Cork GAA - They're going home! - sponsored by Sports Direct and Super Valu

[ScorpioLyons]

Jesus that’s a mighty tribute Cheasty

[Locke]

Great post Cheasty

[BruidheanChaorthainn]

When you are in this form TFK doesn’t deserve you cheaster.

[kerry1891]

Great post Cheasty

Teddy just seemed to role from one big match to the other across codes back then and never a bit part player

every game was a battle too with Cork having mighty rivalries with Galway, Tipp , Kerry and Meath

He has an amazing career, damn it he made his championship debut in hurling in the 1986 All Ireland Final!

[peddlerscross]

Didnt he nearly beat Tipp on his own in '87 as a young lad?

[ChairmanDan]

Think he got the Man of the Match award in Killarney in 1987.

[Julio_Geordio]

You’ve some memory, I can’t remember games I watched last month

[Bisto]

@kerry1891

He has an amazing career, damn it he made his championship debut in hurling in the 1986 All Ireland Final!

Didn’t he head off on holiday to Spain between semi final and final for few weeks ?! The elder statesmen couldn’t fathom it

[kerry1891]

@Bisto

@kerry1891

He has an amazing career, damn it he made his championship debut in hurling in the 1986 All Ireland Final!

Didn’t he head off on holiday to Spain between semi final and final for few weeks ?! The elder statesmen couldn’t fathom it

He did and still got picked for the final for his championship debut and did his stuff!

[Cheasty]

@Julio_Geordio

You’ve some memory, I can’t remember games I watched last month

Nobody remembers games they watched last month but they remember games from 35 years ago alright. That’s the way the memory tends to work.

[kerry1891]

@ChairmanDan

Think the got the Man of the Match award in Killarney in 1987.

jez some going on a day Cork were beat and Tipp made history

[ChairmanDan]

Hard to credit that 3 of the starting 15 from the Cork football winning team in 1990 that clinched the double have passed away.

[kerry1891]

@Cheasty

I think it’s OK to say this. There are no GAA legends more loved than Cork GAA legends, and they’re loved well beyond the boundaries of Cork. Corkness is loved well beyond the boundaries of Cork.

@Cheasty

I think it’s OK to say this. There are no GAA legends more loved than Cork GAA legends, and they’re loved well beyond the boundaries of Cork. Corkness is loved well beyond the boundaries of Cork.

Teddy McCarthy was A list Cork legend status. Nobody ever jumped like him. White men couldn’t jump but Corkmen could jump. He was Cork and Corkness.

The summer of 1987 was my first proper championship summer, though I attended no games. I did listen to a lot of them on the radio.

Cork v Limerick. Cork v Limerick again. I wanted Limerick to win. They were the good guys, which I suppose was understandable because my Mam grew up in Abbeyfeale.

Tipp v Cork. Tipp v Cork again. I wanted Tipp to win. They were the good guys, which I suppose was understandable because my grandad I never met was from Cahir.

Cork v Kerry. Cork v Kerry again. I wanted Cork to win. They were the good guys because they were against Kerry, who were the baddies.

Teddy McCarthy was at the heart of all of those. Teddy. I had a teddy and his name was Owen. So Teddy, being a Teddy, was Owen. Teddy McCarthy was already a name burned into me.

Cork v Galway was on telly. I didn’t see that because I was in London. Cork v Galway again. I don’t think I saw that because we were driving from Galway to Dublin. We must have listened to it on the radio because we listened to Jimmy Magee commentating on Ben Johnson beating Carl Lewis in the 100 metres World Championship in Rome as we drove along past the railway line leaving Galway. I definitely wanted to Cork to win the final against Meath, though I only flicked in and out of it, because I was watching Newcastle v Liverpool, the game where Steve Nicol scored a hat trick.

I watched Meath v Cork in 1988 very intensely. I wanted Cork to win. At school, my teacher, Mrs. O’Driscoll, was from Cork, and she was the best teacher I ever had and the loveliest woman. And I was friends with her son who was in the class, and we both agreed we really, really wanted Cork to win the final, because Meath were the baddies and we hated them. Teddy McCarthy scored a goal after three minutes and Kerry’s Tommy Sugrue handed an undeserved draw to Meath with the last kick. Meath v Cork again. Those finals felt big and important and grown up and very grudgy in a way that few other finals since have felt. I was very bitter and angry that Cork lost.

