GAELIC GAMES: TOM HUMPHRIESmeets the Cork team doctor, Con Murphy, who doesn't measure life by what he gave the GAA, but by what the GAA has given him

A FADED memory. It is a late Sunday afternoon early in the September of 33 years ago. Jack Lynch is Taoiseach. Cork are All-Ireland hurling champions again. There is order in the world.

Also, there is a skinny young fella with spots and a silly coat sitting in the corner of a room beside his hero, Jimmy Barry-Murphy. The skinny young fella is begging and whining at the player. He wants JBM to hand over his hurley. Puh-lease!

JBM is in good form, he has just won his second All-Ireland senior hurling medal for Cork. Once or twice he actually hands over the sacred ash wand.

The door out on to the lane behind the old Cusack Stand in Croke Park is just beside where JBM is sitting. If the boy had any sense he’d take the stick and get out that door and into the crowds as quickly as possible. Sense! He can’t leave. Even now in the excitement of briefly owning Jimmy Barry-Murphy’s All-Ireland hurley he is transfixed, nailed into place by the proximity of JBM, by the noise and by the clatter of Cork’s All-Ireland winning dressingroom – to which he and a friend have gained access by pretending to be American cousins of Tom Cashman – and by the doctor.

On a large table which looks as if it came from an old butcher’s shop, Gerald McCarthy is being tended to. He has a cut which runs under the thick moustache of his upper lip to his nose. The wound has been bleeding freely but now is being stitched up. Without anaesthetic. Or general notice.

Leaning over him, oblivious to the celebrations and to the hurlers leaping naked into the great sunken bath, is a young doctor.

He is absorbed in his work, reassuring McCarthy, stitching as carefully but as quickly as he can.

So the boy can’t leave and twice Jimmy Barry-Murphy says, “Arra here give it back, what am I giving a good stick away for?” and the wheedling must begin again. Puh-lease! It is not every day a boy gets to sit beside Jimmy Barry-Murphy in an All-Ireland winning dressingroom. It’s not every day either, though, he gets to see a doctor sewing up a tough guy with a needle and thread and no painkillers.

Gerald McCarthy’s hands grip the sides of the wooden table till the knuckles are white, but there is no other betrayal of the pain.

That was 1977 and, by then, Dr Con Murphy had been the Cork team doctor for a year. He still is. Hurling and football. Rain or shine. Win or lose.

Sports, says Dr Con, is 95 per cent disappointment. Luckily, disappointment isn’t a terminal condition.

In Cork, 1945 is remembered as the year “The Emergency” ended. Cork hadn’t won an All-Ireland football title since 1911 – an emergency by any standards. Weesh Murphy played full back on the team which ended Cork’s time of famine and brought home the great jug-eared cup.

Weesh, as splendid a full back as the blood and bandage every produced, also won four Railway Cup medals and county championship medals with Beara (1940) and Lees (1955). Posthumously, he was selected as full back on Cork’s team of the millennium.

Weesh was a vet who worked Wednesdays and Saturdays at the dog track in Cork. Not surprisingly, it was at the dog track Weesh’s son, Con, struck up a friendship with Jimmy Barry-Murphy, a wiry young fella whose life was divided into three almost equal distractions. Hurling. Football. Walking greyhounds.

Con would become a doctor. Jimmy Barry Murphy became something else. He would walk on water and swallow fire.

On the Saturday night before Cork played Tipp in the first game of the 1976 Munster hurling championship, Dr Con was at the dogtrack with Jimmy Barry. Denis Conroy, the whiskered old doyen of the Cork County Board, approached the pair and asked if Dr Con was going to the game. He was a junior doctor in Tralee at this stage, just weekending in Cork, but, yes, of course he was going.

Cork had no doctor for the match. On the other hand, Jimmy Barry-Murphy, already a matinee idol, had no car and had been named as a sub for the following day so (this tells something of the times) Dr Con was driving JBM to Limerick for the game. Conroy asked Dr Con if he would do the honours as team doctor. He said he would.

Memories. He sat down beside Jimmy Barry at half-time in Limerick that day and Christy Ring, a selector by then, came over to the pair of them and shook his head.

“I’m wasting my time with this crowd,” said Ringy. “Imagine I gave up my holidays for these. They are a joke.”

JBM came on early in the second half and Cork skipped town with a lucky win under their belts. Ringy, unconvinced, said saltily afterwards Cork should hope the next round would be played in Lourdes.

Later that summer, after the All-Ireland win, Dr Con was going back to work in Tralee after a weekend at home. He was walking up Patrick Street and the next thing Christy Ring came running after him. “Thanks a million, Murphy,” said Ring.

Weesh Murphy had become a county board man when he packed in football and as such had plenty of scrapes with Ringy’s beloved Glen. Dr Con always wondered if Ringy would hold that against him. After that he never wondered again. Thanks a million, Murphy!

