LAST WEEKEND, DICK Mullins laced up his cross-country spikes and made his way around the track in Westport, taking home the silver medal for the Over-75 Masters event.
The sting of narrow defeat is cushioned by the comfort of knowing that come next year, he will have a clearer run of the Over-80s section, both local and internationally. No stopping him then. Apart from maybe the babysitting requirements of his 19 grandchildren.
As it happened, last weekend was also the second round of the Kilkenny football leagues, the other sporting passion of Mullins’ life.
On and off, he was the manager of the Cats’ senior football team for almost a decade, including their last National League involvement of 2008 to 2012.
By the end of 1999, Kilkenny had dropped out of the leagues, unable to cope. By 2007, with Nickey Brennan — a man who had did his bit as player and manager for Kilkenny football — now GAA President, they launched a comeback.
The first game back was tough out: a 4-20 to 1-5 loss to Tipperary in Nowlan Park.
The next day out, there was no reprieve: 2-25 for Antrim with 0-6 in response.
On game day three, there were wide smiles on Kilkenny faces as they gave Waterford a game of it, losing 2-9 to 0-8. The next day in Aughrim against Wicklow showed that to be a false dawn, losing 2-34 to 0-5.
We’ll draw a discreet veil over the rest of that campaign.
2009 was a new dawn. Mick Malone was now on board, one of the best footballers Kilkenny had reared. They went out for the first game against Sligo.
3-20 to 0-4.
Never mind. On they go, hosting Antrim in round 2 in Nowlan Park.
4-27 to 0-5.
It was Waterford next, and sure, they always put it up to Waterford?
2-20 to 0-3.
It wasn’t going great, but the last two games of the league offered the possibility that with time, they might have been getting somewhere. They came within 11 points of London in Ruislip, and then 15 at home to Carlow.
They opened the 2010 league… look, this isn’t doing anybody any good.
Let’s just finish by noting that astonishing day in February 2011, when they finished without registering a single score, Leitrim hitting them for 3-19 in Ballyragget.
They knew it was all over the following year. Fermanagh came to Nowlan Park, full of beans and looking to impress new manager Peter Canavan. They notched 9-23 – fifty points total, with Kilkenny responding with 0-4.
But you won’t hear any self-pity from the man who led them through all those times.
“The one thing about Kilkenny football is that no matter how many matches you lose, you were never going to get sacked! I could have lasted forever, until I resigned myself,” says Mullins now.
“Our problem was, and it’s probably the same now, is that anyone who is good enough to play football for Kilkenny is also a club hurler. And that’s the problem. Hurling gets priority, hurling is king in Kilkenny.
“The clubs were looking for these lads to come back in to training and then the lads had to make a commitment.
“The other side of it was, you couldn’t get to do enough training and coaching.”
Advertisement
How on earth does anyone manage to get people to keep turning up for that treatment, though?
“The amazing thing about it was, the players themselves kept coming back and kept coming back. If we had a training session, numbers could be small. But when it came to the games, we always had plenty.
“And when it came to the county board, the team was always well looked after as regards food and the likes. If we were travelling to Sligo and Longford or wherever, we got the best of buses.
“In that aspect, we were treated the very same as the hurlers. There were buses and food and all that end was looked after.”
If he was to point out their weak point, it would be getting scores. But then he adds instantly, “And keeping them out the other end, of course.”
It wasn’t always this way with Kilkenny football. In the early days of the Association, they were a footballing force.
Between 1888 and 1922 they contested eight Leinster finals, winning three.
They were the first-ever winners of the Leinster senior football championship, played in 1888, beating Wexford in the final.
They beat Louth in the 1900 final before then getting the better of Tipperary in the All-Ireland semi-final, 1-7 to 0-8. A replay was ordered because of an objection that Tipp lodged and when Kilkenny did not turn up for the refixed game, the Premier went through to the All-Ireland final where they beat London, 3-7 to 0-2.
There were signs though that the county was starting to lean towards the small ball. In 1914, they had to field their young mascot, Peter Dunne, to complete a team.
They haven’t won a senior championship match since 1929, when they beat Louth 0-10 to 0-4.
Their last Leinster senior match was 1982. Kildare beat them 4-10 to 1-2. Playing corner-back that day was Nickey Brennan. The very same year, he won the league and Liam MacCarthy double with the county hurlers, but feels it would be a stretch to label him a ‘dual player’.
With his county hurling career coming to an end in 1985, he hadn’t anticipated the next turn. He took a call in 1987 asking if he would take charge of the county footballers.
It wasn’t particularly enticing. The previous year, they had a league fixture away to Clare and just two players showed up; they made frantic efforts and put out a side that included one of the selectors.
