JBM legacy endures

KILLINAN END

Recently - 22nd of August to be precise - on early morning radio, the presenter was referring to birthdays of well-known people which fell on that day. One of them was the legendary snooker player Steve Davis who had hit the 68 mark. Then the presenter made reference to “an iconic figure in Cork, Jimmy Barry Murphy” whose birthday also fell on that day. The presenter was moved to say that he would decline to mention Jimmy’s age so as not to embarrass him. Quiet why something as unchangeable as the year of his birth, or indeed that of anyone else, should be a cause for embarrassment is unclear. But we will live on the edge here and state boldly that the great St Finbarr’s man turned 71 in August.

His achievements have been well documented – 5 All-Ireland hurling medals and an All-Ireland football medal is an extraordinary haul by any standards, a total matched exactly by another Cork icon Jack Lynch. Indeed, JBM’s All-Ireland football triumph in 1973 was Cork’s first since Jack Lynch played in the county’s 1945 win over Cavan. Like Jack Lynch’s story – where Nicky Rackard was a potential final opponent until Cavan beat Wexford in the semi-final – some of Jimmy Barry Murphy’s most interesting stories are in the background. It’s worth remembering that only recently JBM identified the 1973 Football final win over Galway as his absolute career highlight.

Indeed, while he is a celebrated inter-county dual star – perhaps the ultimate and most successful example of this now extinct species – his early career was more as a footballer. Even in an era when Cork had players to burn, he was called into the Cork Under-21 football panel while still eligible for Minor. However, it was as a Minor hurler he won an All-Ireland medal in 1971 when the Rebel County beat Kilkenny. On that famous Tipp day in Killarney in ’71, JBM played against Ger Loughnane among others in the Munster Minor final. The 1971 Cork Minor footballers came up well short in the final against a Mayo team which included future manager John O’Mahony.

A year later in 1972, it was the opposite story for Cork. Two All-Ireland Minor final appearances once more, but success in the football and defeat in the hurling. In what was definitely a year for Quare Hawks Cork footballers beat Tyrone, a team which included that county’s greatest ever manager Mickey Harte and perhaps its greatest ever player in Frank McGuigan. Precocious talents Barry Murphy and Frank McGuigan would face each other again just eleven months later in the Senior semi-final.

The hurling final, which saw Cork failing to win four successive titles, had plenty of star quality too. Cork’s wing-forward Bertie Óg Murphy enjoyed a relatively modest career around the periphery of Cork’s senior hurlers over the following decade, but there was little modest about the success enjoyed subsequently by their opponents. Kilkenny’s Minors won the county's first All-Ireland title for a decade and included no fewer than three future All-Ireland winning Senior captains, namely Brian Cody, Ger Fennelly, and Billy Fitzpatrick. This Cork team had hammered Limerick in the Munster Final in Thurles on the same day their Seniors did similar to Clare but both teams fell short on Jones’s Road.

For many of those Minors it was the last they saw of Croke Park. For Jimmy Barry Murphy it was all just starting. A low-key debut National Football League debut against Longford at the Cork Athletic Grounds in February 1973 was the foreword to an amazing story. He was still 18 years old when Cork ripped Kerry apart months later in the Munster Final. They hit Tyrone for five goals in the semi-final and in the final beat Galway with a degree of comfort. Jimmy Barry Murphy scored a goal against Kerry, two against Tyrone, and two against Galway. Perhaps in a sign of the times, despite the scoring of fifteen goals in four championship games, it was Cork’s goalkeeper Billy Morgan who was named Footballer of the Year. Hard to imagine looking beyond a forward these days.

It is difficult to do justice to the excitement around this Cork team in those days. Not only was it a first title in almost three decades but was done without any opponent seriously threatening the new champions. These were the heirs apparent to a fine Kerry team, bolstered by a powerful underage record. They seemed set fair to be a dominant presence in the province of Munster, and most likely at national level as well. Offaly had won the All-Irelands of 1971 & ’72 but appeared a spent force in losing a semi-final to Galway. Even a man of JBM’s apparent modesty might reasonably have expected at least a couple of more All-Ireland medals.

But real life doesn't work like that. The domination by Dublin and Kerry of the rest of that decade is now the stuff of legend. Barry Murphy did have one memorable day in the Railway Cup in 1975 when he scored four goals for Munster against Connacht in the final - one last glimpse of the dashing young carefree goal-machine unleashed during the magical Cork summer of ‘73. His legacy is defined primarily by hurling but for many there will always be that image of the languid skinhead in an all-white strip tormenting Galway. Any wonder that it remains his career highlight?