The men from 'The Glen' are on the march again

By John Harrington

If you’re a GAA fan of a certain vintage you’re bound to know who ‘Effin Eddie’ is.

In the days before people could go viral on the internet, Eddie Moroney became a video tape sensation for his commentary on his club Aherlow’s victory over Éire Óg Nenagh in the 1992 Tipperary U-21 Football Final.

If you haven’t seen the tape then his moniker should give you an idea of the ‘colour’ of his commentary.

Suffice to say that Eddie was unimpressed by the referee’s interpretation of the game and made his feelings clear in no uncertain way. At this point a quick google would be very worth your while.

Bootleg copies of the vide swiftly made their way around the world from America to Australia and in the process ‘Effin Eddie’ became a household name.

“He brought us to international fame never mind national fame,” chuckles current Aherlow GAA Chairperson, Paddy O’Shea, who became fairly famous himself for being name-checked regularly as ‘The Bear’ in Moroney’s match commentary.

“In 2001 I was on my honeymoon in Cape Cod. There was a bar there in Cape Cod where a lot of Irish J1 students were working and when we walked in they were playing that video.

“It travelled all over, everywhere and anywhere. It's not as well-known now, but there was a time when everyone would be quoting it to you.

“Back in 1994 the Irish soccer team apparently watched it flying from New York to Orlando when they were at the World Cup because Niall Quinn had a copy of it. It was watched all over the world.”

Eddie Moroney was a renowned local character in Aherlow long before he was an internationally acclaimed one, which is why he was doing a video commentary on that match in the first place.

His natural tendencies were perhaps amplified by his own admission he’d had “some feed of beer” the previous night after the funeral of his father-in-law .

“They went about 10 foot down digging the grave because there were so many fellas there and there were bottles of whiskey and porter,” recalls O’Shea. “We lived next door to the church and my mother was ferrying out plates of sandwiches.

“The day of the burial there was an almighty session and I remember going down to Eddie's that night which was the night before the U21 Final and Eddie was coming down the road and taking the two sides of the road with him and I said there's no way you'll be at the match tomorrow. He assured me he would and that he'd be fine.

“Out of the local pride of the parish, the character and the eloquence of Eddie, with maybe a bit of fuel still in the engine from the night before, he produced something special. if it was nowadays it would have gone viral overnight but been gone within a couple of weeks.

“But it slow-burned and eventually got everywhere. I remember doing interviews for teaching jobs and when the fellas interviewing me realised who I was they couldn't talk about teaching, it was all only about that match and Eddie's commentary and they'd be asking was there any chance I could get them a copy of the video.

“Rumour went out at one stage that Eddie died years ago. Myself and his son Anthony were in a pub once and they were playing the video in the lower part of the pub and the next thing someone recognised who Anthony was and they turned off the video and the barman came up and apologised and offered his sympathy.

“'Sympathy for what?' asked Anthony. 'The passing of your father', said the barman. 'Well he was 'atin bacon and cabbage when I left the house an hour ago and he was grand then', said Anthony!”

If you want further proof that Eddie Moroney is very much alive and well then you can watch Clubber’s broadcast of Aherlow’s AIB Intermediate Club Football Championship Final against Austin Stacks of Kerry on Saturday.

Moroney will provide colour co-commentary, just like he did for their wins in the Tipperary county final, the Munster quarter-final, and the Munster semi-final.

“Jimmy Doye and the boys in Clubber have reinvigorated Eddie's career!,” says O’Shea. “They resurrected him for the county final and he's been going strong since. He was singing the Galtee Mountain Boy after the Munster semi-final win.

“He says he'll do three more games. The Munster Final, the All-Ireland semi-final, and the All-Ireland Final and then he'll renegotiate the contract.

“The latest is he’s organising a championship preview night in the pub on Friday night ahead of the Munster Final.

“He's a great man to improvise craic and there's a great momentum and a great buzz in the parish so there'll be a bit of singing and music and he'll have a few of the old stock from that match. He's promising a big surprise, he says there'll be a special guest.

“There's no posters or tickets, it's all word of mouth. It began on Sunday with the old folks party in Aherlow. He was at that so it probably started at the dinner-table at the old folks party and it's built from there and whatever will happen will happen now on Friday evening.”

You can be sure it’ll be a full-house regardless of what Moroney has planned, and as many will come from neighbouring Lattin-Cullen as they will Aherlow because the two GAA clubs are now essentially one.

