'It was a whole new world for me': Limerick-Cork Munster final memories 50 years on
Declan Bogue
50 YEARS AGO, they met in Limerick for a Munster final.
Back when Limerick were recently-deposed All-Ireland champions, back when Cork were a team of flickering promise that threatened to become more.
Two goals in as many minutes just before half-time from Charlie McCarthy and Willie Walsh left Cork in a commanding position. They came as a gut-punch to a Limerick side that had only been beaten once in two and a half years, and dominated the opening 20 minutes of the Munster final.
Cork went on to win 3-14 to 0-12. Their young tearaways in Jimmy Barry Murphy – the other goalscorer – and John Fenton had a lot of stuff about them.
Bertie Troy was busy blooding a lot of the successful U21s he had won All-Irelands with. He also had Justin McCarthy on the line alongside him. Official records would have them as a joint management team, but it was an eventful partnership.
Even now, 50 years on, when you do a fact-check with Fenton on who was the manager that season, you sense he is being expertly political by feigning that it slips his mind.
Either way, it was the start of five consecutive Munster titles for Cork, franked by a Liam MacCarthy three-in-a-row from 1976 onwards.
The past is a different country indeed. That summer, Limerick beat Tipperary in the Munster semi-final in the Gaelic Grounds.
Ned Rea played the game, jumped into a fast car straight after the final whistle and was spirited to Parnell Park to play for his club in Dublin, Faughs, in a county semi-final where they lost by two points to Craobh Chiaráin.
It was a time of gripping paranoia in the north. That very weekend, the Portadown and District Branch of the Ulster Special Constabulary Association – the former ‘B Specials’, issued a statement that the Irish Army were poised to ‘invade’ the north in early autumn. Which certainly didn’t quell any tension.
The same weekend, Celtic came over to Donegal and drew 0-0 with Finn Harps who were bolstered by the inclusion of Mick Martin of Man United and Paddy Mulligan of Crystal Palace. Celtic had Danny McGrain and Kenny Daglish, with a young Tommy Burns coming off the bench.
When the players of Cork and Limerick woke up on the morning of the Munster final, they did so in their own beds, in their own homes, getting their own breakfast sorted.
“We never used buses. I never used a bus in my time,” says John Fenton now.
Instead, there was a family by the name of Roche in Carrigtwohill who had the contract for Cork hurling. They would gather Fenton and his fellow Midleton clubman, Cork selector Paddy Fitzgerald, along with Seanie O’Leary, Denis Coughlan and Pat O’Connor into a taxi and off to Limerick they would go.
Off to a hotel for a cup of tea and the pre-match meal of a sandwich, a quick meeting, and to war.
For Richie Bennis – who hit 0-6 from frees – in the Limerick camp, there was no taxi, no sandwich and certainly no meeting. Instead, their instructions were simple; get to the Gaelic Grounds one hour before throw-in.
“It’s completely different from now. There was a group of us around there on Monday night and they were showing us some clips of the Munster final in 1974 against Clare and we scored six goals. And we scored six goals in the Munster final of 1973 as well,” says Bennis.
“That would be unheard of now.
“Now, you are going to the pitch three hours before the match to have a small warm up. Then you go for a cup of tea and a warm up on the pitch before the match.
“We gathered an hour before the game. No pre-match anything, meal or meeting or anything.”
Out there on the pitch, Fenton felt, to use a modern phrase, ‘seen.’
As a 19-year-old, he was on the county U21s and came on as a substitute. But he didn’t feel he belonged in that company.
“It was a daunting prospect to be quite honest,” he says.
“I was young and Midleton would have been intermediate, we weren’t at the top table of Cork hurling at the time. There was a massive gap between intermediate and senior hurling in Cork hurling and you had to jump a massive gap between senior hurling in Cork and senior intercounty hurling. That was two big steps.
“It took me a couple of years. To get up to the speed of the game was big for me. The likes of Jimmy Barry-Murphy and Tom Cashman, they were playing the top level of hurling in Cork at the time and those Cork teams were involved in Munster club and All-Ireland club series.
“I was two steps behind them. That’s the big thing I found. I remember saying to myself that I had a lot to learn in the sense that I had the basics, but I didn’t have the speed to do the basics well.
“You hear a lot of talk about the first touch now, but at the time my first touch wouldn’t have been up to the level required.
“It was a whole new world for me. I had looked up to these guys all my life up to now and there I was, in the same dressing room. But the lads were great and they would give you great encouragement. Once you went onto the field, you were on your own then.”
He got on for the last six minutes. It was his first Munster title of many. Surely as a teenager your stock is high in the after-party?
“There was none! No celebrations!” laughs Fenton.
“We were back to the hotel. We had a meal and the lads who were having a few drinks would do that, but basically we were back into the car and drove home and the following morning we were back at our work. There were no parades of anything like that.
“It was very low-key in one sense. A lot of those Cork lads had been there before, Gerald and Charlie McCarthy had been there in ’66, in ’70, there in ’72. So they were used to the scene and they knew the Munster championship was a stepping stone in terms of an All-Ireland.”
As much as it was another world away, some similarities can always be found in hurling.
As ever, the price of everything was a hot topic.
That year there were fears that the pricing structure of the All-Ireland hurling final might be increased from £3 for the Hogan Stand and £2.50 for the Cusack Stand.
The Munster final took in £28,000 in Limerick with 46,851 in attendance, the largest attendance at a Munster final since the mind-boggling 62,175 in 1961 that came also to the Gaelic Grounds to see Tipperary beat Cork.
You’ll be delighted to hear that the Patrickswell crew of 1975 are still hale and hearty.
“I was out with Frankie Nolan last night, he was corner-forward on that team and scored two goals, I scored two goals, and Ned Rea and Eamonn Cregan scored the other (in the 1974 Munster final),” says Bennis.
“We are very close. Sean Foley as well. Frankie is only down the road from me here in Patrickswell. And of course my brother Phil was on that team. And there are four Patrickswell men on this team as well, three outfield and the sub goalie.”
The Cork lads are spread out a bit thinner, but with the return of 1977 All-Ireland winning captain Martin O’Doherty last weekend from his residence in California, they gathered for the first time since 2001 in the South County pub in Douglas.
31 players from the three-in-a-row team, as well as the next-of-kin of those who have passed on, met up with the help of Dr Con Murphy as something of an event planner. Talking hurling, the three in a row, and the day it all started for that team in July, 1975.
In the 50-year period since, they have only met in the Munster final at this venue once since – 2013. None of the Limerick players will be driving themselves up to the gates an hour before throw-in. None of the east Cork men will rely on the Roche family taxis to make it on time.
But the blood and thunder remains.
Back then. Now. Always.
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