By Kevin Herron
Ahead of the 50th anniversary of St. Mary’s CBGS historic Hogan and O’Keefe Cup double I caught up with midfielder John McKiernan. A senior Championship winner with St Teresa’s and Lámh Dhearg, he was happy to share great memories of the historic achievement 50-years on and referenced some the key members that were crucial to the success.
Rule 27 and the issue of burn-out
“It does seem like 50-years. There’s a lot of water under the bridge and a lot of things have happened in the country – bad things and rule 27 etc and the troubles there have been in the last 30-40 years. It is 50-years since the cancellation of rule 27 where Gaelic football and hurlers were not allowed to play soccer or any foreign games”.
“It was a big issue but actually a blessing for me because when I was 18/19 burn-out was a big problem for me personally. I’m not talking about for the rest of the players and the rest of the team- I’m talking about me personally”.
“Burn-out is a well-recognised thing now- which is 50-years later, but back in 1970 burn-out wasn’t even talked about. It was a big problem for me, I was playing hurling and football for the minor team, junior team, the senior team at St Teresa’s. I was also picked out the minor team at Antrim and the junior team in football and hurling and I was completely wrecked and playing too many games”.
“I was also asked to play for a soccer team by the name of Rapid-Meadow – it was one of those industrial leagues that went on at the time. Luckily, I said I can’t play because of rule 27 I wasn’t allowed to play soccer. It was a blessing for me, I must have been the only man in the north that thought that Rule 27 was a blessing because I didn’t fancy standing in at centre-half and heading that big soccer ball and wrecking my brains- plus the fact that I was playing far too much anyway. Rule 27 for me was a blessing in disguise- not to other people”.
Two best teams in Ireland?
“Phil Stewart who was manager of St Malachy’s reckoned the two best teams in Ireland were playing in St Malachy’s and St. Mary’s. The politically correct thing would be to say yes, he was right, but I don’t believe that in a thousand years. They were not the two best teams in Ireland”.
“The two best teams in Ireland were St. Mary’s and Maghera. We beat Maghera in the previous round, and they stretched us to within two-points and we were very, very lucky to beat them. Micky Moran was playing in that team as far as I remember, and he was a great footballer. He played minor football for Derry the same year against me at Casement Park. Although I got the better of him in the Maghera match, the tables rapidly turned when we played them in the Minor Championship in Casement Park. Maghera to me were the best team in that whole system and by the far the hardest team that we had played in the Championship that year”.
“Brother McGreevy was my form teacher – he was a big guy and must have been 6 ft 6- I wouldn’t have liked to be marking him. He was over the hurling team and we got to the All-Ireland final a week later. I was one of the dual players and centre-half back on that team. The second-half was a complete walkover and Birr hardly attacked our backs at all in the second-half”.
Brilliance of Paul Growcott:
“We had a guy called Paul Growcott and he played for St Teresa’s there was a reunion after the 40th anniversary and I got up and said if Paul Growcott had have played any other sport he would be a millionaire now because he was a genius. When I was at the CBS, he played football and hurling, he played badminton, basketball for Ulster. He was a brilliant, brilliant player and he scored 11 points in the All-Ireland final against Birr- he was brilliant. I said it at the meeting, and everybody laughed, he said to me- John you’re going a bit far there. I said no I’m not – anybody that scores 11 points in an All-Ireland final, I don’t care whether it is minor, or senior is a good player to me”.
“We had great skilled players in that hurling team but after that I didn’t see much of Paul Growcott after that, we played obviously on the club team together. He didn’t feature a lot in the county scene after that- he played in the All-Ireland final in U-21 in 1974 but after that he didn’t play for the seniors- which I found amazing. Against Mayo in the first match Growcott scored the point that got us a draw, we drew with them and then they beat us by two-points in a replay”.
“There were lots of good hurlers in that team Ciaran Donnelly went onto become a parish priest in Canada from what I gather. He was the captain of the team, he was class hurler as well and very, very good. We didn’t have very much to do in the second-half because those guys played them off the field”.
“I find it slightly amazing that we haven’t won it again since. I don’t know if we have contested a Hogan Cup final since. The following year St Pat’s Cavan went out and won the Hogan Cup, but St. Mary’s were the only team to beat them that year. It’s amazing that they beat the Hogan Cup champions in the MacRory Cup but didn’t go onto win the Hogan Cup themselves”.
Contact with other members of the team:
“I haven’t been in contact with many people, probably since the 40th anniversary reunion. I keep in contact with many of my county colleagues such as John P O’Kane. John P O’Kane and myself went out to America and played in New York, he stayed out there for 10 years and I keep in contact with him quite a lot. Paul (my brother) I keep in contact with him. I would see a lot of Gerry McCann and Andy McCallin and the county players I would have played with, but I haven’t seen many of the St. Mary’s players at all”.
“I’m looking forward to Sunday and seeing different faces on Zoom. The one player I would like to see is Frankie Toman- as well as obviously the rest of the boys. Conor Smith is another one also because he wasn’t at the 40th reunion. No-one seems to know where he lives which is unfortunate. I heard once he was living in Donegal but I’m not sure”.
“I watched Frank Toman playing against Dublin in 77 for Armagh and they brought him on 20-minutes into the second-half and it was the biggest mistake they ever made because he was class. You could see the class in the guy when he came on and obviously Armagh lost that All-Ireland final. Frank Toman was a great, great footballer. All I think about is the size of his legs. When I look at his legs the next thing, I looked at was the ball bulging in the net because he was the guy to score goals- he was unbelievable”.