In what O’Shea describes as “an Irish solution to an Irish problem”, they have tackled declining numbers in both clubs by pooling their resources and so play together under the banner of Aherlow for football and under the banner of Lattin-Cullen for hurling.

“We're the best of frenemies,” says O’Shea. “In my day we used to kill each other, but now our sons play together and are all the one tribe.

“Any time you have to do something like we did, and it was forced upon us really like it is so many clubs now in rural Ireland, it takes a bit of work and a bit of compromise.

“It's never popular to start out and it's not just as easy as turn up and we'll all sing 'Kumbaya' and play away together.

“People have to be long-sighted and the greater good has to be served. We have lads in the two parishes now who are playing a fine standard of ‘A’ football and making development squads and county squads.

“If the two clubs didn't have the foresight and bravery to come together and make this work, those lads and the heritage of GAA would be seriously compromised, maybe even lost.

“Many rural GAA clubs will go to the wall if they don't come together like we have. There's a great camaraderie there now. All of our younger lads have been playing with Lattin since U-12 and know nothing else other than this arrangement and it has worked.

“Lattin is my club now in hurling and Aherlow is my club in football and it's great.”

Aherlow hardly looked like Tipperary Intermediate champions in waiting when they shipped five goals against Golden/Kilfeacle in a nine-point defeat in the West Tipperary semi-final back in June.

They’ve turned their season around brilliantly since then, beating both Moyne-Templetuohy and Rockwell after extra-time on the way to besting neighbours Galtee Rovers in hard-fought county final.

An ability to dig deep and find a way to win games of fine margins was also evident in their Munster Championship semi-final victory over Wolfe Tones of Shannon.

They’re a very well-organised team from back to front but Barry Grogan is undoubtedly the difference-maker. The former Tipperary star is now 38 years of age but has been shooting the lights out from full-forward all year.

“He's been unbelievable,” says O’Shea. “Barry is an amazing player and a brilliant man to have in a dressing-room. His standards are exacting. He holds himself and everyone else in the team to the highest of standards. He's an amazing leader and an amazing footballer.

“With the last kick of the last training session before last year's county final he injured himself and played on an ankle that day most people wouldn't walk on.

“The scoring he's been doing this year has been off the charts and in the middle of it all his good wife had a baby the day before the county final. So he's on bottle duty as well and he seems to be improving on it!

“The year we were relegated Barry had a penalty against Cahir in the relegation final to draw it. The Cahir goalie made a great save. Barry was absolutely distraught afterwards.

“I never heard him mention it until he was interviewed after the county final this year when he scored a banger of a penalty and he said, 'I owed them that one, I missed one in the relegation final last year'. That will tell you the mentality of the fella. He has so much won and is one of the greatest ever Tipperary forwards, up there with Declan Browne and Conor Sweeney, but he still had it in his head that he owed the club something.

“He's a great leader and an inspiration to everyone. When the young lads of Aherlow are kicking a ball its not David Clifford they're imagining they are anymore. This year David Clifford has been supplanted in Aherlow by Barry Grogan.

“On the Monday after the county final we loaded all the players we could lay our hands on into a bus and brought them to the primary schools. The question we were asked in every school was, 'Where's Barry Grogan?'

“The answer was, 'He's at home minding his baby!' Ah now, he's a serious bit of stuff. As good a footballer that every played in Tipperary.”

No-one is giving Aherlow a chance against Austin Stacks in Saturday’s Munster Final except themselves.

The Kerry club have won more All-Ireland medals than any other in the country but ‘The Glen Boys’ as Eddie Moroney likes to call them have always been the sort to relish a challenge rather than be unnerved by it.

“This is the ultimate David v Goliath but isn't it a great position to be in,” says O’Shea.

“Our lads aren't going down to Mallow on Saturday just to show up. There's a great confidence and exuberance in the team. They know the challenge in front of them is gargantuan, but it's a shot to nothing.

“All you can do is break the game down to chunks of 10 minutes and if you can still see them with 10 minutes to go, who's under pressure then?

“Stacks are an amazing team and have produced some of the greatest footballers of all time, but we'll go down there and we'll have a plan. We'll stick to our plan, we'll be disciplined and we'll know what we're doing.

“And, you know, the wind blew, the rain fell, and the Lord smiled on us.”