Tuesday, February 9, 2010 Previous editions
Saturday, November 28, 2009
IT’S fairytale time again. The small print changes every winter, but the plot remains the same. This year the unlikely lads are the Tullamore hurlers who have emerged from the shadows to challenge one of their code’s behemoths.
Beat Ballyhale Shamrocks in tomorrow’s Leinster final – and they are 1/9 outsiders to do it – and the rags to riches story will be complete.
These things usually follow a well-worn path, a road map from zero to heroes starting with the work of a few lone pioneers reviving the club at underage level and ending with the arrival of a new messiah to take over the seniors.
Tullamore have all that in the shape of men like Andy Gallagher and Kevin Martin but one perennial ingredient is conspicuous by its absence – the flurry of underage titles which trumpets the great senior breakthrough.
Prior to this season’s campaign, it had been 45 years since Tullamore had claimed a senior county hurling title. The last hurling title the club had claimed had come courtesy of an U12 ‘A’ side back in 2004.
Think about that. No minor titles. No U21s. Just a black hole in the roll of honour. Until this year that is when they beat St Rynagh’s, Birr and Kilcormac/Killoughey to plug a gap that stretched right back to 1964. So what exactly changed?
"We always had decent underage and minor teams," explains senior player/manager Kevin Martin. "We just weren’t able to get the results. Even the minors this year, those lads would know what it is like to beat Birr at underage. The dual thing doesn’t help. Football would be the bigger of the two and the young lads would be playing at a few different levels in the two codes. They would be pulled apart, basically."
Club chairman Jim Buckley takes up the progression story from there.
"You need to be hurling three nights a week minimum and when the footballers went out early this year that definitely helped the hurlers."
Football has always been the main shareholder. While Tullamore can boast a haul of nine senior hurling titles, the football portfolio is just one shy of being triple that. The last was won only two seasons ago.
Success has always been harder to come by for the hurlers. Even in 1915, six years after their first hurling title, several players on the senior team had to use sticks in one game in Clara due to a shortage of hurleys.
If there was a time when the two codes dovetailed it was the 1950s when titles were routinely shared among them but hurling entered a period of decline in the late ‘60s and football followed a decade later.
"Tullamore had traditionally always done well in hurling and football," says Buckley. "Back in the 50s they were winning county titles in both codes but then, after ‘64, the hurling just went back, back, back. It faded away and then the football started to do the same. They won county titles in ‘73 and ‘77 and then there was nothing in either code for a while for whatever reason. The low point for the hurling was in the mid-80s when we didn’t have any adult team for two years. It was around then when Andy Gallagher made the effort to revive it."
Gallagher’s profile must have helped. A player with the county in the 1960s, he had trained the All-Ireland winning Offaly side in 1981 but he wasn’t alone in keeping the flag flying during the leanest years. When the club was awarded a civic reception in recognition of their county hurling success, Buckley paid tribute to a select number of families who had kept the home fires burning.
People like the Martins, the Fox clan and the Gallaghers themselves. The number of families in total doesn’t stretch to double figures but were things really that precarious twenty-and-a-bit years ago?
"It was near enough," Buckley says. "There were always a few families interested but we are in the poor side of the county in hurling terms. This is the first time since 1964 that the hurling title has come within 15 miles of the Tipp border. It’s a small county as it is but only a third of it is hurling and it’s actually amazing to think that Offaly were winning those All-Irelands with such a small playing base. Hurling is more or less in a 15-mile radius around Birr."
Martin can remember training with the adults as a 15-year and one of his current selectors Christy Geoghegan was togging out beside him. Christy was into his 40s then but that’s what it took to keep their heads above water.
How fitting that Tullamore should find themselves back on top and still leaning heavily on the older brigade. Goalkeeper Damian Fox is 48 and Martin himself is 36.
One or two more aside though and this is a youthful Tullamore side. That U12 side from 2004 are minors now and six of them will be sitting on the bench in O’Connor Park tomorrow.
In Martin, they have a player/manager well versed in the art of defeating Kilkenny teams and the two-time All-Ireland winner and All Star is hopeful this is just the start of Tullamore’s journey.
"This game won’t phase me anyway," he laughs. "I’ve marked the DJs and the Henry Shefflins, so I’m well used to that, but I just hope that the young lads take a lot out of this game, whatever the result.
"The future looks bright for the club anyway."
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