Clare, well, they took that personally, and scored 6-25 to no score.
Brennan was undeterred. He secured the premises of Kilkenny Rugby Football Club for training and results improved in 1987, running Dublin to two points in Parnell Park in the Leinster junior championship.
The year after, they brought in Jack O’Shea for a two-day training camp. They beat Waterford in the league, 2-10 to 2-8, their first win since 1981. They had a couple of wins in the O’Byrne Cup. But by the end of the season, the management had punched themselves out.
All ancient history. This week, the Kilkenny county board ratified manager Christy Walsh to continue as manager.
At this evening’s County Board Meeting in UPMC Nowlan Park, Christy Walsh was ratified as Kilkenny Junior Football Manager for the 2025 season with JJ Grace as coach and Paddy McConigley, Andy O’Brien and Brian Sheeran as selectors.
From Kilmoyley in Kerry, he hurled with distinction for his county and club, even winning man-of-the-match in the Masters hurling final of 2004 against Dublin, while also playing football for nearby Ardfert.
He also spent a ludicrously successful time in charge of Bennettsbridge hurlers, where he has lived for the last 30 years.
A decade ago, they started the junior championship and won county, their province, and then the All-Ireland club championships.
The following year, they were in intermediate. And again they won county, province and All-Ireland as they went almost three years unbeaten.
Once he finished there, he was an easy mark for those on the county board that needed a football manager.
“We gave six years there going over to Britain, to play in Her Majesty’s junior football championship. We would have played a London team, played teams in Scotland, seven teams in total,” says Walsh.
Then Covid came and the introduction of a new-style junior championship in 2022. Kilkenny made it to the semi-finals on the Friday night in Abbotstown and defeated London. The final was against New York two days later as a curtain-raiser to the senior semi-final between Dublin and Kerry.
The only Kilkenny media in the stadium that day was Nickey Brennan on duty for Kilkenny Community Radio. He admits to getting emotional during the 3-12 to 1-9 win, the team boosted by the inclusion of All-Star hurler Paul Murphy.
Climbing the steps of the Hogan Stand to accept the cup was Mick Malone. In Kilkenny’s final league game against Clare in 2012 (2-29 to 1-4), the Mullinavat man scored 1-2. Here he was a decade on, lifting a trophy with black and amber ribbons.
But this wasn’t Malone’s first All-Ireland final.
In 2016, he was number 26, a number he held all summer as Kilkenny lost the All-Ireland hurling final to Tipperary.
“Lucky enough in some ways that lads had different injuries and stuff when I thought I would be gone, but I held onto it,” Malone modestly says now.
In comparing his time on the hurling panel with all the years he’s spent with the footballers, he says, “I suppose the biggest thing you would notice is the attitude. Lads would go out of their way to make sure they train for Kilkenny hurlers, whereas with football, some lads would put football number 2 if something else was on.”
Still, he doesn’t regret those years spent trying to push the boulder uphill.
“Getting hammered wasn’t enjoyable, but we had a good team spirit and the craic with the lads was good fun. On top of that, I enjoyed playing football,” Malone says.
Mick Malone with the junior championship trophy. Laszlo Geczo / INPHO
Laszlo Geczo / INPHO / INPHO
“There was definitely the capability of being better there. But it was just… Like, if we picked say three of the best players over each year for five years, and put them together, you would have had a good team.
“But lads, they played for a year or two, they got fed up and they moved on. And when you are going out and getting hammered, it’s not that enticing for some lads. They don’t want to be associated with something like that.
“I just enjoyed it. I enjoyed playing football and the craic with the lads. We were young and it was something to do at the weekend.”
Last weekend, he was playing when they beat Thomastown. A return to county duty? He’s undecided. He’s 36 now and has four children under the age of five.
But Walsh is a gas man, persuasive with it and has named a strong backroom team, including the former Donegal half-back Paddy McConigley.
A return to the NFL however, is out of the question, according to Walsh.
“No. There’s not even talk of it. It’s not considered,” he says.
“And if you don’t push Kilkenny, they won’t do anything. But the club championship is on now and there’s more teams playing football the last two, three years than there has in a long time.
“Because they are playing away and there will be games all the way through February, and then the championship will start the first or second weekend of March, and by the middle of April it will be all over. Straight knockout.
“By the end of March when the evenings get long, everybody will be back playing hurling.”
A pub quiz question. There are only two counties in Ireland that play their domestic club championship as a straight knockout. They are?
Tyrone and Kilkenny. For two very different reasons, you’d have to say.
“I’m in there now,” adds Walsh.
“We will finish up after this year. Every year we start from scratch. We said we will go training on Monday nights as the lads would be hurling on a Sunday and then training on a Tuesday, so we can’t do a whole lot. Just get used to playing football and kicking a ball.
