Guided by Murphy's Law

All-Ireland Hurling Qualifiers Focus on Galway: Keith Duggan talks to Phelim Murphy, the godfather of Galway hurling, about the county's drought since the late 1980s

For championship week, the hurling field in Athenry is quiet. The perennially curious watch from the windy old stand but where once there would have been dozens in their number it has been reduced to a handful. Conor Hayes's instructions echo around the ground. A crown of greying hair has replaced the eponymous golden helmet of yesteryear. It was a wonderful conceit, that extravagant headgear, in a straight and rarely bettered hurling full back.

Some 15 years after he captained Galway to their last All-Ireland it is as if that missing gold is symbolic of an era that shines like a beacon through the feckless endeavours of the succeeding generation. Hayes is the latest of the gilded sons of the 1980s to try to deliver an All-Ireland for the county.

As ever, the Galway panel is brimming with promise and talent and the panel is predominantly young. Hayes runs the drills and gives a constant commentary, now praising, now chiding. Sliotars fly across the milky sky and the earth resounds with footsteps.

Alone inside the wire stands a hale, countrified man, holding a hurl and watching. It is Phelim Murphy. The godfather of the Galway game. Players and managers have entered and departed the maroon doors through the uncertain seasons but Phelim is the one constant. A county hurling selector since 1981 and a selector on the great Cyril Farrell team that ruled the land in 1987 and '88.

"At that time, we had the ability to win games we probably had no right to win," he explains.

"Sure that '80s team, they were unbelievable. They just turned up to hurl and left again, there was no demands. Times have changed completely, I suppose. Young people have plenty of money and good luck to them but choices are different, I suppose. Even at my own club in Turloughmore, we had three very good players go off to America there a week ago."

If it sounds as though Murphy hankers after a bygone era that is because in a sense he does. The energies of Galway hurling men have been invested in trying to restore the threat of that time with the players that came through. With three under-21 titles and back-to-back minor All-Irelands in the 1990s, the mystery for many commentators was how those involved with Galway hurling could allow senior success to elude them. The litany of close things and heartbreaking seasons since 1988 is a comprehensive work in its own right.

Murphy's belief is that Galway hurling went into a tailspin following the Tony Keady affair of 1989. It seems like a touchstone upon which to lay all the subsequent miseries but he makes an appealing case.

"We won a wonderful league final against Tipp that spring. Then Keady got suspended for playing that game in New York and I believe, I truly believe, we would have won the All-Ireland if Keady had been made available and that in turn we would have been that bit stronger in the All-Ireland final of 1990. Because we never came back fully right after the Keady affair."

And that is undeniable. In the 1990s, Galway hurling appeared to lose its nerve. New managers and new philosophies were thrown at every fresh season and a long list of players went from being great hopes to sacrificial lambs over the course of single championship games. Within the county a sense of disillusionment grew and it is no secret that some felt that Murphy, whose power within the Galway framework runs through many corridors, was a legitimate target for attack.

"Of course, I got flak over the years, plenty of it. But that is part of the scene. It never bothered me. If somebody has something to say, I will answer them back. That's just the way I am built. You often find that if someone is giving you flak one month, they could be praising you the next. It doesn't bother me."

Although a few challenges have been made on Murphy's tenure on the central role of secretary, they were lost in the avalanche of ballot papers returning the man in office.

"I have had a good run," says Murphy. "Like, there have been many years I have sworn would be my last. Even last December at the county convention. But then Conor Hayes came in and I have great faith in Conor. I truly believe that he will win an All-Ireland for Galway."

Murphy was born into the flat and airy hurling landscape of east Galway and has farmed it all his life. Although he used to cycle into the dances in Salthill, he never drank.

"There was feck all money around to be honest and after a while I just got used to it. There was no better reason than that."

So rather that sit around the pubs drinking minerals, he occupied himself with hurling. He was chairman and manager of the Turloughmore team that dominated the county scene, winning six titles in a row from 1961-66.

In 1972, he was a selector on the under-21 county team that won the All-Ireland. The Galway revival began then, with players like Fr Iggy Clarke, Joe McDonagh and PJ Molloy coming through.

A league triumph arrived in 1975 and then in 1980, after 57 years, they landed the Liam McCarthy. Galway won three All-Irelands between 1980 and 1990; they ought to have won four and might have won six. But always there was a threat and Murphy's fondness for that team has not lessened with time.

"There is a great bond between us still. I was at every one of their weddings, that team. We were like a family. Ah, they were lovely lads and I suppose having gone through so much together, that bond lasted."

They were always going to be a tough act for the next generation to follow and Galway was the one county that could not capitalise on the new wave of energy and colour that brought the sport to the forefront of the national consciousness. The maroon colour left a fleeting impression on epic seasons for reasons that few could understand.

Over time, Athenry's Joe Rabbitte became the talisman for the endless and frustrating quest for an All-Ireland. This year, he is not on the panel.

"I feel sorry for Joe. He was coming just as that '88 team was disbanding. But he gave Galway hurling great service. The broken bones and cuts and never a word of bitterness. And he was always targeted, big Joe. But he is hurling well with Athenry and maybe if we are lucky enough to beat Clare, Conor might bring him back in yet."

Of the 20 All-Irelands Galway have won at all levels, Murphy can cite involvement at some level in 17. He is a ubiquitous figure on match days and generally accompanies the manager into opposing dressing-rooms, win or lose. He reckons the days of lying awake pondering the causes of defeat are past him.

Part of him reviews a season as a lover of hurling, another as an accountant.

"It costs as much to lose an All-Ireland final as to win one," he points out. "And it is a fierce lonely road back when you lose."

There are many followers of Galway hurling who would be reluctant to believe it, but Phelim Murphy will not be around forever. He admits he has thought of the day that he will no longer take an active role in the county scene. None of us like to believe we are replaceable and that is one of the reasons Murphy has persisted with his role as master of fixtures, of tickets, of commerce. But there is also the practical fear of finding a willing successor.

"And I'm not blowing myself up, there are plenty of men out there far greater than me. The thing is, I farmed all my life and from day one, I was my own boss. I made my own time. Young people now, with the best will in the world, don't have that kind of time. There is hardly an evening I am in the house because it is like a full-time job, this."

You cannot spend half-an-hour with Murphy without realising the extent of his love for the maroon game. He grins at the question as to whether Eugene Cloonan, upon whose gifted shoulders the fate of the county has rested since his teens, would have made the great '80s team which Murphy is so fond of.

A more pertinent question for Galway supporters concerns the rapid disappearance of the young sharp-shooter, who is said to be recuperating with back problems. Perhaps it will do Galway and Cloonan, still only 25, no harm to begin a championship campaign without the attendant expectation directed at him.

Of all the players he has seen - and he saw Ring in his declining years - he declares that Joe Cooney was the finest. Put that down to myopia if you want. Phelim Murphy will debate it with you. It is just how he sees things.

Even now, the GAA is a source of marvel to him. The mass weekend movements across the country, from parish championship days to headline encounters like today's game in Ennis, have never ceased to move and astonish him.

"I have made hundreds and hundreds of friends out of the GAA," he says. "It's been a great life."

Not that he is through yet. Although he doesn't admit it, you sense it is the godfather's last ambition to see the McCarthy Cup cross the Shannon and into Galway. Then would be a natural time to let go, to step down. But these nights when Galway's finest gather in Athenry, you will see a lone figure leaning against the wire.