Dr Con (his surname withered from disuse long ago) has been there for Cork teams ever since. Thirty four years. Thirteen All-Ireland hurling finals and, tomorrow, a ninth football final.

Grand punctuation marks in a lifetime of service and fun.

HE IS sitting today in the company of Jimmy Barry-Murphy, the god whose intercession has been required to get Dr Con to talk at all. Over the last 34 years Cork have more often featured on the winners’ platform after All-Ireland football finals than Dr Con has featured between inverted commas in the media. When JB asks it is different though.

It is good Jimmy Barry is with us. They have known each other all their lives and each remembers the stories the other is in danger of forgetting. They have the sort of roguish friendship that brings to mind the phrase “in cahoots”.

They have been together as friends through almost all of recent Cork GAA history. During his epic career, Dr Con roomed with Jimmy for every match. Travelled to games together when players made their own way.

“On All-Ireland weekends I had to wake him up every year for the three-in-a-row,” says Dr Con, “but by the time he finished he couldn’t sleep a wink.”

They were together on the Thursday before the 1978 All-Ireland hurling final when Cork were going for three-in-a-row against Kilkenny and an incredible thing happened.

Christy Ring spoke for half an hour. Shy to the point of sometimes being taciturn, Ring’s usual motivational input was to stand with one hand balled into a fist and the other gripping a hurley as the team ran out on to the field. ‘We are from Cork’, he’d tell them. ‘We are from Cork’.

But this Thursday night the passion he felt about beating Kilkenny overrode his shyness and he spoke.

“It was the first time he ever held an audience,” says Dr Con, “he spoke for about half an hour. He spoke about visualisation, how he used to imagine when he was playing he would picture what he would do in the week of a match. Far, far ahead of his time.

“He described his goal in 1946, the final in which Cork put seven past Kilkenny. He said he struck the ball and the next thing he saw the water fall off the back of the net. It was electrifying to be there. We were transfixed by him.”

The only other time they ever saw him like that was when they came off the field at half-time just a point ahead of Clare in 1977.

Clare supporters were electrified by their team’s performance. Ringy was incensed by his teams lack of one.

“To think they think they have us beaten. We are from Cork!”

Dr Con and Jimmy Barry nod. Ringy. Even the great idols have their own personal gods.

Dr Con himself is a tall, straight-backed man who is literally two-faced. He will emerge from a Cork dressingroom in times of grief wearing the countenance of death and none of us who know him and like him will dare to even catch his eye.

Or on a good day he can come bursting out the same door on business, but wearing his mischievous grin and dispensing happy nods and winks and fine witticisms as he breezes past.

The role he plays suits his character perfectly. Professionally detached when he has to be, emotionally ravelled when he can be. Consiglieri as much as medic. A part of everything, yet apart from things. Vibes man and secret keeper. An eternal thread in Cork dressingrooms. He who just keeps rolling along.

He is one of those people in whom hundreds of GAA lives intersect, the hub for so many friendships, the subject of so many stories. It’s in the blood, in the DNA, in the heart, this love.

You ask Dr Con how many hours a week he gives to pro bono work for Cork teams and to Cork players and indeed to UCC players from the present and the past.

And he chides you gently.

You have missed the point.

He can’t calculate, well he won’t calculate. Not that stuff. He doesn’t measure life by what he contributed to the GAA, but by what the GAA has given him. For Dr Con the friendships made amount to an elegant sufficiency in terms of payment. He is coming out well ahead he reckons.

The payment is in the heat and the passion which has warmed him like a fire, the dividend is in the privilege of having shared the trenches with great men.

The bonus is the funny stories and the sad ones and the ones which are a bit of both.

“Ah, it’s not about hours or any of that,” he says, “it’s about the friendships and the community of us in the GAA here in Cork”.

The stories. Some funny. Some from the heart. Lifelines. Dr Con was named for an uncle who was a priest on the missions. One of three brothers from Bere Island.

When Weesh Murphy was on his way to winning that All-Ireland in 1945, his brother Father Con died in Nigeria on the missions. The bereavement meant Weesh missed the semi-final.

The drum roll for All-Ireland football finals began to sound a little more ominous to the Murphy men in 1973. Two weeks before that great Cork team beat Galway in the final, Weesh Murphy dropped dead suddenly on the way, as chairman of the Munster Council, to a victory dinner to mark Limerick’s win in the hurling final over Kilkenny.

Naturally, there was some trepidation in Dr Con’s heart then when Cork next approached a football All-Ireland some 14 years later. The last of the three brothers, Donal, who had been a sub on the 1945 Cork team, was alive and living still on Beara.

“I said to myself if Cork go well, this poor man is a sitting duck! And anyway people from the islands are superstitious. They believe that things go in threes. I gave him tickets for the match though and I said nothing.

