From 'copying soccer' to helping to set the agenda

FOCUS ON RTÉ'S THE SUNDAY GAME:  Seán Morantalks to Jim Carney, the show's first presenter, about the origin of what is now the station's flagship Gaelic games programme

AS JIM CARNEY remembers it, The Sunday Game didn't arrive in a fanfare. The championship highlights programme that next weekend celebrates its 30th season on air was rolled out in the summer of 1979 to a mixed reception.

"The GAA were uneasy and didn't quite embrace it," says the programme's first presenter. "Match of the Day was huge at the time and this was seen as the GAA equivalent. The public lapped it up straight away, but for some in the GAA there was this 'ah, we're following soccer' attitude, and they hated that association so the attitude was a bit begrudging."

In the years that followed, the programme, with its brassy James Last theme music, became as much part of the GAA experience as the radio commentaries of Micheál O'Hehir in decades long gone. As the coverage of Gaelic games evolved into live broadcasts of matches, the Sunday Game brand remained.

It has developed from presenting the highlights of just one match together with panel discussions, to those All-Ireland-night presentations featuring players - at first in studio and then in team hotels - from both teams, and this year will be providing enhanced "analysis engines" and week-long availability on RTÉ's dedicated championship website, GAA Media Player.

Working as a sub-editor with RTÉ and helping to edit Sports Stadium, the Saturday afternoon sports broadcast, Carney began his front-of-camera television career in 1974 presenting, with Irish Olympic swimmer the late Christine Fulcher, the station's first sports programme for young viewers Sports Club, which was produced by Justin Nelson.

"Justin went on to direct the football All-Irelands - Michael O'Carroll used to do the hurling. He was also a technically-skilled stills photographer, who shot that famous photo of Ring coming off with his arm in a sling and talking to Mackey, who was umpiring."

His career rose steadily and he became a radio commentator, first in shared broadcasts (similar to current soccer commentaries on BBC Radio Five Live) with the late Liam Campbell - who Carney felt resented the intrusion - and then on his own. He even took the microphone for show jumping at the 1978 Dublin Horse Show and Aga Khan, won by Ireland.

"I did the allegedly greatest game ever," he says referring to the Dublin-Kerry All-Ireland semi-final of 1977. "I thought it was over-rated, even though it was enjoyable with a tremendously exciting finish. But there was lots of loose play and the ball being kicked away.

"Páidí Lynch played a great game but got little credit for it. So did Tony Hanahoe, but again got little credit for the big role he played in opening up the defence. Hanahoe showed great intelligence in sacrificing his own game to let Brian Mullins come through the middle. It played a big role in that game, and in the final they won against Galway it was as important as the missed penalty.

"In '77 Hanahoe made all the right moves and the goals came from him creating space. He was a vastly under-rated player because that was a time when no one bothered to analyse things like space being created; it was all about Mick O'Connell and high catching."

A few days after his radio commentary on the 1978 All-Ireland hurling final, Carney's career changed forever. On his way into Galway city he was hit when an oncoming car spun out of control. He spent four months in Galway's Merlin Park hospital with severe, if not life-threatening, injuries.

"I broke my elbow, femur and everything down the right-hand side," he says. "There was a woman at the scene - I still meet people who say they were at the scene; it's like the GPO - and I remember her telling me: 'You have nothing to worry about; we've called an ambulance and a priest'."

He didn't return to work until the following spring - just in time for a new programme that was in gestation to replace the Sunday night Sportscene.

"In 1979, I got the first gig with The Sunday Game. There wasn't a queue for it or anything. I was 29 and I think they wanted to have a young face presenting. It started in July for the Munster hurling final. I did it for three years - the first series, and 1982 and '83.

"I used to do commentary as well, and I remember travelling to matches with Mickey Whelan, who was an analyst back then, by helicopter. It wasn't for us as much as to make sure the tape from the match got back in time."

He decided to leave the programme after one year because of the strain of commuting on the train from Galway because his leg was still in calipers. Fully recovered, he was asked to return after two years.

"I don't know why I was brought back, but I ended up involved in the most eventful Sunday Game ever.

"Before the All-Ireland final in 1982 everyone was assuming that Kerry would do the five-in-a-row. We mightn't have got any Offaly players on that night, except Eugene McGee said, 'come on, we have to do this'.

"Maurice Reidy, who was an outstanding editor - one of the best RTÉ ever had - but kept out of the limelight, put together a sequence of excerpts from the four-in-a-row cut together with music. These days you'd do it in no time on a computer, but back then it took forever.

"Maurice was from Castleisland so it was a labour of love, and he spent ages piecing it together on two-inch tape and synchronising the music to match as a five-in-a-row tribute. That evening we had a crisis meeting and decided 'to hell with it - we'll run it anyway'.

"I remember saying something like: 'Only for Séamus Darby this is what would have been . . .'. Offaly were very good about it."

Having taken the decision to remain full-time in Galway, Carney returned to print journalism - this year is his 40th in journalism - first with the Connacht Tribune and, since 1986, back where his career began in 1968, with the Tuam Herald, where he writes about his twin enthusiasms, sport and agriculture.

He remained involved with his club Milltown and served as a Galway selector under Tony Regan. Although Carney remains busy on a freelance basis with RTÉ, his career has been lower-key than its prominent early years have suggested.

"I get that all the time," he says. "People say, 'what happened to you? I thought you were going to be the next Micheál O'Hehir'. But I didn't want to be - I just wanted to work. I greatly admired the way Mick O'Hehir turned up and did the next gig no matter what the pressure. I probably lacked the discipline to do that sort of thing.

"Not all my professional decisions were good ones, but I have thoroughly enjoyed what I did and continue to enjoy it. I wouldn't change anything."