Mayfield move to centre stage again but, this time, it’s the club’s hurlers
WHEN Dan Lucey heard someone at the front door, the Mayfield junior hurling team captain was half-prepared for another well-wisher in the lead up to the Cork county final.
What he wasn’t prepared for was Roy Keane.
‘I just want to wish you good luck next Sunday,’ he said, casually shooting the breeze before heading on his way. It didn’t take long for word to spread that the hurlers had a home town hero on their side.
‘That’s Roy,’ says Mayfield PRO Shane Creedon.
Mention Mayfield in Cork in a sporting context and Keane’s name dwarfs all others. And he’s stayed connected. His links with Manchester United and Ireland put the working-class suburb on the map and Keane never lost touch with his roots. It won’t have escaped his attention either that the same hurling team from his old haunt will make a historic appearance in a Munster club hurling final at Mallow this afternoon against Ballyduff Lower of Waterford.
‘I know he does a good bit for charities around the area, helps out where he can,’ explains Creedon. ‘An example of that was when Dan Lucey was the captain. I saw it on Facebook. He put up a picture saying, “this fella knocked on the door this morning” and there was a photo of himself and Roy Keane. That speaks volumes about the man. He doesn’t go and make a big tweet about it – he’s low-key which is nice.
‘The name Roy Keane speaks for itself. Everyone in Mayfield loves Roy. And to be fair, he’s a great ambassador for the community and for Cork city in general. He’s great to come back to the community and give a hand when he can.
‘His success and everything he’s done throughout his sporting career speaks for itself.
To be the captain of Manchester United for so many years, winning Premier League titles – it was great to see a man from our area being captain of what was probably the best team in the world at that stage. It’s just marvellous, even for the kids to look up to.’
Keane’s brief flirtation with the ancient game in Mayfield GAA club, however, didn’t go well. Before choosing to play soccer with Rockmount, he went hurling training only for a clash of the ash to send a splinter shooting into the back of his leg. The six-month healing process made up his mind about where his sporting priorities lay.
Amid the skyscraping histories of city teams like Blackrock and Glen Rovers, Mayfield’s achievements have been low-rise by comparison – until Celebrity Bainisteoir came along in 2008.
Underage GAA coach Jamie O’Donovan featured on the football team that brash solicitor Gerald Kean took over and sprinkled a bit of millionaire stardust on.
Jamie recalls the fun-filled path to the final of the TV tournament, which featured Ronan Keating arriving by helicopter for one of the games, a team talk from then Celtic boss Gordon Strachan and overnight stays in the illustrious five-star Castlemartyr resort – complete with spa treatment – ahead of the games themselves.
‘We met Animo, the production company, and they were asking, “Who do you think it will be? Who would you like it to be?” We said we hadn’t heard any names. So they told us there were two possibles: Gerald Kean or Glenda Gilson.
I remember saying, “Tall, hot brunette… or millionaire – I’ve a hot brunette at home so go with the millionaire!”
‘He arrived in a big Bentley. You know how loud he is but he’s articulate as well – that’s what struck me.
He was telling us all his plans, his history – he’s a good man to drop names, who is on his books, that kind of thing. I remember thinking “this fella is full of it!” but if half of what he says comes true we’ll have great craic.’ That they most certainly did. Hosted in their five-star digs before the Crumlin game, which attracted a crowd of 4,000, there was a famous shot of a few of the players strolling through the hotel to training in bathrobe and slippers. O’Donovan was one of them.
‘We trained the night before the match down there, and the morning of it. Were confined to one section of the hotel. So we snuck into the spa...’
Shane says the hurlers recent Munster semi-final brought back plenty of memories.
‘People were cracking jokes saying “When’s the helicopter?” and “When’s Ronan Keating getting here?”. We had three keepers who Gerald Kean flew over to Newcastle to get a few tips from Shay Given.
‘He had Gordon Strachan down, think it was in Mallow. Strachan gave the lads a few pointers – it was so surreal.
‘Gerald Kean himself, no more than Roy Keane, has come back himself a few times.
‘We had a dinner dance a few years ago and he was the guest speaker. We also had a church fund-raiser as well and he came down to that. He still kept up the link. If you google Mayfield now, it’s great to see that the first few things that come up are our club, and the way things are going right now on the field in reaching a Munster final, whereas in other times it might be anti-social behaviour, litter, or something like that.
‘It’s good that we have a good news story. Because we have a great community.
‘Anyone involved in our club will tell you that. We’ve a very strong bond. This is the biggest game our club have ever played. It would further enhance everything that has happened.
The big thing was to win the county but if we could prove we’re the best junior team in Munster, it would be fantastic.’
Nothing surer than it has captured the imagination of the next generation.
Jamie coaches at the club where his two sons Calvin (10) and Eolann (6) are involved. ‘Calvin came home the other day with a project from school on who he admired the most.’ And no, it wasn’t Roy. ‘He did the project on Nicky Kelly, our centre-forward on the hurling team. Sure there’s autographs being signed. ‘A rising tide lifts all boats.’