“He said nothing either. On the day I came out afterwards and Donal was waiting for me outside the dressingroom. ‘Jesus, Con,’ he said, ‘I think now I’ll live to be 110’.”

And Dr Con laughs a great laugh, so infectious there is no known inoculation.

There was work aplenty to be doing back in those days when Cork and Meath were roughing each other up annually, but he never knows when he will be asked to seize the bag and swing into action.

During the three-in-a-row back in the ’70s, Seánie O’Leary got his nose broken during the puck around before the All-Ireland final. Broken and spread across his face like an invading army.

“When I got out to him, Seánie’s nose went half way across Seánie’s face and Frank Murphy was banishing photographers from taking photos of him, like it was top secret. Ringy followed me into the dressingroom in a state of high excitement.

“Ringy was a bigger problem than the nose. He was leaning over. ‘Leary,’ he says, ‘you won’t be needing your nose for this game at all’!”

Dr Con half straightened it and plugged it and sent Seánie O’Leary out again.

At other times he got caught on the wrong side of the trenches. He remembers a small feud which flared between a Galway full forward and a Cork full back. Names? Those who know, will know. Anyway, one day the Galway forward split the Cork full back and great of volume was the blood which spurted from the Cork head.

Some years passed. Galway were playing Cork in a sun-kissed fixture above in Galway. Shirt sleeve weather. Ice cream cone weather. Players are sweating in their helmets. Some discard them.

The Galway team doctor is at a function and is arriving late. Dr Con is looking after the welfare of both teams. Suddenly, he notices the Galway full forward on the floor in a pool of his blood. He had taken his helmet off in the heat.

“Jesus, Con,” he said, “I just took it off for a minute. I thought he had forgotten.”

HURLING HAS brought great days. The three in a row. The emotion of the comeback against Galway on the day Donal Óg got sent off in Thurles and the magic of the 1999 All-Ireland with his comrade JBM.

If you had to guess, you would say the happiest days were in the summer of 1999. They chip bits of the story in between laughs and jabs at each other, the telling interrupted with so much laughter it changes your perspective on the entire thing.

Two challenges against Tipperary. So Cork went to Thurles on a Friday night, lost by four points, but learned a thing or two. The following Tuesday night Tipp came to Cork. Beat JBM’s boys by 24 points.

A desolate Jimmy Barry-Murphy called to Con’s house on the way home. He asked Dr Con if he thought it would help if he resigned. Dr Con was the soul of diplomacy.

“I said, ‘Well, Jimmy, you might as well see it out, there’s only a few weeks left’!”

And JBM then made his keynote speech of the year: “Con, if I’m going down, I’m going down with young players. Young players, Con!”

Next day against Waterford, at half-time, JBM had to say to those young players he had reared from underage he had 35 minutes left with them. Unless. Unless. Unless. So Cork went and won three matches and got to the final.

On the Sunday before they played Kilkenny, Dr Con met JB for the pint and for once asked him the team for the next week.

“Ever since, I prefer not to know the team and I don’t ask. Anyway JB gave me the team and, as it happened, the following morning at work by pure coincidence the only change for the entire summer was sitting in front of me in the surgery.

“Alan Browne. I was delighted to be the bearer of good news. I said, ‘Jesus Alan, I shouldn’t tell you this now, but there is good news coming up tonight’.”

Alan Browne left the surgery with a spring in his step.

“And at training that night JB calls out the team. No Alan Browne. Oh God.”

Above at the match. Going in at half-time, the game looks over. Cork not going well. Kilkenny going well. Walking down the steps. JB says to Dr Con, “What do you think?”

“We’re in trouble here.”

“What do you reckon?”

“Bring in Alan Browne.”

JB gave his team talk. Browne was in the dug out. “I brought Alan down the steps. I said, ‘You’re in, no fancy stuff just put it in to the full-forward line.”

First ball he puts it over the bar. Dr Con beams.

Second ball he fresh airs it. JB looks at Dr Con. See!

Then Seánie McGrath has a great chance and misses the ball. There is frantic screaming behind the dugout. Somebody saying to get him off before he takes out a child’s eye with that thing.

Dr Con is standing on the sideline. The dream is going down the toilet. Four points down. JBM says, “How long is left?” Dr Con says, “Fifteen minutes”.

“Where did we go wrong, Jimmy Barry?”

“They’re too fucking young,” roars JBM, “too fucking young!”

“What are ya going to do?”

“Not a whole lot I can do.”

“Well if you don’t take off Seánie McGrath there will be a riot.” Happy days.

In Cork, hurling delivers more happy days than football. Dr Con learned that early. He was a mascot for the Cork teams of 1956 and 1957. The second year Cork lost the All-Ireland final to Louth.

