crosses but the man drinking a pint near by might have double that amount and then to cap it all the supporters, and they are every where you go will blind him with his or her’s knowledge of the game. One of the great pleasures of following the county sides in all grades is meeting supporters from far and wide, both in Ireland and abroad, and time after time I meet with people be it man or woman who’s deep and vast knowledge of the game, the players, their strengths and weaknesses, and also that of management and county board officers never cease to astound me. A great friend, the late Bernie o Connell of Valentia, he once cycled from Valentia to Thurles to a Munster hurling final, remarked to me on this very same subject, ‘ the Kerry supporter is the most knowledge you will meet in the thirty two counties and without them we would not have won all we did in all grades, I was a selector with Kerry myself and I can tell you the supporters will let you very quickly where you went wrong’.
Drink in moderation is of course a great pleasure and to sit in one of the famous GAA pubs of Kerry can be a unique experience, here surrounded by aficionados of the game as the photographs of past legends gaze down on you from the surrounding walls you will learn the true significance of what football means to the followers and here you can watch enthralled and listen as even the greatest and not so great of Kerry players are discussed long into the night and always when necessary criticised in a fair and constructive way, and of course the comparison to former greats always puts the present generation and what is demanded of them into perspective. If you inquire deep enough you will learn that the supporter sitting on you left or right is the son, grandson or even great grandson of the man who played in such a position in such a year as Kerry won the All Ireland that specific period, I am emphising the vast dept of knowledge available to every follower and it must be added that many ladies I meet up with in Jimmy o Briens or other GAA watering holes know more about the game than any man and are in no way slow to express their opinions good, bad, or indifferent.


And so, spoiled by years of outstanding victories, glorious performances and magnificent individual displays on the greatest of all stages, the supporter expects only the best. A discussion I once had with the exemplary John Egan readily comes to mind, surly rated as one of Kerry’s greatest forwards, the Sneem man remarked, ‘you can please some of the Kerry supporters some of the time, all the Kerry supporters some of the time but you can’t please all the Kerry supporters all of the time’, wise words indeed from one who has experienced all the emotions presented to a Kerry footballer including that huge trauma of being captain when Seamus Darby shattered that Kerry dream of five in a row in 1982. And while Paudie o Se’s remarks about the Kerry supporters as ‘effing animals’, which landed him in hot water up to his ears were at the time to many highly offensive I must admit that even now in hindsight I always felt that he did not in any way mean it to sound discourteous or insulting, it was in my opinion his own curious way of expressing a opinion, ‘one man’s meat is another mans poison’.


This must surly be one of the secrets of Kerry, always and ever the greatest of expectations, never even contemplating for one second that their side would not win the All Ireland, the winning of the Munster final is never very high on the agenda, and equate this with other counties such as Westmeath, Kildare Laois where the winning of a provincial title is celebrated for weeks and months on end, and the players of those teams are hailed as heroes. Can you imagine the scene if Liam Kerins Limerick side were to win the no name Munster championship cup, it would be the talk of the country, remember Clare in ‘92, they are still celebrating that one and we are forever remained about it, the day they shocked Kerry, that was Jack o Sheas last game in the green and gold and Seamus Moynihan was lining out for the very first time with his beloved county, one legend handing over to another.


So the moral of the story is, you can’t live on your past in Kerry, there is always that mountain to climb, always that record to equal or break, always that anniversary to celebrate by winning, (fifty years ago this year since Kerry’s greatest ever win 1955 when they stopped the so called invincible Dublin machine in that never to be forgotten final), the young footballer determined to prove that he is no flash in the pan, what he did last year or the great goal he scored must be improved on and, always at the back of the mind is the supporter, ready to remind, to criticise, to praise, and most of all to support, travelling the length and breath of the country, sporting the colours in the four corners of the country. Sigerson Clifford wrote, ‘you asked what’s the secret of Kerry and often I wished that I knew’ that question is still as relevant to day as when it was penned all those years ago.


So what will ‘05 bring,’, already the debate has begun, the knives are being sharpened by the northern counties following remarks passed by Kerry county board chairman Sean Walsh at the recent county convention, he declared, ‘twelve months ago, pundits were proclaiming the death of football as was know it, we are delighted that it took a Kerry team to restore the pride in Kerry football. The return to a free flowing game from a packed defence type game is welcomed by the thousands of supporters that travel to our games’. Then Mickey Sheehy, a man who never minces his words got involved when he was quoted in The Chosen Ones, the superb book by Martin Breheny and Colm Keys celebrating 1000 GAA all Stars. The Austin Stacks legend was stinging in his assessment of the Armagh and to a greater extent the Tyrone style, he believes it’s far too negative and, in Tyrone’s case, is preventing them from reaching the peaks their vast array of talents are capable of reaching.


Sheehy states, ‘people were saying that the Kerry way was old fashioned, Tyrone’s swarmed defence and Armagh’s power play were being hailed as the only way forward. It seemed to be a matter of all aboard the new bandwagon, without asking where it was going, even here in Kerry it was being suggested that we should radically alter our style, I couldn’t believe it. We had won 32 All Ireland senior titles yet we still doubted ourselves totally convinced of systems used by Armagh and Tyrone, who had won a single All Ireland each, good luck to those counties, they deserved their titles but it was absolutely crazy that so many sensible people started believing the nonsense that it was the northern way or no way, this irritated me greatly’.


However the greatest goal scorer in the history of Kerry football, goes even further and condemns greatly the type of football played in the 2003 All Ireland final between Armagh and Tyrone and indeed it must be said that here he was expressing the feelings of many follower of the game. He concludes, ‘ I recall watching that game with a sinking feeling for Gaelic football, it was an absolutely perfect day for the game, yet instead of sitting back and enjoying a great encounter, we were treated to a negative, defensive battle, it was awful to watch’, nevertheless he is a great admirer of Tyrone and adds, ‘this Tyrone panel is good enough to come back and win more All Ireland titles, but only if they abandon the negativity and play to their creative strengths’,


The pot is being well and truly stirred in Ulster, Sean Washes declaration and Mickey Sheehy’s condemnation must certainly have struck a very raw nerve across the border and understandably so. In a recent edition of The Game, a new Ulster GAA newspaper which to my knowledge is the only weekly all GAA paper on the market Cathal o Rourke wrote, ‘Sean Walsh and Mickey Sheehy have just upped the ante to the detriment of their own, the Kerry management must be pulling their hair out, what an inducement for the season ahead the two sets of players in Armagh and Tyrone must have for then season ahead’.`


On last weeks Terrace talk programme on Radio Kerry, my guests in studio were GAA experts John Fenton Daly, John o Dowd and Tony Leen, Kieran Shannon of the Sunday Tribune came on line to talk to us as we discussed the coming year and left us in no doubt that the remarks referred to above are well documented up north, top trainer Eamon Coalman has said that,’ Kerry are bad losers and always have been’, while Mickey Hart joins in with the veiled warning, ‘ It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that such comments could be useful and might be coming to an Armagh or Tyrone dressing room soon’. Remarks that Kerry are bad losers are in my opinion well off the mark and I would go as far as to say that Kerry are probably the better of all the top counties to take their beating without winging about referees and so on, we hope that this will never change.


So there you have it as the fellow says, just a brief look at what we might expect during the coming season, one thing is absolutely certain, and that is, if Kerry meet either Tyrone or Armagh in the race for the Sam Maguire sparks will be flying and the laws of probability and football suggest it is virtually impossible for Kerry to retain the title,( last achieved by Cork 1989-90), without meeting one of these sides, and then on the other hand they in turn will have to go through Kerry to regain the honours, great stuff in store.