There’s absolutely no point in asking me about the pivotal moments of the 1977 and ’78 Munster Finals. Yes i was there in Semple Stadium for both, but I was aged only seven, then eight. And pretty small for my age at that. My family were in the packed terrace and for the most part all I could see were ****s and elbows. My highlight of the day was not a Clare score but when I was bought a yellow and blue hat made of cardboard and crepe paper. And when the hawkers came around selling red tubs of icecream which you ate with a little wooden stick. Another thing which left a lasting impression was the toilet facility. It was a long ancient grey wall underneath the stand, covered in parabolas of urine. Discarded boxes of Major and cigarette butts were afloat beneath my feet in the puddles and streams. Where women and girls were meant to go, I have no idea. Surely there was a cubicle somewhere but complete abstinence from liquids for the day was probably the wise option. After the match we had a picnic of tea and ham sandwiches from the boot of our car. The drive home was long but I fell asleep before Newport.
In those years I also went to the National League finals V Kilkenny and there were happier outcomes. Though the finer details escaped me, I drew from the experience One Essential Undeniable Truth. No matter how good we were, when the pressure came on, wily old Cork would always find a way to beat us.
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In 1986 the Munster Final was held in Killarney. I went there by train with my sister and a few guys and girls we knew from school. Without our parents! That’s probably why we managed to get lost for a while on our way to the unfamiliar stadium. The match itself only held our full attention until it became clear that the men in Red were going to make it the same old story. Instead we traded banter and mucked about. The train home was over full so we wound up standing in the area between carriages. My pal John was in the toilet and came out holding a full toilet roll. Pulling down the window we proceeded to slowly feed the toilet roll outside. Due to the velocity of the train, it didn’t fall downwards but began to stretch out horizontally. Soon we had it draped along outside the windows of the entire following carriage. Then two carriages! Then two and a half, but not quite three!! We laughed our heads off and were sure that all the passengers on seats were now utterly bamboozled.
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By 1999, I was serious. A serious fan who went to all the games and could name every player at a glance. In the years just previous the Clare team had scaled unimaginable heights. Two All-Irelands, multiple All-stars and awards, three Munster titles. We had a manager and players who had shown that the impossible could actually be possible. I had nothing to do with this success obviously but the effect was to make me (and I think lots of other people in this county) walk a little taller. Not just on a specific September day in ’95 or ’97, but all the time. And all the time since.
Another person who had brought me a lot of joy in that era was my longtime girlfriend. Our relationship was falling apart now however and we spent that summer in a painful, on-again/off-again break-up. Going to hurling matches was a welcome distraction. Our three Munster titles had been won against Limerick, Tipp and Waterford. All that was needed was Cork to complete the set. But that was not to be. What had become deeply apparent to me by now, was that when margins were tight, Cork could always spring some voodoo from nowhere. How about getting our fullback sent off for nothing? No? Well what about an unheralded corner-back popping up to score 4! points from play? No. On this occasion they conjured a match-winning goal that should have been disallowed for two different reasons. I witnessed that 90’s Clare team beat Cork four consecutive times in championship, but not in a Munster Final. Afterwards I went back to my girlfriend, determined this time really was the last time.
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Fourteen years later, I was married with four small children. We went as a family to most of the games from the Waterford Crystal onwards. When it was boring, my minions played on their Nintendos. Then insisted on going to the shop to get Coke. Then needed to go to the toilet, just as Clare were bearing down on goal. Win or lose, the most important thing in their minds was whether we would stop for chips on the way home. So the journey to September 2013 was an odyssey but on the night of the 28th, I’ll admit to having shed a few tears. For WHAT Clare had achieved. For the thrilling HOW they had achieved it. And AGAINST WHOM they had achieved it. They can never, I mumbled, take this away from us.
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Though God knows, they’ve done their level best to do so, beating us over and over since. In 2017, I no longer went to every single Clare game because my kids were all playing various sports themselves. Every evening and weekend was spent going over and back to training sessions, blitzes, matches and shows. I did get to the Munster Final with my eldest son. Clare had a gameplan which probably looked good on paper but did not work very well on green grass. Many blamed a tactical meltdown but in fairness the Cork forwards were just better and our backs a bit worse. I had no complaints except for one Cork fan who sat behind me throughout. Aged about 60, and wearing a sombrero, he spent most of the game roaring abuse at his own players. Yes they were winning, but that was no good when they weren’t playing ‘the Cork way’. He was a believer in the ‘lamp it as far as you can every time’ philosophy. This when his team (which like all of them is constantly evolving) was playing a brilliant brand of heads-up hurling, mixing passes both long and short as the moment demanded. I, for my part, have become quite grumpy in middle age. I can no longer sit in silence while there’s an idiot bellowing in my vicinity. I opened our short dialogue by turning around and asking ‘Sir, is this your first hurling game?’
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And so to 2018 and the prospect of another Clare V Cork Munster Final. The recurrence of the fixture has made me look over the records and realise one important thing. In four out of the five times I’ve seen Cork beat us in July, they went on to win the All-Ireland after. Which is to say that it wasn’t just because of bad luck or that old Blood and Bandage voodoo, those were excellent Cork teams. Their current side too is full of fast, skillful, hurlers that have impressed in their Munster campaign so far.
But are they unbeatable? No.
Could Clare beat them? Definitely. We have excellent hurlers ourselves and a style of play which is finally beginning to click.
OK, but can we beat them in a.. Munster Final? Well.. um… based on my many years of experience…I dunno.
The only thing I can be certain of is that I will be there.