HISTORY MADE IN AN EMPTY CROKER
London return to the Championship after a 60-year absence to be squashed by lethal Cats
EDDIE KEHER had more difficult days at Croke Park during his glittering Kilkenny career. As this photograph shows, the legendary forward was able to knock over many of his 11 points at his leisure in a stadium that was almost deserted for an All-Ireland semi-final.
Roughly 5,000 people turned up at headquarters on an August afternoon when the country was more concerned with the outbreak of sectarian violence across the border. But this was an historic occasion. London, who have a place on hurling’s roll of honour having claimed the All-Ireland in 1901, were returning to the senior championship for the first time since 1909.
No more so than now, there was a debate at the time on how to widen the base of competitive hurling counties. The experiment of placing Galway in Munster, which had been going on for a decade at that point, proved to be unsuccessful.
London had claimed back-toback All-Ireland intermediate titles in the previous two years so delegates at Congress voted overwhelmingly to allow them into the senior championship.
Cork, the Munster champions, were given a direct entry into the All-Ireland final. Kilkenny, captained by Keher, were expected to join them, but they had been unconvincing all summer. They had met Offaly in the Leinster final — the first time the Faithful county had reached that stage since 1928 — and struggled past them by a point.
Long-time Kilkenny GAA secretary Paddy Grace was quoted in the newspapers ahead of this historic semi-final, saying that the team were going to silence all the doubters.
‘We must win and win well if we want to challenge Cork,’ Grace told the Irish Press. ‘We also want to silence the many critics who have said that we don’t have a good team this year.’
They were boosted by the return of Tommy Murphy, who was playing for his county team for the first time in three years. The talented forward had been in a seminary, training to be a priest and marked his return by scoring Kilkenny’s first goal in the second minute. Father Murphy ended the day with 3-2 to his name.
Former Kilkenny captain Jim Bennett, playing against many of his-team-mates from the 1966 All-Ireland final, kept the Exiles in the game during the first half with his free-taking.
When Galway native Tom Connolly’s long-range free dropped into the Kilkenny goal a couple of minutes after the restart, it brought the underdogs to within five points of their opponents.
Connolly’s goal shook Kilkenny into a response and Murphy found the net twice in a couple of minutes to kill off the game.
The scoreline would have looked a lot worse but for the heroics of Tipperary’s Willie Brainville in goals, who pulled off a couple of miracle saves to deny Murphy a fourth three-pointer.
All the London GAA officials acknowledged there was a clear gulf in class but claimed there was little their team could do about it as they had only played one challenge game over the course of the summer.