Inside Track: Championship football returns to The Ramparts

Louth under-21s played Westmeath in a Leinster under-21 championship match in Gaels field back when this century had just taken off. I had a family interest and was there.

I met John Lynch, who pointed out that the game marked a return of county championship football to The Ramparts.

The Geraldines clubman was spot-on. The Westmeath match was the first, and later came another Louth meeting in the same competition, this one against Dublin.

The Dubs, who replicated Westmeath’s win, had Bryan Cullen at centre-half. The Skerries Harps clubman would go on from there to captain his county senior side in the All-Ireland win of 2011.

For years the Athletic Grounds, further down the Ramparts Road, hosted matches in national knock-out competitions, one of its games, a 1921 All-Ireland senior semi-final in which Dublin beat Monaghan before going on to win the title.

An All-Ireland junior semi-final between Dublin and Armagh was played there in 1948. Well, it started but didn’t finish.

Historian, Con Short, who co-authored the history of Armagh along with Peter Murray and Jimmy Smyth, wrote:

“The Dundalk Democrat describes the game as being robust but not tough, featuring fire and dash by the Armagh with plenty of old time football, splendid catching and long kicking by both sides, and close and exciting all through the hour.”

(If the reporter was covering games today, he’d have none of that to say.)

Armagh led by 1-6 to 0-4, scoring what Con describes as a ‘freak goal’. Mal McEvoy punched the ball to the net, but when the Dublin goalkeeper retrieved the ball he found it to be as “flat as a pancake”.

Referee, Paul Russell, goalkeeper on the Team of the Millennium and many times an All-Ireland winner with Kerry, allowed the score to stand.

If Dublin were aggrieved, it was nothing compared with Armagh supporters’ feelings coming towards the end of the 60 minutes. Armagh had fallen a goal behind when one of their forwards nipped in for what many believed was the equaliser.

Not among them, however, was the goal umpire. He stood as rigid as Nelson on top of the pillar that used be part of the O’Connell Street landscape. (How many of you are thinking back to the 2010 Leinster final, with the man in the white coat who was just a few yards away from where Joe threw the ball into the net not reaching for the flag until ordered to do so by the referee?)

Okay, so the flag wasn’t raised by the umpire in the ’48 game, but by someone else – an Armagh player.

But instead of awarding the goal, referee Russell hopped the ball. Cue for Armagh supporters to rush the field. When he knew it would be impossible to continue, Russell abandoned the match.

Short doesn’t record it, but myth has it there was fighting afterwards on the Ramparts. It’s not said who won this particular battle, but it’s said to have been tough going.

The re-fixture was in Croke Park, with Dublin winning by 3-8 to 2-6 before going on beat London in the final. Included for the winners were Kevin Heffernan, Nicky Maher and Jim Tunney.

Heffernan would go on to win a senior medal a decade later, and, of course, lead the great Dubs team which fought epic battles with Kerry in the 1970s; Maher might have been the only player to wear goggles in senior inter-county football, while Tunney would become a Minister in a Fianna Fáil government.

Rarely seen without a flower in his lapel, Tunney earned the name of the “Yellow Rose of Finglas” as he canvassed and took his place in the Dáil.

When it was at the embryonic state, this story wasn’t intended as a recall of what happened three-quarters of a century ago.

Instead, it was to note that on Sunday week last, Páirc na nGaéil hosted its biggest ever – and maybe first – Louth club championship match, Kilkerley Emmets against Young Irelands in the intermediate.

We – that’s Dundalk Gaels – were asked by the County Board to join the list of clubs willing to make their grounds available for championship matches. Taking a lead from our chairman, Danny Watters, we were only too happy to oblige.

The day went off well, lots of clubmen throwing on yellow bibs, and myself and former chairman, Dick O’Callaghan, manning the table at which there were club lotto tickets on sale. We did well, but not great.

In ways, it was appropriate that Gaels should have been involved in this return of championship football to The Ramparts. We were involved in the last championship match to be played at the lamented Athletic Grounds, out against Clan na Gael in a 1959 senior semi-final.

Clans won before going on to beat a fancied St Mary’s team in the final, the game going to a replay. Benny Toal was presented with the Joe Ward Cup at Drogheda’s Gaelic Grounds.

It was in the following March that the venue’s last game was played – a rugby match involving Dundalk and Skerries. The wrecking ball then moved in, knocking the stand, pailings, tiered wooden steps, goalposts and the skating rink, which also stood on the site.

I’m not saying this for the first time, with the closure went Louth GAA’s soul. A few months later the county senior side played in the Leinster final, losing to Offaly. There wouldn’t be another appearance at the same stage until a half-century later. Coincidence?