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As sure as night follows day, the presentation of cutlery comes after the conclusion of a final.
It’s a time-honored GAA tradition, but what happens when there’s no cup to hand out?
It doesn’t seem understandable that such a situation could arise in Croke Park with the GAA’s eyes focused squarely on the Leinster launch on the final day, but that is exactly the scenario that unfolded in 1964.
Laois captain Billy Phelan and his teammates were in tip-top shape as they enjoyed their four-point loss to the mighty Kilkenny, 4-9 to 3-8, and waited to get their hands on the Walter Hanrahan Cup.
The winner goes to the loot, but not this time. There are different theories as to why the trophy, which Wexford won the previous year, was not present, with some saying it was being replaced at the time.
Others believe that model men had little interest in bringing him back with Kilkenny who was expected to jump one more time, but all that matters is that Laois’ fourth minor success at Leinster, and his last to date, resulted in no performances for the winning pattern.
With Abbeyleix as captain, having earned minor club honors the year before, it should have been a special day for Phelan. Instead, they were quickly pushed off the court as the great Eddie Keher and Kilkenny prepared to battle Dublin in the decisive final.
Phelan, who lined up on the mid-back line and moved between wing and center, had led Laois through a bear pit with victories over Carlow, Offaly, Dublin and Kilkenny, but there would be no sunny days. for the O —Moore Men that July afternoon at GAA headquarters.
“We were waiting for something to happen and someone said, ‘You guys can go in and out, guys, there’s no cup,’” recalls Phelan 56 years later from his home in Abbeyleix. “I made a little speech and everyone, but we went in, we didn’t care at the time.
“We had the final won and we were happy with ourselves. When you are young, you don’t care. I’ve coached young guys since then and whether we won or lost, all they said was, ‘When are we going to play again?’ That’s all they care about and we were the same.
“We were waiting for the next game and that was very new for us. We don’t pay much attention to it. It would have been nice to give a speech in Croke Park in the Laois colors with all the kids there, but it didn’t happen. “
That’s just one of the many tales Phelan remembers of an extraordinary season in which he also learned of his selection for Laois’s junior footballers a few days later, when a co-worker informed him that he was “going to be roasted” by the next great Tony from Offaly. McTague.
Phelan wasn’t even on the soccer panel before his selection for Leinster’s decisive game against the Faithful when Laois “kicked” in a one-point loss to a star-studded team with future icons such as Martin Furlong, Willie Bryan, Eugene. Mulligan and McTague.
“Our only regret is that we didn’t beat them both,” Phelan says, but at least the attention in the county could still be on the small ball, where a glorious opportunity to appear on the best day of the game had presented itself. .
They left for St Brendan’s Park in Birr on August 16 to face the champions of Connacht (Galway was playing in Munster at the time), but woke up a bit upon arrival.
“We went to Birr to play Roscommon and who appeared only May. They tell me later that the Connacht final was only played the night of the previous Tuesday, between Roscommon and Mayo, and Mayo won it. They haven’t won one since, ”he says before detailing another amazing story.
“I was playing winger and this guy jumped on me and said ‘Howya Billy.’ All I could think about was where he was after getting my name. He says, ‘Don’t you know me? You sure know me. I sat next to you at school. ‘ Pierce Ryan was his name, his father was the stationmaster at Abbeyleix and when the station closed, the Ryans moved to Mayo, ”he added.
Laois had no trouble ditching May to set an all-Ireland final date with the traditional Cork aristocrats, and in a notable turn of events, the Rebels also had no cup presentation after their final victory at Munster, as “Tipp forgot the glass “, as it is remembered. by Captain Kevin Cummins, brother of the legendary Ray, earlier this year.
That Cork team hosted several future stars with Con Roche, Donal Clifford and Charlie McCarthy adding Celtic Crosses as they graduated from the senior ranks. They blew on Laois, and Phelan insisted they were like “lambs to the slaughter.”
In what was the first televised minor decider – “some Laois guys tried to watch it afterwards, while others didn’t want to see anything” – Cork shot 10 goals, with Laois’s preparations leaving much to be desired.
“We didn’t have any group training until the Leinster final, we didn’t even get together once. Even in the all-Ireland final, they let us go like lambs to the slaughterhouse. Someone should have known better and they took us out badly, ”he painfully recalls.
“For the all-Ireland final we were told to ‘bring a white coat, a pair of blue and white socks and two hurls’ as Cork crossed the field dancing in his red and white tracksuits.
“We didn’t have the ball going out onto the field. We would have to go back and try to get one. It was shocking. Going back and talking to the guys about it years later, you realize how bad it was and how bad they treated us. “
They left for Dublin on the day of the final via various taxi services across the county. However, someone, in their wisdom, thought it appropriate that they could return home the next day by bus, despite not traveling together to the capital by that means.
The limits that Phelan, who had started working as a psychiatric nurse at St Fintan Hospital in Portlaoise that summer and would remain there for the rest of her working life, had to make to make sure she wasn’t at work by the end are also a hard knock. reminder of that time.
“On the Friday before the All-Ireland final, I still had no one to work on my Sunday to play for All-Ireland. I spent more energy trying to get people to trade and change. I would have lost my job, but I had no doubt that I was going to go anyway, ”he says. “I had my mind made up, if I couldn’t get down, I would go anyway.
“A guy approached me and told me that he would change for the following Sunday, I probably had a game that day too, but I took his hand away. I put more energy into having free time to play games. “
Phelan, a keen GAA historian, took comfort when he was given a low-key presentation of the Hanrahan Cup at the County Laois convention in January after his Leinster triumph, but there was little fanfare and “no pictures were taken at the night as I put it under my arm and went with him ”.
The nature of his job was “a disaster for an athlete” with regular shifts on Saturdays and Sundays, but Phelan would play some senior hurling for Laois in the early 1970s, while his club career reached the mid-50s. with Abbeyleix and watched him line up in primrose and blue alongside his sons Liam and Cathal.
The 74-year-old looks fit and is involved in a variety of capacities with the Abbeyleix club. But he still thinks of that trophy-free day 56 years ago and wishes that history could one day be rewritten.
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