High praise for Minor hurling boss
DUNLAVIN’S Jimmy Birchall was paid a fine tribute in the Wicklow and Bray People newspapers this week in 2000 by the late Peter Keogh.
Peter tells the story of travelling to Enniscorthy with Jimmy and he describes the long hours and dedication required to manage a county Minor hurling team.
‘Standing all alone, knee deep in the debris of broken dreams is Wicklow Minor hurling manager Jimmy Birchall from Dunlavin. His is now the only team that can salvage anything from the wreckage of the year 2000,’ writes Peter.
‘Jimmy is not one of the high-profile managers sought after by the press, interviewed on radio or TV, and quoted at length in the papers.
‘But he is one of the hardest workers in the game; a slogger if ever there was one.
‘He doesn’t mind clocking up the miles, knocking on the doors and beating the bushes when there is a team to be got out. He holds down on of the most thankless jobs in the county.
‘When he sets out to assemble a panel, he gets a lot of promises. When training night comes around, the promises turn to excuses. In Wicklow, hurling takes second place to football.
‘He first has to take second place to the vocational schools team, then the county Minor footballers. Next it is exams and then club commitments.
‘But Jimmy and his selectors soldier on with little help or encouragement. The ordinary follower who turns up on match day has little or no idea of the work that has gone on behind the scenes.
‘Recently I made a bad blunder of accompanying Jimmy to Bellefield in Enniscorthy where he had a practice match arranged against the Rapparees.
‘Nothing to it I thought – an hour’s drive down the main road and back in time to watch the Late Late Show – foolish me.
‘Jimmy is driving the bus himself. He had left Dunlavin at 5pm and almost three hours later we arrive in Bellefield.
‘That was nothing compared to the journey home. Boys could not be let off at the crossroads but had to be delivered home.
‘We had stops in Carnew, Aughrim, Arklow, Wicklow Glenealy, Avondale and Stratford before Jimmy arrived back in Dunlavin in the small hours of the next morning.
‘The Jimmy Birchalls of this world are worth minding.’