Louth travel to Portlaoise aiming to even the championship score with Kerry

The meeting at Portlaoise last year was Louth’s first with Kerry at championship level since 1953. By winning it, Kerry took a 3-2 lead in knock-out games between the counties.

The competition 67 years ago was decided differently than it is today. There were – and still are – four provincial championships, with the winners going to the All-Ireland semi-finals. Louth beat Wexford in the Leinster final, and – who else? – but Cork to fall to Kerry down in Munster.

The pairing was the same down south throughout the 1950s, except for ’56. That year Waterford caused a sensation by beating Kerry in the semi-final, and the Deise nearly did the same in the final, holding Cork to a draw before going down by just one point in the replay.

The Waterford goalkeeper in those days would be familiar to a recent generation of greyhound racing and coursing followers. Gerry McCarthy wrote for the Irish Press on all things canine, and under the pseudonym “Tom Kelly” kept Sporting Press readers fully informed.

Gerry is still hale and hearty, and residing in Glasnevin. If reading this, Gerry, Ad Multos Annos from a colleague who sometimes followed the flag with you when the hounds were running from field to field in pursuit of their quarry.

And many times we stood at the top of the field on the Commons Road in Dromiskin and other enclosed fields waiting for the first turn.

Back to the football. Louth’s 1953 game with Kerry was first recalled on this page more than a decade ago, and has had many renewals.

Suffice to say, it is best remembered for Fr Kevin Connolly’s introduction as “Kevin McArdle” at half-time, and the part the Ravensdale-born priest played in a courageous, but unsuccessful, comeback. Kerry went on to beat Armagh in the final.

Three years earlier the teams met at the same stage, and this time Louth were successful. Louth had beaten Meath in a replayed Leinster final, and Kerry came out on top against the auld enemy. Meanwhile, Mayo won in the West, while Armagh accounted for Cavan in Ulster.

The story of the final is another which has often been re-told here. It fits neatly into the ‘lament’ category where this county is concerned.

Those at the game wearing red rosettes were adamant the deciding late Mayo goal should not have been allowed to stand. The game ended 2-5 to 1-6.

Back in the days when there were 17 players on each side, many of them wearing peaked caps – nearly all on the Kildare side – Louth and Kerry met for the first time. It was at the 1909 final, Louth having made it that far with a Leinster final win over Kilkenny, and then a defeat of Antrim.

Drogheda side, Tredaghs, as county champions, made up the bulk of the Louth team, while Kerry were represented by Tralee Mitchels. The men from the south did enough to win by 1-9 to 0-6.

The same two counties were due to meet in the following year’s final, but Kerry, who had beaten Antrim in a semi-final played in Dundalk, didn’t turn up.

They were in dispute with a train company, which refused to grant them the travelling conditions that had prevailed for the previous year’s final.

Several meetings of the game’s highest authority followed, most of them labelled “special”. The one that finally decided the issue was held in Croke Park close to Christmas.

At it, Louth’s represented by James “Dickens” McArdle, agreed to the proposal that the game be re-fixed, but in a subsequent vote, it was decided, by seven votes to six, with Louth abstaining, that the title be awarded to Louth.

When Louth next met Kerry, there were 15 players on each side, the first ever game to be played with the reduced number. It was in the final of the Croke Memorial Tournament, organised by the authorities to raise funds for the purchase of Croke Park, which was being rented out at the time.

Two games were needed to decide the issue, and such was the size of the ‘gate’ from the drawn match, Central Council granted each county £50 to cover training. How Louth spent this money caused a bit of a stir.

George Blessington and John Booth, both associated with the famous Irish League club, Belfast Celtic, were hired to train the team, but more than that, the players’ wages were paid for the fortnight prior to the final.

The crowd for the replay, 36,000, was a record at the time for any sporting event in the country. That was 36,000 who paid in. Thousands more turned up and when they couldn’t gain admission, swarmed over the Railway End wall. Kerry won by 2-4 to 0-5.

The part Louth played in the Croke Memorial was always a boast of the late and great Charlie McAlister. He used it to get himself out of a pickle – sort of – on the day Louth beat Westmeath in the 2010 Leinster semi-final.

Pitch encroachments were outlawed at Croke Park at the time, and there were many burly stewards around to see that Louth supporters, euphoric after their team had made the final for the first time in a half-century, wouldn’t make it on to the sod.

Charlie was one of those who breached the cordon, but was quickly chased by a couple of maoir, who caught him and then brought him to the ground.

“Get away from me” said Charlie, “Louth people built this place.” Séamus and Kevin O’Hanlon were others who made it onto the field to hail their heroes; when they arrived on the scene of the ‘crime’, there was never a chance of Charlie being frog-marched away.

Louth have played Kerry in the league a number of times, and recorded wins. There was one particularly sweet one in 1966, the Reds scoring a one-point win over the previous year’s All-Ireland runners-up down in Tralee.

Ardee was the venue for another win in 2002, this one ending 1-18 to 2-12. Paddy Carr, assisted by Danny Culligan and Gerry Sheridan, were in charge of the Louth team which read:

Stuart Reynolds (O’Connell’s); Simon Gerrard (Newtown Blues), Aaron Hoey (St Bride’s), David Brennan (Mattock Rangers); John Neary (Geraldines), Colin Goss (St Patrick’s), Peter McGinnity (Dundalk Gaels); Séamus O’Hanlon (Clan na Gael), Ken Reilly (Stabannon Parnells); Nicky McDonnell (Naomh Mairtín), Christy Grimes (Mattock Rangers), Ollie McDonnell (St Joseph’s); Martin Farrelly (Lannleire), Mark Stanfield (O’Connell’s), JP Rooney (Naomh Mairtín).

David Reilly (St Joseph’s) and Barry Clarke (Kilkerley Emmets) came in as reserves, Mark Stanfield was leading marksman with 1-5, and Colin Goss and Nicky McDonnell were fairly new to the county team.

That’s the history – next Sunday brings the rivalry right up to date.