I wanted Mayo to win in 1989. Finnerty scored and Mayo looked like they might win and Finnerty missed and the crowd heaved and Cork steadied themselves and Teddy McCarthy leaped and bounced and ran and kicked a point and Cork won. In 1989 I stayed the night in Jimmy Crowley’s spare room because Jimmy Crowley was married to my Mam’s first cousin and her father had died and we were at the funeral and that was my first time in Cork, and the thing I loved about Cork people was the way they were expert at telling you how many sets of traffic lights you had to go through to get to where you wanted to go to, and how willing they were to take the time to make sure sure in their own head how many sets of traffic lights you had to go through and then the it was the first left and then the second right. And that was the first time I saw that view up to the church at the top of the hill at Gurranabraher and I loved that view and I still love that view. That view is Corkness. I loved Cork, I thought it was so much more cool and exotic than Galway and looked more like a city than Dublin.

By 1990, I had fallen out of love with the GAA, but on July 15th, 1990, I was keenly aware that Cork were playing Tipp in the Munster hurling final. Teddy McCarthy was not playing. I wanted Cork to win. I no longer considered Tipp the good guys. I said to my oul’ fella that Cork would win. He said Tipp would win comfortably. I could not listen to it on the radio, because I was in Cologne. Three days later, we were in Munich, and I hassled my oul’ fella to go into an Irish pub that night to get the result of the Munster final. We went in. Tis was my first time in an Irish pub abroad and it felt big and grown up.

“You won’t believe it, Cork won!” “Yessssss, I told ya Cork would win”, I shouted out.

Teddy McCarthy was back for the All-Ireland final and I watched that All-Ireland final and I wanted Cork to win, I was dying for Cork to win, and Cork won, and Teddy McCarthy played brilliantly and it was sunny and it was ice pop weather and I had those absolutely amazing pineapple Roy Of The Rovers bars to eat during it and it was the best All-Ireland final ever. It was even better than 1986, which I was desperate to experience an exact recreation of, the reason why I’ve gone into elsewhere on this forum. Oh man that Cork team. What a team. What they symbolised and what Cork hurling symbolised and still symbolises. The coolest hurling team ever. They were fun like Cameroon and street smart like Argentina and red and winners like Liverpool and cool like Killer by Adamski and stylish like Vogue by Madonna and passionate like Nothing Compares 2U by Sinead O’Connor. They had this intoxicating mix which set them apart. The wry humour of Hennessy. The coolness of Fitzgibbon. The corner boy hardness of Mulcahy. The fascinatingly awkward effectiveness of Foley. The quiet silk of Tony O’Sullivan. The baldness of Brendan O’Sullivan. The grace of Jim Cashman. The saving the ball with your face and the umpire flagging it wideness of Ger Cunningham. The folk hero Corkness of Teddy McCarthy. Cork need a score, can McCarthy provide it? He certainly can!

I didn’t watch the football final, because I was watching Liverpool beat Manchester United 4-0, but I heard Cork won.

I think my favourite Teddy McCarthy performance was off the bench in 1994 against Kerry. Kerry looked like they were going to win, and then he came on and lifted everything, and Stephen O’Brien scored a great goal and Teddy McCarthy scored two points and the second one was the last kick of the game. I loved that because Cork were the good guys any time they played Kerry.

God I love Corkness. Teddy.

Your opening paragraph is fine

It was impossible not to like the cork heroes of the mid 1980s to the early 1990s

JBM was finishing up but still a hero, Tony Sullivan’s silken skills, John Fitzgibbon goalpoaching, the Cashmans, Johnny Crowley overweight at corner back but still clearing ball to beat the band, Denis Walsh and Teddy doing the business in both codes, Cork ending Kerry’s reign in Munster and toppling Meath eventually at national level, Cahalane and Stephen O’Brien hardy fcukers who had all the skills as well

It was never possible to warm to the next generation that came in the same way

[kerry1891]

@ChairmanDan

Hard to credit that 3 of the starting 15 from the Cork football winning team in 1990 that clinched the double have passed away.

very hard

You can sense the emotion and sadness in Billy Morgan’s voice when this comes up , think it was a laochra gael show, John Kerins and Mick mcCarthy were taken very quick too

[mick_jones]

Some going may be a stretch, he was given it by Corks Donal O’Grady on the Sunday Game.

[ChairmanDan]

The Tipperary lads really value their individual awards. Was that a harder pill to swallow than Aussie getting Hurler of the Year over Seamie in 2016?

[Cheasty]

Teddy McCarthy must be the only man to have more than one All-Ireland medal in both hurling and football? He won two of each.

89/90 is the only time Cork won two football All-Irelands with the same team.

[ChairmanDan]

Frank Burke possibly with Dublin in the 1920’s.

[balbec]

Didn’t Teddy play in the compromise rules match the day of the big scrap?

[gilgamboa]

@balbec

Didn’t Teddy play in the compromise rules match the day of the big scrap?

He was in oz in 1986 as a v young fella alright. I saw a tweet that said he was sent off in 3 continents so assume that’s what it was referring to