Inside Track: Playing against the game’s best was a consolation for no competition wins
Inside Track with Joe Carroll
When you’ve had a career in football that yielded very little in terms of prizes, some consolation can be gained from having played against some of the best in the game.
My game was Gaelic football, played at club and county levels. Aside from winning a county minor championship medal in 1962, little came my way. But there was the honour of wearing the county jersey and giving my best in club football.
County league appearances greatly outnumbered championship games. The going for the former was much tougher than in the summer months, heavy pitches compared with hardened ground that had the ball bouncing high and boots making a noise as they carried you from A to Z.
The league, however, offered the chance of playing against players that wouldn’t be in opposition in what was, for us limited championship football.
Come the winter months, and there could be meetings with the likes of Kerry, Down and Tyrone. I mention those three because they had the greatest players I came up against, one of them in direct opposition, the others playing away from my usual pitch in the full-back line.
Mick O’Connell was in the Kerry side that came to St Brigid’s Park for a 1965 league match. He was in his usual midfield patch where he was opposed by Jimmy Mulroy and Tony Breen, from Mountrush’s Seán McDermott’s. I was a rookie full-back.
It was another of those games that got away from us. There was an abundance of scores, with only two points dividing the sides at the finish.
I had more games under my belt when I came face-to-face with the great Seán O’Neill. At the time, Down were playing some of their home games in Newcastle under the shadow of Slieve Donard.
Newry’s Páirc Esler was another venue, and then there was a National League quarter-final meeting at Croke Park in the early 1970s, a game that will be remembered for Roche Emmets’ Paddy Gallagher’s outstanding game in goals. O’Neill was a tough but fair opponent.
Frankie McGuigan, who passed last week, was on the Tyrone team for the first of the games I played in goals for the county. I had been named among the subs, but when the selected Seán Toal – a former Dundalk Gaels colleague of mine, but at the time playing for O’Rahilly’s – failed to turn up, the hooped jersey was thrown to me.
McGuigan, a prolific scorer, tireless worker, and one of the most elegant midfielders of his day, got among the scorers, but they were all answered, and more. When the game, played in Pomeroy, entered the home straight, we showed a point in front.
No need for heroics or smart moves. Someone should have told me. Taking a kick-out, I chose to place Danny Nugent with a short one. Grand, except Danny didn’t know anything about it.
The ball went to a Tyrone man, and then to another, and after that, all that had to be done was for Joseph to pick the ball out of the net. Tyrone 2-9, Louth 2-7.
Add to O’Connell, O’Neill and McGuigan, Dermot Earley, Tommy Doyle, Noel Curran, Matt Kerrigan, Joe Corcoran, and many of the players who were part of the Dublin team in the great rivalry with Kerry, and you have others I was privileged to have competed with.
The rivalry with Earley and Doyle wasn’t at county level, but in a Leinster Inter-Firms match.
Somehow, their team, an Army XV, were allowed to play in the competition. Their pick gave them a huge advantage over our side, PJ Carroll’s, which was chosen from the ranks of the cigarette makers and Dundalk printers.
The provincial final was played in Dublin’s Islandbridge pitch and resulted in a clear win for the Kildare champions.