THE BALLYGUNNER HURLERS are the first club in Waterford to become 10-in-a-row champions, and are considered one of the strongest clubs in the country. But at one stage, they were playing their matches in farmers’ fields, and getting togged out in a shipping container.
That arrangement was also in place when the club captured three consecutive county titles in 1966, 1967, and 1968. A winning stretch forged in modest surroundings.
Stephen Frampton, a player who helped lay down the building blocks of Ballygunner’s rise in the 90s and early 2000s, remembers those leaner years quite well. They were afforded the luxury of playing those games in the absence of the farm animals, but not in the absence of their droppings.
By 1992, when they won their first Waterford SHC title in 24 years, they finally had a pitch. And so far, in 2023, they are in the midst of a 53-game unbeaten run in the Waterford championship. They’ve reached the last five Munster finals, winning on three of those occasions. And there’s another provincial crown from 2001 to add to that haul too.
To really appreciate being rich means understanding what it was once like to be poor. And in the ruthless business of club hurling, the poverty can always circle back.
“We’re a very big and successful club now and we’re obviously not very well liked in Waterford,” Frampton tells The42 ahead of Ballygunner’s Munster quarter-final against Cork champions Sarsfields.
“And that’s only natural. When I was growing up, our biggest rivals were Mount Sion and they were the standard bearers. They still have the most amount of titles so we love to beat Mount Sion.
“One of our last founding members of the club, Maurice Phelan, lived at Ballygunner Castle and he had a field that was called the Castle Field. I remember training on that field. In the 60s, they trained in a place called Collins’ Field which was on the Dunmore Road. It’s a very busy area in Waterford now, near the Waterford hospital.
“My father worked with a big shipping company in Waterford and our dressing room was a damaged shipping container. I remember picking stones there and it’s not that long ago.”
Looking further into those less fruitful times for Ballygunner, Framptom remembers the days when they were an intermediate side. They climbed up to the senior rank in 1984, seven years later, he could sense a breakthrough was imminent. They had reached the final in 1988, losing out to fellow city club rivals Mount Sion.
They renewed their rivalry in the ’92 showpiece, with Ballygunner emerging this time with the blue ribbon after rallying from six points down to win by 1-12 to 2-7. Former Waterford star Paul Flynn contributed five points to Ballygunner’s winning tally, while Frampton was lining out at half-back.
“We were on the way,” says Frampton, looking back. “There was great potential and we were expecting it to happen a bit sooner than it did. It’s very difficult to make that breakthrough when there’s no tradition there. We’ve seen that with the Waterford hurlers and every sporting team really.
“But when it did happen, it was fantastic.”
Ballygunner didn’t have long to savour the end of their great hunger, as their Munster championship obligations came rapidly into view. 24 hours later in fact. Frampton explains that the short turnaround was largely down to their county championship running longer than expected.
No matter. The satisfaction of their achievement was enough to sustain their enthusiasm for the meeting with Clare’s Sixmilebridge in the Munster semi-final the next day. But that was where Ballygunner’s journey ended, falling to a heavy 3-12 to 0-5 defeat.
“I always remember,” Frampton begins, “because I broke my bloody arm and it was a really bad break. It took until April or May by the time I got my arm out of the cast. It wasn’t a pleasant memory for me but we were just so happy to win on the Saturday.
“We’ve always prided ourselves on representing the club and the county in a Munster club championship. So we were delighted to go to Sixmilebridge the next day.
“The celebrations were quite muted but we made up for it after that.”
Since 1992, Ballygunner have contested 26 county finals, lifting the trophy 18 times along the way. That’s almost a 70% success rate across two decades. They subsequently lost six county finals between 2000 and 2007, but that 24-year wait was still long enough for Ballygunner to make a decision that losing was no longer going to their habit for life.
They have no concerns about becoming too dominant at home, despite their big winning margins in county finals. And having individual talents like Dessie Hutchinson and Pauric Mahony in their deck helps to keep the competition at arm’s length. Having a tradition to live up to and preserve helps too. But whatever about breaking free of the shackles to finally end that famine for county honours, no-one in Ballygunner could have envisaged the sheer volume of success that the class of 1992 would inspire.
Cork champions Sarsfields are next up to challenge Ballygunner, as the Waterford giants aim to create provincial history with a first-ever Munster three-in-a-row.
“We’re very passionate about it and we love hurling but it could go the other way very quickly, so we’re just enjoying it while it lasts,” says Frampton. “Everybody knows that it’s impossible for it to last forever so it’s just a case of enjoying it, working as hard as we can to maintain it for as long as possible.
“I definitely think the other teams are coming back into the frame. They’re improving the whole time and we’re really looking at ourselves. We try not to focus on the opposition, we just try to make ourselves be the best we can.
“There is an Irish thing with being uncomfortable with being the favourites and the hunted. But there comes a time when you do recognise that you are the favourites and it’s about how comfortable you are with it. They’re a very humble bunch of lads and they do appreciate what they’re doing, and the history that they’re making.”
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