The great entertainers

Cork adventures in league: As the crisis continues, Tom Humphriesrecalls some incidents where Cork showed their eccentric side.

We will miss them. By March the news from the siege by the Lee will have dwindled to the extent that the newspapers just carry the occasional modest one-line briefing on the sports pages advising that there has been no news from Cork today. We will stretch and yawn and wonder. Yet though we may be jaded by the politics and the personalities we will miss Cork.

For Cork, the league is never a secondary business. They bring to the competition all the verve and flair for the dramatic that they bring to summer Sundays. They stride the stage in full finery. None of this turning up to rehearsals dressed casual. They are the drama queens of the game.

We'll miss them. The theatre. The pageantry. The addiction to controversy. Modern Cork GAA has given us so many moments to cherish since introducing Jimmy Barry Murphy to us in 1973, as the first skinhead in Croker, the perfect harbinger of the modern era.

They gave us the three-stripes affair and the glorious Punch and Judy show of Billy versus the Cork County Board.

They tossed up Páirc Uí Chaoimh at a time when everywhere else was ramshackle enough to make Páirc Uí Chaoimh seem impressive.

Cork imported players from Kildare.

They did the double in 1990 in the middle of a long-running blood feud with Meath.

Teddy Mac appeared on both Sundays.

They gave us the first Fijian hurler.

They inserted their own brand of sliotars into games.

They postponed a game because the tall ships were coming into Cork.

They were strident in the expression of their belief that it was their inalienable right to hold all big games in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

On matters of national politics Cork considered itself to be part of the six counties. On all other matters merely to be the capital of a 32-county republic, a designation automatically accorded to a city at the centre of the universe.

We'll miss them in the summer but even in the league we will miss them. It's tempting to think of the 1987 league quarter-final as possibly the highlight of Cork's contribution to league drama festivals but there is plenty more.

STILL, A BRIEF LOOK AT 1987explains lots about the Cork psyche. After an 0-10 to 1-7 draw between Cork and Dublin on a dull Sunday in April the sides nipped to the dressingroom before extra time, the imminence of which had been announced on the public address system. At least that's what Dublin did.

Cork decided that extra time might be optional. Billy Morgan was consulted and felt that a replay giving his side an extra game would be a good and useful thing. The Cork County Board never saw a fixture that they didn't want for Páirc Uí Chaoimh. So Cork conveyed their regrets and headed for the train.

At least we thought they headed for the train. Morgan disclosed last summer that after Michael Greenan had thrown the ball up and Barney Rock had ambled up the field and put the ball into an empty Cork net in front of a bemused attendance, he at least had ambled up to Meaghers in Fairview there to meet and swap banter with such notables as Jimmy Keaveney and Seán Doherty.

In Meagher's the one-liners flew and Billy gave as good as he got, expressing the view that if Dublin wanted to take the game in the farcical manner of Rock's goal they should go right ahead.

Unfortunately the powers of the day felt Dublin should go right ahead also. A special meeting sent Cork away with a flea in their ear. Dublin went on to win the league, beating Kerry in the final.

It wasn't the last intermingling of course of Dublin and Cork. The 1999 final almost ended the sponsorship of Church and General (now Allianz) Again addicted to the business of affording hospitality, Cork opted to impose an old home-and-away arrangement for the 1999 National League final, thus bringing the game but no supporters to Cork.

The match was played on the first Sunday of the championship which didn't help. The league final had attracted 60,000 people six years previously when Dublin met Donegal. Now there were 8,000 people rattling around in Páirc Uí Chaoimh on a wet Sunday. The sponsors blew a gasket.

Incidentally Seán Óg Ó hAilpín and Anthony Lynch stood shoulder to shoulder that day as well in Cork's full-back line.

The game was full but at least Cork showed up, literally and metaphorically.

Cork's appearance in the 1979 final, some 20 years earlier, was meant to mark the end to their banishment from the national stage post-1973. Cork's chance to prove that they actually were, as Kerry's manager Mick O'Dwyer would tell them so gallingly every summer, the second-best team in the country. Except Roscommon cut loose on them and scored 15 points while Cork could manage just four scores, a goal and three points.

THE HUMILIATION WAS SUCHthat it needed to be washed away the next spring. Once again Cork got to the National League final and once again they had the game in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Forty thousand people showed up and Cork rediscovered their pride, blowing their visitors off the pitch at times. Kerry, festooned with multiple All-Ireland medal winners, were beaten.

Two years later the same two teams were back in the league final. Home-and-away arrangements were dusted down and re-examined. Cork went to Killarney and hewed a draw out that afternoon.

A month later they reconvened down by the Lee. On this occasion they weren't able to shake their old inhibitions. Cork scored just five points and never went flat out again until the end of the decade when Croke Park ordained that the second leg of the final be played in New York. After Páirc Uí Chaoimh the Big Apple is Cork's favourite venue.

Between times they have spent years on end in Division Two finding things to object to. Now at last it's meltdown. Players objecting to management, management objecting to media treatment, the county board objecting to the players and everybody objecting to everything else in a grand finale of discontent. It's hard not to miss them. Come back, lads, all is forgiven.