Gallagher was a genius in front of the football posts

THE REGULAR weekend sight of Charlie Gallagher driving into town in his Sunbeam Rapier sports car was guaranteed to cause a stir in Cootehill, Co. Cavan, during the swinging sixties. The Derry-based dentist was one of the top-scoring footballers in the entire country for the duration of that decade and, most importantly of all, he was one of their own.

The journalist who has penned his biography, Paul Fitzpatrick, describes him as the George Best of the game at the time, because he had the good looks and the talent to make people sit up and take notice wherever he went.

Alas, Gallagher was one of countless sporting stars who found it nigh on impossible to replicate the buzz that came from playing at the highest level after his last game for Cavan in 1969.

This book has arrived exactly half a century after that milestone moment, an All-Ireland semi-final replay loss to Offaly.

And, more poignantly, it marks the 30th anniversary of his death from drowning at a popular spot for swimmers on the outskirts of his native Cootehill.

Gallagher was only 51 years old when he passed away in 1989, but he remains to this day probably the greatest Cavan player to have donned their blue jersey since the last of their five All-Ireland Senior titles was annexed in 1952.

The Cootehill Celtic star came on the scene as a precocious teenager just a few years later, but the county in general was in decline, and they were never to attain those same heights despite his brilliance.

Throughout the sixties, the ‘Sunday Independent’ updated a top scorers list every week, keeping track of the points and goals recorded in championship, league, and even challenge games in both codes.

And although Cavan didn’t contest an All-Ireland final in that period, Gallagher was good enough to top the charts outright in 1964 and 1965.

While Down emerged as the team to beat in Ulster from 1959 onwards, funnily enough the Breffni county were the one side who had their measure regularly in their own province.

Cavan defeated their Mourne rivals in the finals of 1962, ’64, ’67 and ’69, with Gallagher captain in the latter two years, but it haunted them that they were unable to follow up with an All-Ireland semi-final success.

They lost to what was regarded as a very average Roscommon team in ’62, while Kerry beat them comfortably two years later.

Defeat to Cork in ’67 was viewed as the one that got away, while the recriminations from the dismissal by Offaly in ’69 reverberated around Cavan for years afterwards.

Gallagher, near the end of his career but still a constant threat, was controversially taken off and later re-introduced in a drawn game, and a very scoreable free was missed in the time he was sitting on the sideline.

The attacking genius isn’t the first, and probably won’t be the last, sports star to succumb to the demon drink, and that aspect of his life isn’t the main theme of his book.

It’s primarily a detailed picture of his outstanding playing career, although the insights into his life as a resident of Derry during the Troubles are eye-opening, particularly when his wife was victim of a car-jacking.

He eventually made it home to Cootehill, but his time back there was all too brief. Thanks to this book, the career of a Cavan great will be shared with a wider audience.

ALAN AHERNE

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