“It is what it is, there is no point in giving out about things!”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Close
3 Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic.
Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy
here
before taking part.
Her Majesty's championship, going scoreless, and Croke Park wins - the Kilkenny football story
LAST WEEKEND, DICK Mullins laced up his cross-country spikes and made his way around the track in Westport, taking home the silver medal for the Over-75 Masters event.
The sting of narrow defeat is cushioned by the comfort of knowing that come next year, he will have a clearer run of the Over-80s section, both local and internationally. No stopping him then. Apart from maybe the babysitting requirements of his 19 grandchildren.
As it happened, last weekend was also the second round of the Kilkenny football leagues, the other sporting passion of Mullins’ life.
On and off, he was the manager of the Cats’ senior football team for almost a decade, including their last National League involvement of 2008 to 2012.
By the end of 1999, Kilkenny had dropped out of the leagues, unable to cope. By 2007, with Nickey Brennan — a man who had did his bit as player and manager for Kilkenny football — now GAA President, they launched a comeback.
The first game back was tough out: a 4-20 to 1-5 loss to Tipperary in Nowlan Park.
The next day out, there was no reprieve: 2-25 for Antrim with 0-6 in response.
On game day three, there were wide smiles on Kilkenny faces as they gave Waterford a game of it, losing 2-9 to 0-8. The next day in Aughrim against Wicklow showed that to be a false dawn, losing 2-34 to 0-5.
We’ll draw a discreet veil over the rest of that campaign.
2009 was a new dawn. Mick Malone was now on board, one of the best footballers Kilkenny had reared. They went out for the first game against Sligo.
3-20 to 0-4.
Never mind. On they go, hosting Antrim in round 2 in Nowlan Park.
4-27 to 0-5.
It was Waterford next, and sure, they always put it up to Waterford?
2-20 to 0-3.
It wasn’t going great, but the last two games of the league offered the possibility that with time, they might have been getting somewhere. They came within 11 points of London in Ruislip, and then 15 at home to Carlow.
They opened the 2010 league… look, this isn’t doing anybody any good.
Let’s just finish by noting that astonishing day in February 2011, when they finished without registering a single score, Leitrim hitting them for 3-19 in Ballyragget.
They knew it was all over the following year. Fermanagh came to Nowlan Park, full of beans and looking to impress new manager Peter Canavan. They notched 9-23 – fifty points total, with Kilkenny responding with 0-4.
But you won’t hear any self-pity from the man who led them through all those times.
“The one thing about Kilkenny football is that no matter how many matches you lose, you were never going to get sacked! I could have lasted forever, until I resigned myself,” says Mullins now.
“Our problem was, and it’s probably the same now, is that anyone who is good enough to play football for Kilkenny is also a club hurler. And that’s the problem. Hurling gets priority, hurling is king in Kilkenny.
“The clubs were looking for these lads to come back in to training and then the lads had to make a commitment.
“The other side of it was, you couldn’t get to do enough training and coaching.”
How on earth does anyone manage to get people to keep turning up for that treatment, though?
“The amazing thing about it was, the players themselves kept coming back and kept coming back. If we had a training session, numbers could be small. But when it came to the games, we always had plenty.
“And when it came to the county board, the team was always well looked after as regards food and the likes. If we were travelling to Sligo and Longford or wherever, we got the best of buses.
“In that aspect, we were treated the very same as the hurlers. There were buses and food and all that end was looked after.”
If he was to point out their weak point, it would be getting scores. But then he adds instantly, “And keeping them out the other end, of course.”
It wasn’t always this way with Kilkenny football. In the early days of the Association, they were a footballing force.
Between 1888 and 1922 they contested eight Leinster finals, winning three.
They were the first-ever winners of the Leinster senior football championship, played in 1888, beating Wexford in the final.
They beat Louth in the 1900 final before then getting the better of Tipperary in the All-Ireland semi-final, 1-7 to 0-8. A replay was ordered because of an objection that Tipp lodged and when Kilkenny did not turn up for the refixed game, the Premier went through to the All-Ireland final where they beat London, 3-7 to 0-2.
There were signs though that the county was starting to lean towards the small ball. In 1914, they had to field their young mascot, Peter Dunne, to complete a team.
They haven’t won a senior championship match since 1929, when they beat Louth 0-10 to 0-4.
Their last Leinster senior match was 1982. Kildare beat them 4-10 to 1-2. Playing corner-back that day was Nickey Brennan. The very same year, he won the league and Liam MacCarthy double with the county hurlers, but feels it would be a stretch to label him a ‘dual player’.
With his county hurling career coming to an end in 1985, he hadn’t anticipated the next turn. He took a call in 1987 asking if he would take charge of the county footballers.
