Correct. His Rolodex ran deep
Regardless of where it came from, it was the start of the expansion in IC preparation budgets (in the modern sense anyway)
Really? The Tipp County Board were fucked with debt from the Centenary AI Final.
Pretty sure the Tipp teams Babs played on wore suits etc.
Fair enough if so, Iād be more on about the spend than the relative financial position of the CB at the time. Itās not unfair to Babs to say he made it a more āprofessionalā set-up. Probably still did it for half nothing at the time.
His stated aim at the time was to bring pride back into wearing the jersey, something he had himself from the 60ās. I remember some of the fundraising events he came up with, players racing greyhounds and the like. It was never dull with Babs and that Tipp team of the 80s would be still a tight group.
Tipp were at such a low ebb after '86 it was unreal.
A visionary like Michael Lowry appointed Babs. The whole professionalism thing was a joint effort between the two.
As Lowry famously said himself, āwe have to look good anyway, whether weāre good or not on the fieldā.
Yeah, Westmeath beat them twice in the league back then, the 3 in a row U21ās werenāt making any real impact, greenshoots were there though and Babs and Lowry pulled it all together.
Was there a bus crash in the early 80ās involving a Waterford under age team? Think a few players were killed and team manager/coach Tony Forristal.
It was a Mount Sion team coming back from a challenge in Carrick. Tony died in that incident. The car crashed in Windgap.
Thereās an u14 inter county tournament held in Waterford every year called the Tony Forristal so that would make sense
Yeah, I had hazy recollections of it. Awful tragedy for families and club. How many were killed in it?
I never knew the origin of the name of the tournament. Informative.
Three from memory.
Think it was just outside Piltown where the bus crash was that Tony Forristal and the players were killed in. Thereās a cross outside Piltown that Iāve passed many times. Wouldnāt be entirely sure on it, but I think itās for that crash.
Thatās the spot. Just passed the water tower.
Past
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Did you play under Tony Forristal in your formative playing days in Mount Sion?
Not that I remember
I captained the Limerick team in 1988 at the Tony Forrristal
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Lovely hurling