Irish Daily Star - Inside Sport
SHINING STARS THAT SHOOK UP GAA
Book is celebrating 50 years of coveted awards
FROM the sublime to the bizarre and ridiculous, there is little doubt that the All Stars shook up the GAA.
It brought glitz and glamour, and more importantly, some badly needed recognition and status to the players at a time when administrators were king, and times were tough.
The stories span half a century. “It was hilarious — we looked like chimpanzees in the zoo, sitting in those feckin’ booths,” cracks Pat Spillane, who holds the record for football All Stars (9).
It was the 1985 All Stars and an idea imported from an American show at the time.
Words cannot do justice to the picture, which is one of the many highlights in a new book to celebrate 50 years of the All Stars, titled All Star Gazing.
It is penned by Eileen and Moira Dunne, two daughters of the late Mick Dunne, one of the founders of the All Star scheme, who served as secretary for 25 years.
Eileen, the current RTE newsreader, followed her father into the world of the national broadcaster.
Founders
The other founders of the
All Stars were great friends of Dunne — John Hickey, Pádraig Puirséal and Paddy Downey.
The book is a serious undertaking and includes interviews with 136 of the 810 All Star recipients to date.
It’s full of anecdotes and colour which brings the famous scheme to life.
Anecdotes like those intercounty footballers in boxes.
Former Dublin star Barney Rock was two booths up from Pat Spillane for that 1985 All Star ceremony and he recounts in the book: “All of a sudden, when your name was called the lights around the box would go on,” he laughs.
“We were wondering what would have happened if the bulbs blew.”
It’s hard to believe this actually happened, but this was no ordinary scheme, the longest running and most high profile in Irish sport.
The promoters and organisers didn’t miss a trick — even back in 1971, when the first All Stars were held.
Posters
Think about the now iconic posters, featuring head shots of the 30 hurling and football
All Stars, plastered across kid’s bedrooms, clubhouses and bars all over the country for half a century now.
When the players turned up for the inaugural banquet at the Intercontinental Hotel in Dublin they were greeted by posters of themselves with a citation of why they had won their All Star.
Invariably there is a story behind it and the book recounts it beautifully through the eyes of the players.
Look closely at the ‘71 poster and many of the first All Stars are wearing club or provincial gear. Some are wearing ordinary clothes.
It was an era of very little when County Boards guarded their jerseys with jealousy, and very few players owned one.
The book also recounts how ‘Babs’ Keating, on hearing a photographer was calling to take his picture for the poster, had a crown repaired on a tooth that very morning.
Galway’s John Connolly had sustained a facial injury in an inter-factory match the previous weekend.
“I was horrified as my face was black and blue from the match,” he said.
“So, I ended up turning sideways for the photo so that the bruising wasn’t visible. If you look at the poster, you will see me doing my best impersonation of Pádraig Pearse — the iconic sideways pose!”
Trophies
On the night of the ‘71 awards, the Taoiseach and six-time
Cork All-Ireland winner, Jack Lynch presented the trophies.
Every base was covered, with the players getting free gear for the All Star trip. Many didn’t bring boots and it is visible in the promotional picture that some of them are in their socks. It was a very different time. Kilkenny legend Eddie Keher remembers,“This was huge because we never got anything in those days.”
Frank Cummins added: “You’d nearly be shot for trying to keep a Kilkenny jersey back then.”
Mayo’s Johnny Carey said, “Getting the All-Star gear — it was the first time I got anything free from the GAA.”
Perhaps this was the first incarnation of the Gaelic Players Association (GPA). Seeds were certainly scattered and sown.
The book details how for many years three players competed for one position.
They were often seated together at the banquet, which led to some awkward instances.
Rivals
Tipperary’s Brendan Cummins recalls the 1997 All Star dinner: “I was sitting with Davy Fitzgerald and Damien Fitzhenry, my two goalkeeping rivals who had also been nominated.
“It was my first year, so I wasn’t expecting to win but when Damien was announced there was a bit of tension between the two lads.
“I remember looking at these two hurling legends thinking, ‘Wow, this All Star award really means a lot to these guys.’“
The book doesn’t shirk the controversies, or criticisms of the scheme, either.
For the inaugural All Star tour to San Francisco, Offaly footballers were unhappy at their entire expenses allowance of $60 — on recent trips players have received in the region of €100 per day — and a tense standoff ensued, before they agreed to travel.
Several players recall one particular aspect of the flight over: “Cigarettes were thrown everywhere,” says Donie O’Sullivan.
Carrolls were the All Stars sponsor at the time. There was also Tullamore Dew whiskey going around aplenty too.
The All-Ireland champions of 1971 were Tipperary and Offaly and they played the All Star
teams in exhibition games on the first tour.
Reality was intertwined with fantasy as Down legend Sean O’Neill almost missed the tour.
O’Neill was injured in a car bomb explosion in Belfast and knocked unconscious, just three days before departure, but he defied medical advice to travel.
In 1974, the tour expanded and took in San Francisco and Los Angeles, with New York added as a third destination in 1975.
In 1978 Boston was added as a fourth stopover.
Pre-Covid this may have been labelled ‘going travelling’, the party got around so much and were away for so long.
The first trip outside the USA went to Toronto, Canada in 1990.
Since then the tour has gone to destinations including Singapore, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai and Abu Dhabi.
For five years the Gaelic Players Association (GPA) held their own rival All Star awards.
But, part of the negotiations for official recognition by the GAA saw the two schemes merge in 2011.
Kerry’s Paul Galvin won the 1000th All Star (2009), while Waterford’s Stephen Bennett was the 1,500th player honoured (2020).
Scheme
The scheme has had seven sponsors: PwC, (2017-21), Opel (2011-16), Vodafone (2001-10), Eircell (1997-2000), Powerscreen (1995-96), Bank of Ireland (19791994) and PJ Carrolls (1971-78).
Carrolls were the first major sponsor the GAA at central level engaged with and the maiden All Stars was the Association’s first ever black-tie event.
Seán Ó Síocháin — the GAA Director General at the time — congratulated organisers, writing that the scheme had “added fresh lustre to the games”.
That same year, 1971, the McNamee Commission recommended“cautious engagement” with sponsors, while there was some resistance to rewarding the individual over the team, and regarding the amateur ethos of the Association.
Also in 1971,
‘the Ban,’ which prevented GAA members from attending or playing other sports, was removed from the rulebook at the Association’s annual congress (in Belfast).
It was a momentous year for the GAA and the All Stars was a fundamental part of that.
It would go from strength to strength thereafter.
Derry’s Anthony Tohill got his first All Star with a wry warning from a fellow big man: “Once you have it that’s what you are — you are an All Star,” he says. “My midfield partner Brian McGilligan, an All Star himself, said to me, ‘You are a marked man now, Tohill.’ “I thought it was a really good way of saying it.
“The journalists had marked me as a sufficient standard to be an All Star. Opposition teams now started paying more attention to me in games.
“For my own teammates, and our own supporters, I was a marked man because every time I went out to play, they expected me to perform like an All Star.”
Thoughts
An old letter written by Mick Dunne, and published in the book, reveals some of his innermost thoughts on the All Stars.
“This is our way of saying ‘thanks,’ and we only regret that the awards have to be confined to 30 players,” he wrote.
“It is also fair I suppose that journalists who spend some of their time criticising the decisions of county and provincial selectors should ‘get some of their own medicine back.’”
‘It was hilarious — we looked like chimpanzees in the zoo, sitting in those feckin’ booths...’