It wasn’t particularly enticing. The previous year, they had a league fixture away to Clare and just two players showed up; they made frantic efforts and put out a side that included one of the selectors.
Clare, well, they took that personally, and scored 6-25 to no score.
Brennan was undeterred. He secured the premises of Kilkenny Rugby Football Club for training and results improved in 1987, running Dublin to two points in Parnell Park in the Leinster junior championship.
The year after, they brought in Jack O’Shea for a two-day training camp. They beat Waterford in the league, 2-10 to 2-8, their first win since 1981. They had a couple of wins in the O’Byrne Cup. But by the end of the season, the management had punched themselves out.
All ancient history. This week, the Kilkenny county board ratified manager Christy Walsh to continue as manager.
From Kilmoyley in Kerry, he hurled with distinction for his county and club, even winning man-of-the-match in the Masters hurling final of 2004 against Dublin, while also playing football for nearby Ardfert.
He also spent a ludicrously successful time in charge of Bennettsbridge hurlers, where he has lived for the last 30 years.
A decade ago, they started the junior championship and won county, their province, and then the All-Ireland club championships.
The following year, they were in intermediate. And again they won county, province and All-Ireland as they went almost three years unbeaten.
Once he finished there, he was an easy mark for those on the county board that needed a football manager.
“We gave six years there going over to Britain, to play in Her Majesty’s junior football championship. We would have played a London team, played teams in Scotland, seven teams in total,” says Walsh.
Then Covid came and the introduction of a new-style junior championship in 2022. Kilkenny made it to the semi-finals on the Friday night in Abbotstown and defeated London. The final was against New York two days later as a curtain-raiser to the senior semi-final between Dublin and Kerry.
The only Kilkenny media in the stadium that day was Nickey Brennan on duty for Kilkenny Community Radio. He admits to getting emotional during the 3-12 to 1-9 win, the team boosted by the inclusion of All-Star hurler Paul Murphy.
Climbing the steps of the Hogan Stand to accept the cup was Mick Malone. In Kilkenny’s final league game against Clare in 2012 (2-29 to 1-4), the Mullinavat man scored 1-2. Here he was a decade on, lifting a trophy with black and amber ribbons.
But this wasn’t Malone’s first All-Ireland final.
In 2016, he was number 26, a number he held all summer as Kilkenny lost the All-Ireland hurling final to Tipperary.
“Lucky enough in some ways that lads had different injuries and stuff when I thought I would be gone, but I held onto it,” Malone modestly says now.
In comparing his time on the hurling panel with all the years he’s spent with the footballers, he says, “I suppose the biggest thing you would notice is the attitude. Lads would go out of their way to make sure they train for Kilkenny hurlers, whereas with football, some lads would put football number 2 if something else was on.”
Still, he doesn’t regret those years spent trying to push the boulder uphill.
“Getting hammered wasn’t enjoyable, but we had a good team spirit and the craic with the lads was good fun. On top of that, I enjoyed playing football,” Malone says.
“There was definitely the capability of being better there. But it was just… Like, if we picked say three of the best players over each year for five years, and put them together, you would have had a good team.
“But lads, they played for a year or two, they got fed up and they moved on. And when you are going out and getting hammered, it’s not that enticing for some lads. They don’t want to be associated with something like that.
“I just enjoyed it. I enjoyed playing football and the craic with the lads. We were young and it was something to do at the weekend.”
Last weekend, he was playing when they beat Thomastown. A return to county duty? He’s undecided. He’s 36 now and has four children under the age of five.
But Walsh is a gas man, persuasive with it and has named a strong backroom team, including the former Donegal half-back Paddy McConigley.
A return to the NFL however, is out of the question, according to Walsh.
“No. There’s not even talk of it. It’s not considered,” he says.
“And if you don’t push Kilkenny, they won’t do anything. But the club championship is on now and there’s more teams playing football the last two, three years than there has in a long time.
“Because they are playing away and there will be games all the way through February, and then the championship will start the first or second weekend of March, and by the middle of April it will be all over. Straight knockout.
“By the end of March when the evenings get long, everybody will be back playing hurling.”
A pub quiz question. There are only two counties in Ireland that play their domestic club championship as a straight knockout. They are?
Tyrone and Kilkenny. For two very different reasons, you’d have to say.
“I’m in there now,” adds Walsh.
“We will finish up after this year. Every year we start from scratch. We said we will go training on Monday nights as the lads would be hurling on a Sunday and then training on a Tuesday, so we can’t do a whole lot. Just get used to playing football and kicking a ball.
“It is what it is, there is no point in giving out about things!”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Big Ball Cats Cats GAA Gaelic Football Kilkenny