“Frank, Paul Haughey and Kevin O’Loan our goalkeeper and John O’Loan would have got the train from Armagh. They often said it was harder to get from the train station to St. Mary’s than it was to get from Armagh to Belfast- which was a bit of a contradiction. Brother Nolan trained us very hard, and he was very good at tactics. The following year my brother Paul- he was a year younger than me- and when he played St. Pat’s who won the Hogan Cup the following year; there was a big fella O’Keeffe in the middle of the field, and he went on to play for Cavan for 19-years or so. Brother Nolan would have kept the ball on the ground so that all these big players would be completely nullified, and they beat them and were the only team to be beat them in the MacRory Cup and they went onto win the Hogan Cup. He was very good at the tactics and very, very good at training and the brothers would have done anything for the team”.
Influence of the Christian Brothers:
“Brother McGreevy was another good man and was well known for a tune after the match. For example, coming home on the bus he would give us a rendition of ‘The West’s awake’. Very, very good and he was a good singer too. It was great craic, and he was my form teacher. I enjoyed St. Mary’s – although I was only there for two years. I was at the CBS and we had the likes of Sean McGoldrick, Gerry Fitzpatrick, and good players like Growcott and Canince Ward. Canine Ward, Ciaran Donnelly and Paul Growcott and my brother Paul were all CBS men and would have been taught by Brother Nannery. Brother Nannery was a great Gaelic man, a great man, and a great man for hurling too. He would have taught you to playground hurling like Justin McCarthy. He would have kept you on the pitch on the Glen Road for hours after school and it would be all ground hurling. Very rarely would you get the ball in the air- it was all ground hurling in those days. He was a great man for hurling and football Brother Nannery. The three men that I could really say contributed the most where Brother Nolan, Brother McGreevy, and Brother Nannery. Brother Nannery indirectly because he taught us for so long at CBS and of course in later years Brother Ennis came in and took over a lot of the work at St. Mary’s and the Glen Road as well. Then he took over St Teresa’s when we won the Championship in 79 but he was a big loss to the county after that when he moved down to Tyrone”.
Playing alongside younger brother Paul:
“It was 13-a side in those days and a lot of people don’t appreciate that. 13-a side and we were kids of 18 playing in Croke Park which is the biggest park in Ireland. Everybody had to be fit and the beauty of Paul was that he had a great pair of hands, he was great in the air catching the high ball. The thing that most people didn’t appreciate was that he could place the ball 50-yards into my hands, and It would be four seconds to get the ball to the middle of the field. He generally drop kicked it out- you never see anyone drop kick it now-a-days, it’s not done because they don’t have the skill to do it. He could drop kick a ball 50-yards and drop it into my arms and I found it easy in the middle of the field then to get the ball because he was good at placing the ball. He was very, very effective as a full-back”.
“He went out to Wales and got a job and did a HND in computing and came back and got a job in Dundalk as a video games manufacturer. Then he ended up living down there because it was impossible to travel up and down during the troubles in those days. He ended up playing for Louth. He would have played with John P O’Kane – he went down shortly afterwards, and they played for the same club- Kirkerley Emmets and they won a Championship with them as well”.
“The next thing I know they were playing in the States together. Paul won two senior Championship medals in the States. One with a club called Cavan and the other with a club called Sligo. He was captain of the Sligo team and was about 36 years of age at the time when he won that Championship. He actually has more Championship medals as I have. I’ve got a Championship medal with Lámh Dhearg and one with St Teresa’s, he’s got one with Kilkerly Emmets, St Teresa’s, Cavan, and a New York medal with Sligo as well. He’s got four Championship medals and I’ve only got two. I don’t know why everybody makes a fuss of me. He was a grand footballer, and I was surrounded by grand footballers”.
“Frank Toman and Paul Growcott were great footballers- Growcott could throw a defence just by the way he looked. He’d look one way and throw it another way because he was a basketball player- he could throw a whole defence off. In the All-Ireland U-21 final of 1974 against Mayo – Growcott went round three men and put the ball over the bar for the last kick of the game to get us that draw. That’s how good he was, and it was only him that could do that. If one guy had a bad day, then there was always somebody to step-in and that was the beauty about it. Sandsy [Sean Sands], if I had a bad day in the middle of the field then he would come in. He played for Down and then went up to Derry and played a lot hurling for them. I think he managed the Derry team at one stage. He was a grand footballer too and if somebody had a bad day or an off-day then there was always somebody to walk into their place and excel- that was the beauty of the team”.
“There was so many talented players all over the pitch I found. It will be hard to get players like that again- obviously it has been hard for St. Mary’s to get players like that and indeed it has been hard for St. Malachy’s to get players like that because St. Malachy’s haven’t contested too many MacRory Cups or Hogan Cups since then. Their manager was a great man and was one of the all-time greats for Derry along with Jim McKeever in the middle of the field in 1958. They stared and lost against Kerry in the All-Ireland final and played for Derry for a long time in the middle of the field. He was a great manager for St. Malachy’s as well as Antrim along with Brother Ennis. We won a McKenna Cup with them and whatever happened then Brother Ennis moved down to Omagh- which was a great loss to Antrim. It’s hard to get men like that now-a-days, I think Brother Ennis would have taught all day in the school and two or three hours at night training teams and the same with Brother Nannery. Where would you get boys like that now-a-days. Every night of the week they would have Year 8s out one night and the second and third years out right up to senior. There’s not many people would do it”.