“That was my first experience of seeing grown men cry. I got used to that fairly quick.”

Through the 1970s football never detained him beyond the annual clash with Kerry, but Billy Morgan, who had brought him into the football set-up in, never ceased to fascinate him with his passion and animation.

JBM raises the memory of one team-talk. Billy in full flight with the squad around him. For emphasis and focus, Billy was handpassing the ball at speed to whomever in the circle his eyes would rest on. Next thing the ball came flying toward Kid Cronin, a beloved figure of Cork football, the team masseur, sidekick to Dr Con, and by then a man in his seventies. Kid dropped the ball in a fluster. Billy was so wound up he dropped an oath.

Niall Cahalane, beside Dr Con, said under his breath, “Jesus, Billy must be thinking of using the Kid today.”

Dr Con kept a straight face. Not so lucky one day in Killarney back in the bad days when Cork being in Killarney meant just one thing. Again Billy was in full flow, his oratory sweeping and passionate. He reached for every possible reason in history for Cork to stand up that afternoon and put an end to the tyranny they were enduring.

Outside on the field, the Cork minors had been losing at half-time by 10 points, but had now reduced the margin to two.

As Billy spoke, Mick “Langton” McCarthy, a selector from the Glen and a laconic presence, was standing on the bench looking out at the field through the high window.

“Look at the fecking minors,” roared Billy, “there’s your pride. boys. But boys who were 10 points down at half-time and came out like men and have cut Kerry back to two points.”

Billy paused. Fatally.

“Uh,” said Langton, without looking back, “you better make that five points. Kerry are after getting a goal there.”

The room erupted into laughter. Billy went for Langton and had to be hauled off him. Order could hardly be restored before they were out the door. Ah football, football, football.

Funny, but he was in Croke Park for Down’s first two All-Irelands. Cork minors were playing in 1960 when Down beat Kerry and the following year Weesh Murphy was an umpire.

Dr Con was behind the goal at the Hill end sitting on the sideline seats. In those days, the umpires were All-Ireland medallists. It was the first and last time Weesh Murphy ever did the job.

He taught Dr Con the rules though. Omerta. In 1973 when Cork beat Tyrone in the semi-final Dr Con was in the stand beside his father and Brendan Lynch from Kerry. Next thing a bottle hit Dr Con on the head and split him open.

“I was knocked out, pouring blood and they brought me inside the first aid room. First thing when I came to my father looks me in the eye and says gravely, ‘there are reporters outside – don’t tell them what happened, say nothing’.”

He has lived through all of Cork’s uprisings, from the three stripes affair to the three strikes.

“The rows have been unsettling. They put me in a spot. I was in the middle with people looking to me to solve them. I was bright enough to know they weren’t too solvable without blood being spilled in a lot of cases. Very hard. It was a balancing act.”

Generally, his wit has been his shield. Often people tell him he should write a book about his experiences with Cork. Says he might and he has a title for it, They Wouldn’t Listen To Me.

When somebody buttonholes him on the street that’s his line. They ask why did Cork not do this or do that. Dr Con smiles and he says, ‘I know, I know, they wouldn’t listen to me’.

The rain is still dappling the surface of the Lee when the conversation finishes and the two old friends get up to leave. Jimmy Barry has urged Dr Con to submit himself for the first time to interview and has come along to prod his friend’s memory when it comes to the old times.

On the morning in September, 1986, the morning of JBM’s last All-Ireland, he told Dr Con this would be the end, this was it.

Cork beat Galway and in the dressingroom afterwards JBM came to Dr Con and handed him the hurley he had used in his last ever final and said “never again”.

Thirty-three years after the boy missed his chance to walk out the door with a JBM hurley the same boy, not so skinny now, pauses from tidying up his tape recorder and fishing for his car keys and looks in disbelief at the two friends who are grinning like old codgers.

“He gave you what? He just gave you his stick? Ah Jaysus. Will you give it to me. Puh-lease? ”

Go away!

Dr Con is right. Sport is 95 per cent disappointment! He is the perfect advertisement though for the remaining five per cent. Victory, friendship, love and passion.

Thirty four years and the stewards haven’t been called to end-of-match positions. Dr Con waits in the dressingroom.

Ready. Transfixed.

“The role Dr Con plays suits his character perfectly. Professionally detached when he has to be, emotionally ravelled when he can be. Consiglieri as much as medic. A part of everything, yet apart from things. Vibes man and secret keeper. An eternal thread in Cork dressingrooms. He who just keeps rolling along

“Look at the fecking minors,” roared Billy, “there’s your pride. Boys. But boys who were 10 points down at half-time and came out like men and have cut Kerry back to two points.” Billy paused. Fatally. “Uh,” said Langton, without looking back, “you better make that five points. Kerry are after getting an goal.”