Some of the greats!

Dear Editor,

All sportspeople dream - to excel - to emulate their heroes or to quote a line or two from the musical ‘Man Of La Mancha’, they dare “To dream the impossible dream / To fight the unbeatable foe”. Reflecting on the great Cork camogie All-Ireland win of 2017 when the Rebelettes took the honours in the last minute against Kilkenny girls (0-10 to 0-09), I invite you to share in what can only be a dream for me - to put together my fifteen favourite local camogie players down through the years and to be their manager. Then say we met St Finbarrs in an exhibition game in Ballynoe (or wherever), this would be my selection, my dream team - St Catherines selection uness otherwise stated: Yvonne O’Neill (goalie), Ann Marie Ronan, Kay O’Rahilly (Fermoy), Grainne McCarthy (Castlelyons), Laura Hayes, Rachel O’Callaghan, Kaye Fleming (Fermoy), Josie Twomey, Orla Cotter, Finola Neville, Aoife Hurley, Jennifer Barry (Bride Rovers), Linda O’Donnell, Mairead Rohan and Orla Neville. Reserves: Catherine McAuliffe (Castlelyons). An enthralling game would be to pit them against a 15 from The Barrs and while the city side would most likely win, by the time the final whistle would have blown, they would certainly know they were in a game.

Further to the above, I notice that Aoife Hurley is a shining light for Bride Rovers senior ladies football team and is acknowledged as being a great addition to the club. I would dearly hope that Bride Rovers’ star Jennifer Barry, would throw her lot in with the Catherines’ greats and augment them to capture a county some day in the not too distant future. Jennifer is sheer utter class as a camogie player.

Staying with camogie for a second, I remember travelling with my uncle to a Munster hockey trial to support centre-half player Sally (McAuliffe) Mullins in what turned out to be a hum-drum affair.

Can I put on paper another dream team - lads that I would put on a pedestal: Jackie Howard (Pike Boreen), Danny Flood (St Bernards), Peter Kenny (St Mary’s Tce), Jerry O’Mahony (St Bernard’s Place), Bun Harty (Cork Road), Christy Kennedy (St Bernard’s Place), Raymond ‘Bobby’ O’Shea (St Mary’s Tce), Paudie Lynch (Kilworth), Jim Corcoran (Cork Road), Elton Pierce (Kilworth) and ’ the Conna Maradonna’ Liam Kearney. Reserves would be Pat Cody, John McNamara, Jerry Foley, Thomas Cummins (Glanworth) and Tommy Clancy.

ALL GREAT PALS

When I was creeping into my teens, a great pal of mine was Tom Cannon from Devlin Street on the town’s southside. We swopped comics and played hurling on the street. Another was William Clancy with whom I often smoked the odd cigarette. William was just dynamite at both hurling and football. It was all just good clean fun even though I would say that for his age, he was one of the toughest nuts in Munster. There too were ‘ Aish’ Crotty and ‘Aish’ Murphy - the former a super athlete who always won at jumping and sprinting, the latter a nephew of the great MIck ‘ Audie’ Hoare. He was our ‘captain’, always led the way. He walked dogs for his father and was fascinated by the name of one dog - ‘Miles From Dublin’ - an Araglin greyhound.

Can I take this opportunity to give a mention to a few people who generally don’t get a look in on this column: James Quinlan (Araglin), Dan Fenton (Kilworth), Paddy Moakley (Downing), John Arnold (Bartlemy), Mike Mangan (Conna), Billy Neville (Agri Sales, Ballynoe), Pat O’Brien (St Mary’s), Cyril Maguire (St Bernard’s), Franny Woods (Rathbarry) and David McAuliffe (Ballytrasna).

God be with the old folk,

Yester-me, Yester-you, Yester-day! Yours sincerely, Tom McAuliffe, Cluain Dara,

Fermoy.