Waterford have golden memories of victory

Next Sunday sees history being made with Waterford footballers appearing on a live broadcast for the first time. Their Munster semi-final against Kerry wouldn't in the normal scheme of things strike the viewer as an obvious fixture for that level of exposure, but perhaps the prospect of Páidí Ó Sé's Clare being the opposition for the All-Ireland champions' first defence lay behind the decision.

If that was the thinking, Waterford's first championship win in 19 years upset the plans and sets up a meeting between two counties at opposite ends of tradition's pecking order.

Coincidentally, this weekend also sees the 50th anniversary of Waterford's last win over Kerry in the senior championship, one of the greatest shocks in football history.

Kerry, All-Ireland champions only two years previously, were hardly able to field a team because of withdrawals and only 15 fit players turned up. A corner back, Tim Barrett, had to play in goal.

At a physical disadvantage to the bigger Waterford players, Kerry nonetheless started briskly and led by six points with 20 minutes to go. A goal from Noel Power created some sense of excitement and the cheers attracted residents from the houses around the Sportsfield (now Walsh Park) so that the crowd was estimated to have doubled by the final whistle.

Near the end another goal - this time from a rush on the shell-shocked Barrett - levelled the match before Tom Cunningham kicked the winning point.

A dual player, Cunningham would win an All-Ireland with the hurlers two years later and another Munster medal in 1963. Kerry were captained that day by Ned Fitzgerald, father of Maurice.

Waterford lost the final to Cork but avenged that defeat three years later, becoming one of the rare county teams in Munster to defeat both Cork and Kerry in such a short timeframe (Clare emulated the achievement in 1992 and 1997).

An interesting footnote is that a debutant that day at wing back was Mick O'Dwyer, who will still be in championship action this weekend - although this time trying to engineer a shock in Wicklow's third crack at favourites Louth.

O'Dwyer played an unwitting role in the withdrawals that weakened Kerry going into the match. As the only Waterville player on the team he was in line for the Kerry captaincy, as his club were divisional champions of South Kerry, who had won the county championship.

But as O'Dwyer was only new to the team the choice of captain was given to Cahirciveen, and Jerome O'Shea was nominated ahead of the club's other player Marcus O'Neill, who withdrew from the team, as did two other prominent players, Seán Murphy and Tom Moriarty.

Another link with that day is that Kerry were managed or trained by the legendary Dr Eamonn O'Sullivan, the subject of a book published just last week by Weeshie Fogarty. O'Sullivan was in charge of eight Kerry All-Ireland triumphs.

On Sunday Kerry will be sent out by the county's first Dr Crokes manager since O'Sullivan retired in 1964.