Club finals set to take centre stage

By Brian Murphy

In the brilliant documentary Man on Wire, the legendary high-wire artist Philippe Petit spoke about his desire to one day fulfill his dream of walking on a wire between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre, the tallest building in the world at the time.

"Usually when you have a dream, the object of your dream is tangible," Petit said. "It's there. It's quixotic, but it's there, nagging you, haunting you. But the object of my dream doesn't exist yet."

In August 1974, after construction on the iconic building was completed a year earlier, Petit realised his dream when he walked, danced and even lay down on a wire he rigged between the two buildings a quarter of a mile above Manhattan in New York City.

Given the motley cast of characters who have gone before them, it might not be safe to assume that none of the 70-odd players who will make it on to the Croke Park pitch in the AIB All-Ireland Junior and Intermediate Club finals this weekend have ever had ambitions as lofty as Petit's. Most, though, probably held boyhood ambitions of one day playing at Croke Park - 'Mecca' for any young lad who has ever picked up a hurl or kicked an O'Neill's.

Until 10 years ago, for 99 per cent of the playing population the idea of one day representing their club at the GAA's Headquarters was about as fanciful and audacious a notion as traversing one of Petit's flimsy wires. Unlike Petit, the object of their dreams did exist. Croke Park was there, as always, but it was the preserve of the elite inter-county players, an unattainable goal and an unreachable place for most mortals.

It was back in 2002 that the barriers first started crumbling. It was then that the senior club finals were brought back to Croke Park after a lengthy break and an unofficial version of the All-Ireland Junior Club Championship was first staged, when Ulster champions Drumgoon (Cavan) beat Connacht representatives Belmullet (Mayo).

Former GAA President Seán Kelly will always be associated with the opening up of Croke Park to other sports - Rule 42 and all that - but one of his enduring legacies will surely be the formal recognition of the AIB Club Championships in the junior and intermediate grades in hurling and football and the subsequent decision, in 2006, to stage all six club finals in Croke Park. It meant that, finally, pretty much every adult GAA player in the country - and more recently beyond - could at least aspire to playing at the great citadel of Gaelic Games on Jones' Road.

(Pic: 12 February 2006; Dick O'Neill, Fr. O'Neills, celebrates with supporters at the end of the game. All-Ireland Club Junior Hurling Championship Final, Erin's Own v Fr. O'Neills, Croke Park, Dublin.)

At junior and intermediate level, clubs from seven different counties have won hurling titles since 2005 and the champions of nine counties have won football crowns going back to 2002, that healthy sense of balance of course helped by the hierarchical structure of the club system, precluding the winners from defending their title and encouraging an entirely organic democracy.

This weekend, clubs from the four corners of Ireland will have their day in the sun - from Kickhams Creggan (Antrim) to Two Mile House (Kildare) and from Ballysaggart (Waterford) to Kiltane (Mayo). All eight clubs are first-time finalists, while Ballysaggart and Two Mile House can bring an All-Ireland club title of any description back to their county for the first time.

In the junior hurling final on Saturday night, Ballysaggart, a tiny parish in the hills just outside Lismore with a population of around 250, will face Kickhams Creggan, another rural club with a tiny population base in Co. Antrim. Remarkably, the goalkeepers at either end of the field will have a combined age of 87 - Ballysaggart's Matty Meagher (40) and former Antrim goalkeeper Brendan Prenter (47), who will mind the nets for Creggan. Incidentally, the winning goalkeeper last year, Thomastown's Darragh McGarry (below), was 17 at the time. It takes all sorts to win a club title.

(Pic: 10 February 2013; Thomastown goalkeeper Darragh McGarry lifts the cup. AIB GAA Hurling All-Ireland Junior Club Championship Final, Fullen Gaels v Thomastown, Croke Park, Dublin.)

Fuerty (pronounced Few-erty) GAA club on the outskirts of Roscommon town, who face Two Mile House of Kildare in the junior football final on Sunday, are one of the eight clubs on show this weekend, and their story is strikingly similar to those they will share the stage with.

"It's a rural village where you have the pub, the shop, the church and the school. It's a small little rural area," says clubman Pádraic Cuddy.

"We've had one of our greatest supporters, Mickey Connolly, back from London for every game since the county final and we have five, if not six, travelling from San Francisco on Thursday and Friday, including a brother-in-law of mine and a brother of one of the lads on the team.

"It's a huge family occasion and the excitement is just mind-blowing to be honest for a small area like here."

For Niall Browne, one of Two Mile House's most experienced players, the experience will be particularly special.

"To run out with all the lads I grew up with is incredible. Some of the lads I am playing with, I sat at the same table as them in baby infants, and to have the opportunity to come out in Croke Park, all of us, is just brilliant."

But, of course, it's not just the hardy clubmen who get to enjoy the big day out. In 2008, Declan Browne, a two-time All Star who captained Tipperary to Tommy Murphy Cup success in Croke Park in 2005, made it to the junior hurling final with Moyle Rovers and said it was the greatest achievement of his stellar career.

"To go to play in Croke Park with your own club is the ultimate, no doubt about it. That to me is higher than any other achievement, better than everything else I have done in sport." he said, before Rovers were beaten by Conahy Shamrocks in the final.

(Pic: 13 February 2010; Michael Kavanagh, St Lachtain's, in action against Sean McAreavey, St Gall's. AIB GAA Hurling All-Ireland Intermediate Club Championship Final, St Gall's, Antrim v St Lachtain's, Kilkenny, Croke Park, Dublin).

Other greats, too, have graced this stage. Michael Kavanagh won eight senior All-Ireland medals, 13 Leinsters and four All Stars in his inter-county career with Kilkenny. When he won the All-Ireland Intermediate club title with St Lachtain's from Freshford in 2010, it seemed like a fitting way to close out a marvellous career.

"This is a proud moment for everyone involved, and it ranks high in my own career. To win an All-Ireland with your county is a great achievement, but to win an All-Ireland with your club is special," Kavanagh said.

From medalled inter-county stars to grizzled veterans, from future stars to the rank and file plodders of the club game, thanks to the All-Ireland Club Championships every young GAA player can now dream of winning an All-Ireland title at Croke Park. This weekend, a few more of those dreams will come true.

(Pic: 5 February 2014; Ard Stiúrthóir of the GAA Páraic Duffy, and Tom Kinsella, 5th from right, Group Marketing Director, AIB, with players, from left, Darragh O'Donoghue, Kilnadeema/Leitrim, Co. Galway, Kieran Joyce, Rower Inistioge, Kilkenny, Niall Kilroy, Fuerty, Roscommon, Niall Browne, Two Mile House, Kildare, Christopher Murphy, Ballysaggart, Waterford, Stephen Colgan, Creggan Kickhams, Antrim, Mikey Sweeney, Kiltane, Mayo and Daniel McKenna, Truagh, Monaghan.)